Government Waste and Haste

Tearing down the former “Professional Building” is the biggest example of county government waste and haste yet.  Once again, with no plan in place for the empty space, Polk County is determined to tear down a fourth historic building.  I think anyone on the street can figure out that if the building was rehabbed into apartments, all those tenants are going to contribute to the tax base and the local economy.

Before the building housed professional services, it was the Villa St. Vincent Nursing Home.  Does anyone remember going with Garfield Reichert to sing carols every Christmas to the elderly?  Before that it was a hospital which treated Charles Lindbergh’s father, and before that it was the original Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Benedict and built of the finest materials and workmanship.  Names like your grandparents and great grandparents built it, and names like McKinnon, Rasmussen, Stone, Spence, Hagen, Farley, Mercil & Sylvester and many, many more donated to the building of the Addition.

Memories aside, I have heard that the 28,000 (estimated) square foot building has a relatively new roof, and boiler.  I’ve seen the leaded glass windows and doors, ceramic tile, hard Maple floors, and the all original Georgia pine woodwork not even painted over! I’ve read about an elevator, and it is built of solid white brick.  All in walking distance from downtown!  This huge building is three times the size of the Wayne Hotel. What a perfect building to work together with UMC to create an entire live/work space for one of their growing majors.

OK, Polk County, so you own the building; does that mean you can do whatever you want with it?  I don’t think so. Where are the facts and figures that led you to this decision?   What is your goal here?  If you want another parking lot for the Government Center employees, just come out and say so. If you want it off your back, hire a realtor!  It will be refreshing to read about your goals in the newspaper or hear about them on the radio.  Heck, the County could even have an interactive web site with agendas and minutes written so a lay person can understand them.  Explaining your goals and communicating effectively is a much more positive approach than saying NO, you can’t tour the building to “Artspace,” the non-profit housing developer for the arts.  

How well I remember sitting in the “hot seat” in the overly formal County Board room being hammered by a newer Commissioner for a plan when I had just handed out a plan to preserve the Wayne Hotel as the “Palace Pavilion.”  It was so brutal, I asked what the County’s plan for the empty space was and another Commissioner said “First we take it down, and then we will worry about a plan.”  I think that along with understanding how the tax base is decreased or  increased, people do  understand that planning comes first and not after the fact when it is too late. 

web counter

 

 

Sesame Street: How a Working Vision for Crookston came to be

      (Photo compliments of Mike Anderson, Crookston area photographer, don't you dare copy it!)

I've been away from blogging and here is why: “My” Foundation, Prairie Skyline Foundation, had received a grant from the State Historical Society from “Legacy” funding in 2010.  Always interested in an artistic use for the former Cathedral we started with the economic value of the arts: Check out the article by Liz Dwyer on http://bit.ly/LZnj80.  “In a survey conducted by IBM last year, 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number one competitive edge" of the future. And Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently wrote that dance, music, theater, and visual arts "are essential to preparing our nation's young people for a global economy fueled by innovation and creativity."

Always I’ve wanted some arts focus in the former Cathedral because of the fantastic layout. (see bit.ly/LwHnvP for layout)  In visiting with Bob Knudson, the Small Business Development Center consultant from Bemidji, he asked me some hard questions, like how will the Cathedral Art Center project be a project that doesn’t take away from existing institutions that serve  the people of Crookston and the surrounding area.  Somehow, the project has to help our kids, I thought to myself.

Now I admit it, I don’t always read Natalie’s opinion articles in the Crookston Times, but I read about her daughter looking out over the new view of the river and seeing the three spires of the Cathedral with their crosses highlighted in the afternoon light.

Her daughter said, “Look at “Cinderella’s Castle!”

Dan Johanneck, former CHEDA director, mentioned that he wanted to develop a nickname or a slogan for Crookston, perhaps running a contest. I called him and said, “You know, Crookston has always been called “C-Town” on the radio by Tommy Helgeson and others.  See the origins of “C-Town” in an older post: http://bit.ly/MkT0TU.  Feeling like I was on Sesame Street, I realized that the Cathedral, the “Castle,”  Central Park and C-Town, all begin with C just like Crookston does.  So, I started playing around with the letter “C” on my “Printmaster” program. Add an “e” to Town and add in the Methodist Church as the “Fortress,” and it starting sounding like a real project!  Then I heard that Mary LaFrance, our elementary art teacher, was not going to teach art classes anymore.  I believe this was due to the budget, if memory serves me right.  Other school districts have done the same, cutting the arts programming.  There was the gap I was looking for, on we could fill without hurting anyone and with everything to gain for Crookston.

