By Chad Koenen

Publisher

Seventy feet, or slightly longer than the distance needed for a first down in football, that was reportedly the difference between New York Mills being home to the Otter Tail County’s first cannabis business located in the downtown area and being denied by the county.

During its regularly scheduled meeting last week, the NY Mills City Council heard from Matt and Lindsay Wedde over the county’s denial of their cannabis business license in town. The Wedde’s said the business was to be located at 20 N Main Avenue in the downtown area. Matt said the county measured from the corner of their property line to the corner of the New York Mills School property line, which was 70 feet less than the minimum of 1,000 feet from a school property. He said if they measured from the corner of the building to the corner of the school property the business would have likely been outside of the 1,000 foot buffer zone.

“The county is basically following the state statute, which is a minimum of 1,000 feet (from schools) and 500 feet (from day cares or parks),” he said. “The only option is for the city to take (registration process from the county) and change the buffer zone.”

Matt said Fergus Falls, for example, has a buffer zone of 500 feet from a school facility and 250 feet from parks. 

The NY Mills City Council had previously opted to defer registration and enforcement of cannabis businesses to Otter Tail County. Since it is a new type of registration and licenses, many other communities in Otter Tail County also opted to have the county be in charge of the cannabis licensing. One of the concerns at the time revolved around not having the staff to properly enforce the ordinance and process the necessary applications.

Lindsay Wedde said she spoke with an administrator for the City of Fergus Falls who said there was additional work involved by having a city in charge of the cannabis applications, but doing so also had an added benefit of tailoring the registrations to what the community wanted.

“They said the city would have to process their own applications, but on the flip side, the city can set a cap for how many businesses you have in town,” she said.

She said the applications and enforcement are similar to what is already being done for liquor store checks in a community.

When Lindsay spoke with representatives from Otter Tail County, City Clerk Julie Roberts said Otter Tail County told the council that the county may be working on a hybrid ordinance for small towns since many of the communities would be extremely limited on where a cannabis business could be located due to its tight proximity to parks and schools. However, it was unclear if such a hybrid ordinance would be adopted by the county. 

NY Mills Mayor Latham Hetland said he wasn’t sure if the city council had enough information at the time of the meeting regarding additional time for city staff, as well as the pros and cons with having the city take over the application and enforcement of cannabis businesses, to make an informed decision last week. Should the county adopt a hybrid ordnance for smaller communities with a shorter buffer zone the city would not need to change its ordinance, giving the county the right to process the applications.

“So my thought would be to leave this on the agenda for another month. I know that is not the perfect answer,” he said. “If (the county was) willing to do that we would not need to do anything.”

Matt and Lindsay thanked the council for hearing their concerns so quickly as they are approximately four months into a maximum of 18 months from the time of their application to being fully operational. Should they not be able to be operational in 18 months they would need to reapply for their cannabis business license. 

“Our problem with this whole thing is since we did it we have 18 months to get it into place, have the building ready, have the state come and inspect it and make sure everything is in place in order to be open,” said Matt. 

The city council said it will seek additional information about the cannabis application and enforcement and address the issue at an upcoming meeting.

Preliminary levy

The NY Mills City Council adopted a sizable increase to its 2026 preliminary tax levy, due largely to things out of its control. The city council approved a general levy increase of 15 percent, while keeping the debt levy at $169,000.

As a result, the total increase to the preliminary tax levy will be 11.3 percent next year. 

While the city’s preliminary tax rate was increased 11.3 percent, Roberts said most taxpayers shouldn’t notice much of a difference on the city proton of their taxes next year due to a large increase in the taxable value of properties in the city. Roberts said most people will likely notice a slight-to-flat increase in their city taxes, unless the taxable value of their home increased over the past year.

In other news

• Heard the yearly pool report from Legried Community Pool Manager Harley Wurst who stated revenues were slightly up from last year and 284 people took swimming lessons throughout the summer. In addition to her report, Wurst resigned her position as pool manager due to a growing list of commitments, including teaching preschool and recently being named as the head volleyball coach at NY Mills School. 

• Heard the monthly liquor store report from liquor store manager Lana Jacobson, which showed that net revenues year to date before transfers is down approximately $16,000 from last year. The year to date net revenues are down 2.76 percent as a percentage of sales from the prior year and net revenues for the month of August were down three percent as a percentage of sales from the prior year.

• Heard the monthly fire department report for the month of August that showed 14 calls for service of which 10 were medical calls, one was a fire, two were MVA and one was due to a false fire alarm. August training consisted of preparation for woodland fire season. In addition to training, water packs were filled, brush truck hoses were changed out and pumps were tested. Grain bin rescue training was also conducted.

• Heard the monthly police report from police chief Bobby Berndt who stated the department had 149 calls for service with five citations, 19 warnings and two arrests in August. Berndt also shared a pair of policies that are required concerning public assembly/first amendment activity, as well as a policy concerning confidential informants. 

• Heard the monthly public works report from supervisor Kyle Mattson who stated that all of the walking trail shelters have been installed at the South Point Lions Walking Trail, while also completing a natural gas leak survey of the south 1/3 natural gas distribution system and a leak survey on the water destruction system using Minnesota Rural Water Association. Mattson said they have located two leaks as part of the water leak survey.

• Acknowledged a $2,000 donation from the NY Mills Lions Club for the pool.

• Approved a low bid from Steffl Drilling and Pump for $24,575 to complete test pumping and monitoring on Well No. 5. Three bids were received for the project with bids ranging from $24,575 on the low end to a high bid of $44,605.

• Approved 3-1, with Richard Grotheer voting in dissent and Eric Hammond absent from the meeting, a proposal from Holsen Solar to install solar panels on the top of the city hall/city ballroom building in town. Grotheer raised concerns over whether the solar panels could damage the membrane of the roof down the road, as well as whether the solar company should remove all or some of the rocks where the solar panels will be installed. The solar panel project is largely funded through grants and energy savings with a long-range savings of $149,000 in energy cost over the project’s lifetime. As part of the project the city will install solar battery storage in the event of a major electrical outage. 

• Approved a letter of support for a single-sort recycling program Otter Tail County for residents throughout the county. The letter of support will aid the county in seeking grants to fund the project for the northeast side of the county. NY Mills, and many of the larger communities in the northeast portion of Otter Tail County, is expected to get single-sort recycling beginning in 2027. The first 18 months of single-sort recycling, which will be picked up at each residence, will be free of charge to residents.