The Crookston City Council met on Monday, April 21, at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall.
As part of the consent agenda, the council was asked to approve ABDO to provide the classification and compensation study for the city. “They are going to be drafting complete, current job descriptions in compliance with the full Minnesota Statutes for every position we have in the city,” says City Administrator Jeff Shoobridge. “They will also do compensation studies to ensure that our pay ranges and pay scales accurately reflect what the job does. The state of Minnesota has a classification guide, but it doesn’t necessarily match every position that a city has, and it’s based on a point system.” Shoobridge says that ABDO will look at all the jobs that are done in the city, identify what point values they are, so that even if you have a dissimilar job, but the responsibilities and authorities are similar, the pay scales will then be similar, even if those jobs are nothing alike.
Also on the consent agenda, the council was asked to declare a police vehicle as surplus property. Chief Darin Selzler says the vehicle came to the department as a DUI forfeiture. “We’ve had a Chevy Pickup, as the resolutions said, a 2007 Chevy Pickup. We’ve had that for several years and obtained it from a DUI forfeiture,” says Selzler. “Over the last year, now that we have been able to get squad cars again, it was determined that it’s an excess vehicle in our fleet. So, we declared that as surplus property so we could move forward to sell that, dispose of it, whatever we need to do.”
The council was also asked, as part of the consent agenda on Monday, to approve Clifton Larson Allen, LLP (CLA) to provide assistance to the 2024 audit preparations. “This is really a housekeeping item. They did the same work for us last year,” says Shoobridge. “They assemble the various documents in a format that is easy for the auditors to use to provide us with our audit. It makes the auditor’s job easier; instead of the auditor’s staff having to take the time to find every bit of information, they are assembling it in an auditor-friendly format.”
There was one public hearing Monday evening regarding the Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) or drone program. “We did receive several comments via email. I believe four, and they are attached in the packet,” says Chief Selzler. “And then again, per Minnesota statute, similar to body camera wearing programs, part of the statute was to have a public forum at a regularly scheduled council meeting for public comment, which we did tonight. We didn’t receive any additional comments, so kind of a check box on that statutory requirement tonight.”Chief Selzler and Fire Chief Shane Heldstab have been working together to get the drone program underway as a tool to help enhance public safety.
The regular agenda included the approval of City Hall’s Summer hours of Monday through Thursday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Fridays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The council unanimously approved the summer hours for the summer of 2025.
The council introduced an ordinance entitled “Regulations of Cannabis Business” in the City of Crookston, and also discussed the Cannabis ordinance during Ways and Means. “The city is going to be required to have at least one license once they get the rules and start issuing licenses,” says Shoobridge. “We need to make sure we have our ordinances in place to regulate that when the state is ready to issue licenses. If we don’t have an ordinance, someone can set up anywhere they want to.” Shoobridge says the city wants to be able to regulate things and also have things make sense as far as where they are zoned. “Just like bars, liquor stores are only allowed in certain zoning districts, that really kind of where we are going with that,” says Shoobridge. “Obviously, there will be buffer zones; schools, parks, places where children congregate. So, we’re in the very beginning stages, this is just an introduction, so I’m sure it will be amended to some extent as we move forward.” During Ways and Means, Council Member Klatt also mentioned that he would like to see what a Municipal Cannabis Business model would look like should the city choose to go that route in the future. “There is the opportunity for a municipal cannabis store,” says Shoobridge. “They want to look at what the potential for that might be, to be able to alleviate some stress on the taxpayers. I will be contacting a couple of consultants to identify the pros and cons of a municipal store versus the state override on the taxes for the retail cannabis.”
The next City Council meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 5.
The post City Council held a public hearing during Mondays’ meeting on Drone Program and introduced “Regulations of Cannabis Businesses” ordinance first appeared on KROX.