Council looks at changing to third weekend of July

By Chad Koenen

Publisher

Deer Trails Day may be on the move, and members of the Deer Creek City Council think they have found a perfect weekend to host the popular town celebration.

During its regularly scheduled meeting last Monday night, the Deer Creek City Council heard from city councilman Jayme George about an idea to move the annual Deer Trails Day celebration up one weekend from the fourth Saturday of July to the third Saturday of July. The goal of moving the town celebration would be to avoid competing events during what has become a busy final weekend of July.

In addition to Deer Trails Day, the communities of Battle Lake and Verndale, as well as county fairs in Becker County and the East Otter Tail County Fair in Perham all land on the fourth weekend of July. There are also town celebrations in Frazee and a big music festival in Menahga during the same weekend as Deer Trails Day.

Another issue during the fourth weekend of July is the regional baseball tournament. Currently, Deer Creek has been chosen as a host site for the opening round of the regional tournament, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Shockers will be playing in a game on Friday night in advance of the fireworks, or even Saturday in town.

A few years ago Deer Trails Days was moved to the fourth Saturday in June, but was changed back to July after bumping into the Wadena County Fair.

With the hopes of avoiding so many conflicts at the end of July councilman Jayme George proposed moving Deer Trails Day up one weekend beginning in 2026 to the third Saturday in July. To the best of his understanding, the only two big town celebrations that weekend are in Clarissa and Hewitt, but he said those celebrations wouldn’t conflict as much with local residents as the county fair in Perham. George said moving the weekend will also allow the local baseball team to host a home game on Friday night against a league opponent, like Bluffton, which could increase attendance for the fireworks show and would also give them the opportunity to not play on Saturday so the ball players and their families who are willing can help with the town celebration as well. 

“I’d rather be down here with the city doing stuff like that too,” said George of helping with Deer Trails Day instead of helping at the baseball field on Saturday. “We have one day lets not try to compete with everyone else.”

Councilman Danny Hendershot and mayor Troy Beiswinger both said they would be in favor of finding a weekend for Deer Trails Day without so many conflicts from area celebrations, while councilman Bob Lund said it was important to remember that Deer Trails Day is for the residents of Deer Creek so finding a weekend that works the best for local residents and their schedules is the most important thing to do.

The council eventually decided to recommend changing Deer Trails Day to the third Saturday in July moving forward and will discuss the matter with the Deer Trails Day Committee. 

Sprucing up Deer Creek

In addition to Deer Trails Day, the city council heard from Dana Damm and Mike Schrode about an idea to form a new committee with community and city council members to help and enhance Deer Creek as a town. Damm said the goal of the committee would be to focus on ways to continue the momentum the community has seen with potential upgrades to the bar/restaurant, new playground equipment that is being planned at the baseball field and the water tower rehabilitation project.

“There is a lot of good stuff going on in town,” he said.

With the help of organizations like the Deer Creek Lions Club, who Damm said “are willing to help in serving Deer Creek in a positive way to try and help spruce up town,” the duo said there are a number of resources at the city’s disposal to help make the community a popular place to call home down he road. 

Schrode said the goal would be to set up a committee to identify ways to not only enhance the community for current residents, but find out what young families are looking for and encourage them to call Deer Creek home. 

“What can we do in Deer Creek that would encourage a young family to move here,” he said.

Both residents said the committee can do everything from providing volunteer hours to cleaning up town to tapping into resources to find ways to bring someone thing new to the small community. 

“Start a brainstorming list of what could we do and then get that list prioritized and start a plan of attack of getting there,” said Schroede. “I know we can do that and I am kind of looking forward to that.”

Damm and Schrode said they were looking for anywhere from 5-6 people to join the committee, but wanted the council’s blessing before moving forward. The council said they liked the idea of forming a community committee like what Damm and Schrode were proposing to the council.

In other news

• Heard from a property owner who received a nuisance notice concerning their property in town. The pair said they are in the process of cleaning up the property and should have everything in line to meet city ordinances shortly after the first of August. New York Mills Police Chief Bobby Berndt said this specific property has been an issue for a number of years and the council directed him to continue following through with issuing a citation that will allow the property owners 30 days from the date of filing to meet city standards. The property owners said they will contact the city when the property is cleaned up and all of the vehicles on the property are licensed.  

• Approved sending out a reminder to property owners that all animals need to have their pets licensed with the city. City clerk/treasurer Miriam DeCock said just two dogs are currently licensed within the city.

• Discussed the need for properly cleaning the community center. The council discussed several concerns with the community center not being deep cleaned by current city staff members. The council asked DeCock to come up with a weekly and monthly checklist of things that need to be cleaned each week. 

• Discussed the need to potentially re-key the community center. The city council discussed that numerous duplicates of community centers keys have been made over the years and it is not known how many and who all has a key to the community center.

• Heard the fire department approved DeCock as a member of the fire department pending a background check

• Heard there were roughly 200 people who attended the fire department pancake breakfast during deer trails day. George said it was a good event for the fire department and they will continue to host the event in the future.

• Approved rescinding a portion of the city’s handbook prohibiting city employees from carrying a weapon on city property.

• Heard of several donations that have been committed to purchase playground equipment at Elmer Becker Field in Deer Creek.