Later, while driving to Grand Forks out of the blue, the slogan, “Crookston Creates!” came to mind.  “Shop Crookston!”  came to mind as well.  Nothing like a drive to bring out the creativity.  Could be the name of the Gift Shop in C-Towne be called “Shop Crookston!?”  What a great double meaning.  Feeling amazed at how this just arrived into my brain from nowhere, I realized we were still a long ways away from a real working plan for the Cathedral. 

So I remembered my business plan software and how it came with some free templates for a variety of businesses.  I bought the best software in the business at the time:  Business Plan Pro.  Always I have loved the arts, mostly because I totally lack talent in that regard, and there it was a “Hands-On Art Museum” in Chicago!  So, I got together with my friends from “Artspace,” the non-profit developer for the Arts from Minneapolis and we decided to "Crookstonize" the plan together and make the case for the Cathedral as the proposed site.  While they were writing, I had the good fortune of visiting my son-in-law’s parent’s home in Detroit Lakes.  We were talking about thrift stores, and they said that Detroit Lakes had a strong Boys and Girls Club that was funded in part by running a thrift store. “Click!”  I remembered Northwest Minnesota Foundation's Jim Steenerson’s good comments about the Boys and Girls Clubs around Northwest Minnesota and that there were not enough of them.  So first we went thrift shopping, and then we toured the Boys and Girls Club which was housed in a former school.  They had a huge art room and a small gym.  The teens there were helping out with everything from supervising kids in the gym to organized activities, to helping with administration details.  You can find out more on their facebook page: http://on.fb.me/u1cUEz.

If ever there was an “Aha” moment, this was it.  Here was the structure to help run the children’s museum, reduce staffing costs, and do so much good for the teens themselves!  The Teens were developing life skills that made them proud of their accomplishments.  Put it all together while filling the gap in elementary arts education made up the most perfect fit for Crookston.  I have long thought She should strive to be the best place to grow a family.  Thinking I was really hot now, I read about Fargo’s plan for an addition to their museum which will be a “Center for Creativity,” I assumed it was my children's art museum and my heart fell.  We are too late, as usual.  But I had to finish the study.  (Later, I reread the article, and their plan is quite different from ours.)

While looking for some real costs and figures that we could use in the proposed profit and loss statements, I discovered that there is an Association for Children’s Museum’s and that it is a hot and growing field of learning.  On their website, I found that three children’s museums are developing as we speak, one in Northfield, one in Grand Rapids, and one in Rochester.  I discovered that there are none in Grand Forks or Bemidji!  And, if we focused in even more and made it a children’s museum for the arts, we could have something unique that people would drive for miles to come and stop in with their kids, and entire busloads of kids from other school districts besides ours could come in and play for the day.

After the busloads leave, then what, why not keep the center open for the teens to hang out and have access to all the art tools they could possibly want, including a stage?  I think that’s the best part of all, a place for teens to hang.  How long have we wanted a teen center?  Decades.  

So what about the “Fortress?”  We need to ask the Rainbow Coffee House’s Board if they might consider selling the building.  I know it does need a new roof, but just think of all the studio spaces, and the GYM!  Perhaps another small practice theatre in the sanctuary.  Or it could be more of a science focus.  Add in tree houses (do not miss this site!  bit.ly/MA1qKU.) in Central Park (there is no liability in public spaces like parks) and there you have it, a real working vision for Crookston. How about it, Polk County, why not give “Artspace” a chance to develop the former Villa St. Vincent for affordable housing for artists?  Artists will come for miles to live here where rents are reasonable and the river is close.  Want to expand C-Towne even more?  While parking my school bus, I noticed a sign hanging on the wall crookedly.  It said in black letters on white:  "To Poultry." It made me think of the former use of the old bus garages which used to be the  Winter Shows buildings!  And now memories fade, was it Bob Gustafson who brought an idea of a petting zoo to City Council members in about 2004?  Sometimes its amazing what results when some concentrated time and prayer is spent on a problem. 

