The Crookston Airport Commission met on Wednesday morning. Even though they didn’t have a quorum, they received updates on several airport projects and discussed the possibility of increasing hangar rent, a budget update, and more.
AIRPORT PROJECT UPDATE
The meeting started with Lindsay Reidt, the Lead Airport Engineer at Short Elliot Hendrickson, giving an update on the Crookston Municipal Airport projects. She told the commission that the taxi lane construction is complete, and the new hangar site work should be completed this fall, with the construction to start next spring. “Recently, we’ve been starting the construction of a new T-hanger. It’ll be a five-unit T-hanger with the construction of the hanger itself happening next year, but right now they’ve been working on soil correction, so removing existing materials and hauling in granular material for where the new hanger will go,” said Reidt. “Last year, there was taxi lane construction. So that’s the pavement that goes along either side of the hangar. That was constructed in 2024. Now the hangar will be built between them. And then from the hangar to the taxi lanes will be paved as apron pavement with this project.”
The airport will also get a new wind cone. “That should happen here in the next couple of weeks, just replacing the wind cone out there with a new one in generally the same location,” said Reidt. “And then the state is working on an AWOS replacement project, so that’s replacing the weather system that’s out at the airport, and that will go in a new location on the other side of the runway.”
2026 BUDGET REVIEW
Interim City Administrator Darin Selzler went over the budget with the commission and said everything will be similar to this year’s budget. “I provided the present commission members with the 2026 proposed budget and then an update of the current budget at the spending levels and where we’re at with that. For 2026, not much has changed since we presented that to the council earlier this year,” said Selzler. “The only thing in the update is that there are a couple of capital improvement projects that we aren’t funding, and another project that depends on a grant. Other than that, the budget updates would just be in line with any increases in utilities or rent or something else.”
There was a discussion on hangar rent, which was last updated in 2022. In 2025, the City of Crookston will bring in around $50,000 in rent revenue. Members of the commission, who are also renters of hangar space at the airport, said rent is reasonable. Airport Manager Lowell Miller will be tasked to do some research and see what other airports are charging to make sure Crookston isn’t charging to little or too much in rent. “We have an opportunity here to do more research on that. So I’m going to work with airport manager Lowell Miller and compare to some similar-sized or similar airports,” said Selzler. “It looks like we’re close to market value, but we might be a little on the reasonable side. So we will look at doing anywhere from a five to 10 percent increase on that for 2026. And again, that’ll be a discussion for us. We will have another airport commission meeting this year to pass a couple of agenda items so we can move them on to council.”
AIRPORT MANAGER CONTRACT
Airport Manager Lowell Miller’s contract is up at the end of the year, so they discussed a three percent increase in salary, which would be $20,062.42 for 2026. Commission member Dwight Peterson said the community has no idea how valuable Miller is to the airport, and the crop dusting community relies on his expertise. Peterson also said they are getting a good deal. “Lowell does a great job out there. We’re really lucky to have him. He takes on a lot of responsibility out there, and the wages he gets paid are well worth the investment for the city,” said Selzler. “And the agreement is going to kind of look similar to the last three years. It’s a three-year agreement where it looks like about a three percent increase in salary over the course of that contract.”