The Crookston City Council held four meetings on Monday night in the Crookston City Hall Council Chambers. Wendy Ault was sworn in as a City Council Member at large, City Administrator Jeff Shoobridge announced his resignation, solar power at three city buildings and pickleball courts were discussed, and the Building Inspector and IT budgets were discussed.
SPECIAL MEETING – APPOINTING AULT
The first meeting was short and sweet. It was a Special Meeting, and the lone agenda item was the appointment of Wendy Ault to fill the vacant At-large council member seat. “Wendy has a very good head on her shoulders,” said Crookston City Administrator Jeff Shoobridge. “She is going to be very thoughtful and good for the city. Wendy already has experience and doesn’t have as steep of a learning curve.”
CITY ADMINISTRATOR GIVES RESIGNATION
Crookston City Administrator Jeff Shoobridge told the city council about an hour earlier that he was resigning. About an hour later, the City of Tifton, Georgia, approved hiring Shoobridge as its City Manager. Shoobridge’s last day will be Friday, September 5. “It is very bittersweet. We have a great staff here with hearts of service,” said Shoobridge. “My mother recently moved back south from Indiana, and the pieces fell together, and it felt like a good fit. Tifton, Georgia, is a great town, and my sister lives about an hour and a half away, and that brings the majority of my family within an hour and a half away.”
Shoobridge said a lot of progress has been made since he took over a little over a year ago. “We have made some great strides over the last year here in Crookston,” said Shoobridge. “There is still a lot of work to do. We have the train moving forward, and the staff we have will keep it moving forward.”
WILDFLOWER GARDEN CAREGIVERS APPRECIATION DAY
Crookston Mayor Dale Stainbrook made a proclamation declaring August 21, 2025, Wildflower Garden Caregivers Appreciation Day. The proclamation honors those who continue to upkeep Crookston’s Wildflower Garden, located at South Main Street and Highway 75 (by the Fire Hall). The Crookston Woman’s Club, Terry Wolfe, and Ed and Patty Amiot (pictured below) have maintained the gardens over the years.
SOLAR ON PUBLIC BUILDINGS PROGRAM
The Council heard a presentation from Peter Lindstrom and Anna Peterson of CERTS, about the Solar on Public Buildings Program. The State of Minnesota legislature established the program to stimulate the installation of solar energy systems on or adjacent to public buildings. The State has $14.5 million available for grants. “The grant pays 70 percent of the project, and then you also have a direct pay credit that pays another 30 percent, so 100 percent of your project,” said Peterson. “Right now, we are looking at the Crookston Sports Center, Valley Technology Park building, and possibly the Fire Hall. Right now, we are in the process of getting sight assessments done, then applying for the grants.”
Crookston is considering installing three 40kWh solar arrays at the Crookston Sports Center, Crookston Fire Hall, and Valley Technology, at a total estimated cost of around $120,000. Grants and other programs should cover all of the costs.
Peterson said there are solar energy grants available for businesses. “There are seed grants available for any kind of clean energy projects that any businesses want to do,” said Peterson. “They are $5,000 to $10,000 and that pays for the labor costs of clean energy projects.” If any business is interested in finding out more about the grants, contact Peterson at annap@umn.edu or call 218-280-8994.
MnDOT CONTRACT AMENDMENT NUMBER 2
The council needed to approve Amendment Number 2 to the MnDOT contract number 1053917 and State project number 60002-76 for the Highway 2 ADA retrofit. The amendment was needed because a subcontractor was being asked to do more work, and it was necessary for the project to move forward.
PICKLEBALL COURT DISCUSSION
Pickleball courts were discussed with members of the Crookston Pickleball club and Crookston Park and Rec Director Scott Butt, giving information about the need for resurfacing the courts at Schuster Park. The City of Crookston resurfaces the courts every 10 years, but the suggested time between resurfacing courts is 3 to 5 years. There was also discussion on adding courts at the Ray Ecklund complex, where the skatepark used to be. But City Administrator Shoobridge said they are looking at making around $1 million in cuts to the budget, so any new spending would force something else to get cut.
Butt said he will get some information on cost for resurfacing and also putting three courts at Ray Ecklund Complex to give to the Pickleball Club.
CONSENT AGENDA
The council approved bills and disbursements totaling $550,765.82, the largest of which was $139,365 to Pace Painting for painting the Crookston Sports Center and $69,078.44 to healthcare contributions for the employees.
The council approved accepting a $111 donation from Polk County Social Services towards the Crookston Community Pool.
CROOKSTON WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE MEETING
The Crookston Ways and Means Committee meeting was the third meeting of the evening. It had one agenda item: interviewing two candidates for the City Council Ward 1 vacancy. Bishop Jensen and Joseph Shostell were the two applicants. “Both candidates were very good, and both applied for the large seat. Both candidates were in the running for the large seat,” said Shoobridge. “The committee decided they didn’t need to interview the candidates since both were interviewed recently for the at-large seat.” The committee voted to see who they wanted to fill the Ward 1 opening. Voting in favor of Shostell were Don Cavalier, Morgan Hibma, Henry Fischer, and Clayton Briggs. Derek Brekken and Dylane Klatt voted for Jensen. After the vote, Klatt changed his vote to Shostell to make it 5-1 in favor of Shostell. Newly appointed council member at-large, Wendy Ault, abstained since she wasn’t in on the interviews with the two candidates.
Shostell will be voted on at the next city council meeting.
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN
The final meeting of the evening was the Crookston City Council budget workshop. The council took in a presentation from AE2S’s Travis McStraw and Mike Bibow regarding the Capital Improvement Plan options.
Crookston is like most cities across the nation, with much of the infrastructure well beyond its useful life. Therefore, they created a plan and a map for the city to use in the future. “It is an eye-opener to see exactly how much we have to make up for the last 30 years,” said Shoobridge. “This isn’t just Crookston. It is just about every city in America. It is difficult to stay on top of your infrastructure because nobody sees it. It’s all buried underground, it’s easy to ignore, it’s easy to move forward. Unless you have water flowing down the street, everyone says it must be good.”
BUDGET DISCUSSIONS
The council discussed the Building Official budget and the IT budget. The Building Official budget was a good place to start, as expenditures will increase by an estimated 1.92 percent (or $2,706 more than in 2025). Revenue is expected to increase 37 percent, with an increase of $15,750. The projected deficit in the department is $85,268, a 13 percent decrease from 2025. “The City of Ada has recently signed an agreement with us and Greg Hefta (Crookston Building Official) will be providing their building official under the City of Crookston’s umbrella, so that will help us with some of the revenues.”
The IT budget has been hit with higher costs after two companies merged, and prices for its services skyrocketed. Expenditures are estimated to be $769,463, which is 37.34 percent more than in 2025. The servers and equipment costs will be $166,000 more than in 2025. “We are asking for a decent amount of an increase to the budget. A lot of that is due to several factors with funding from ARPA that upgraded our network back from the COVID funding to bring our infrastructure into the 21st century,” said City of Crookston IT Director Joel Pyles. “We are trying to find a way not to have a drop in service while maintaining those purchases. There was a big acquisition of Broadcom of VMware and we saw a significant increase in pricing as a result of that and also trying to bolster our reserves so we don’t have a lot of fluctuation in our budget from year to year.”