  

We are "Over-vinyled"

This grand old "four-square" is vinyl-sided to the point of losing the charm of the window frames.  And this is just one of many throughout Crookston.  In our search for a "quick fix" we want to "cover up" not "uncover" the beauty of the original home.  First people replaced wood siding with pressed wood siding, then it was asbestos siding, by the time vinyl siding was invented, these folks are probably covering up the previous three laysers forcing the windows to have no depth to them anymore.  Making it worse is the fake munions (you know those vinyl strips inside the vinyl window,) and the width of the original woodwork around the windows is down from four to five inches to one or two inches! 

The living room window probably had a stained glass upper and clear glass on the lower windows.  What a loss.  And where did the window to the side of the door come from?  These are typical of modern structures, '70's and above.  Now I ask you, why didn't the person sell the old beauty and just buy a newer house?

I will give it one "saving grace" and that is they kept the double-hung look of the upper story windows.  A lot of people have flipped out over casement styles inappropriate to the four-square, or more "munioning" (is that a word?) than was ever on the original house. 

If you must vinyl side your home and windows, then at least do it in an appropriate way.  Although munioned, the following home right across the street shows a classic look that preserves the original look and proportion of the the house.

 
 Watch for the next post on (top 10 things I hate about Crookston, MN) 
 

One way streets must go!

I have always hated the one way streets in Crookston.  First of all, it encourages drivers to drive to the maximum speed limit, 35 mph through the heart of downtown. So much so that every year the police department has to put out those yellow markers to watch for pedestrians.  People in cars speeding past them do not even look to the sides for pedestrians wanting to cross the street. Talking on your cell phone while going 35 mph is just not right!  Trucks taking the "shortcut" through town drop their chicken feathers and noise all over the place.   Now granted we don't have too much to offer to look at (yet) but at least slow down enough to watch for pedestrians. Furthermore, if you are a retailer, only one side of your window and building can be seen.  Retailers hurting for business downtown get only 1/2 the chance to advertise! 

Furthermore you can no longer tell me it can't be done.  Just look at Fargo: 

Fargo to convert two major downtown runways

By Associated Press

Crookston Daily Times

Posted Dec 05, 2011 @ 09:26 PM

Fargo, N.D. —

North Dakota's largest city in coming years will be converting two major downtown one-way streets to two-way traffic.
After a decade of discussion, Fargo leaders voted last week to convert NP and First avenues, which have been one-ways for more than half a century. Reconstruction could start as early as 2013, with the multimillion-dollar project taking years to complete. Eventually, each avenue will have two lanes in the current direction and one lane in the opposite direction, along with a bike lane.
The vote was 3-1, with Commissioner Dave Piepkorn (PEP'-kohrn) casting the lone dissenting vote. He worries about increased traffic congestion downtown. But many business owners back the move, saying it will bring more business and investment downtown.

Copyright 2011 Crookston Times. Some rights reserved

 

So what do you think, Crookston?

 

web counter

 

  

Too Much Taupe!

Everywhere I look I see too much taupe.  Yes taupe it is, not tan, not brown, not beige, but taupe as in the color of pantyhose.  It doesn't go well with the rich natural colors of red pressed brick or yellow common brick seen in downtown Crookston.  If you look closely, there is a soft teal color on the four upper story windows on the right.  This is a much better color and combined with gold makes for a historically correct color combination for this building.  Much more pleasing to the eye.  This much taupe calls attention to the remuddling of the storefront and the wrong sized windows.  I know it was popular in the seventies to fill in and put in smaller windows for the sake of "energy savings,"  but now there are triple glazed windows for a bigger R Value while matching the original window opening. Worse yet, is the missing parapet. Where did they all go?  And when?  But I digress, back to taupe, covering homes it is the perfect backdrop for colorful flowerbeds, but downtown, yech.  Even if I wasn't a historic preservationist, too much taupe is just not in good taste. Check out the historic color collection at Crookston Paint and Glass.  Please rate this article, Too Much Taupe, on a scale of 1 to 10.  10 being the least hateful thing about Crookston, 1 being the most. 

web counter

Ten Things I hate about you.

This is the introduction to a series of ten blogs focused on ten things I hate about my hometown, Crookston, Minnesota.  I was inspired to write this series by the following quote from the work "Othodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton on loving the world enough to change it.  If you like this quote, follow this blog for my Top Ten.  Feel free to comment as well.

     "What we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it.  We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surley contentment;  we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent.  We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage to which we can return at evening.
     No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world...(but) can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing?"

Duluth Economic Business Authority creating jobs in local businesses - Lake Voice

They found some money...
Duluth Economic Business Authority creating jobs in local businesses - Lake Voice