Potential changes to the cannabis regulations and free pool passes for the 2026 season were both discussed at the Blue Earth City Council meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 17.

Council member Mike McNerney presented the council with a request to revisit the city’s ordinances regarding retail cannabis licenses, specifically the regulations dictating how far a physical store has to be from certain establishments.

“Current state statutes allow cities to prohibit cannabis businesses from being within 1,000 feet of a school or church, and 500 feet from a daycare or public park,” McNerney remarked. “However, the statutes also say that a city may choose to redefine that zoning, and our current city ordinance enforces a distance of 700 feet from a school and 500 feet from a daycare or park. I would like us to reassess these distance requirements, as I have been informed by interested parties that our current guidelines are too restrictive, and I agree with that statement.”

“As I recall, we set the restrictions for the cannabis businesses back when the state cannabis legislature was still fairly new, and nobody quite knew what was going on yet,” council member Jacque Drew remarked. “We can certainly readjust the distance requirements, but I’d like to have some idea of what the state statutes are now.”

Council member Ann Hanna raised the point that the council had implemented a limit on the number of retail cannabis licenses, and questioned whether there were any pending applications for this particular license.

“I can confirm that we have had inquiries surrounding the retail cannabis license, but as McNerney mentioned, businesses are disinclined to apply because their desired business locations typically fall within our buffer zones,” city administrator Dawn Collins replied. “We also don’t have an official retail cannabis license registration form available yet.”

“I should clarify before we go any further that my intent is to implement these buffer zones for a retail-only business,” McNerney added. “There are legal restrictions on using cannabis in public, just like with drinking alcohol in public. If people want to use these products, they will have to do so at home.”

Following further discussion, a motion was made and seconded to direct city attorney David Frundt to research the current state statutes regarding cannabis business buffer zones, and present his findings at a future meeting. The motion was passed unanimously.

Collins presented the council with a copy of the 2025 pool figures, as well as some recommendations for how to proceed with issuing pool passes in 2026.

“Looking at the figures from last year, 276 passes were offered at no cost, which was 178 more than the prior year sold for pre-season,” Collins reported. “However, the result of these free passes was a nearly $14,500 loss of revenue in the pre-season sales. Although some revenue was recovered over the season, there was an overall loss of $10,400 to the fund compared to 2024. Based on this data, I believe that it would not be appropriate to offer free passes again this year, and would like to request that we offer pre-season passes at a cost for 2026.”

“I do think that offering the free passes was a good idea, but I agree that we need to go back to collecting revenue,” Hanna shared.

Mayor Rick Scholtes offered some pushback on the concept, citing that the pool was a public space and deserved to be treated the same as other taxpayer-funded facilities, such as the Senior Center and the baseball fields.

“My opinion is, if our taxes are already covering the operating costs for the pool, why should we charge to use it?” Scholtes explained. “People already use the ballfields and the Senior Center for free; why not the pool, too? The pool is never going to make any money, free passes or otherwise, but I would prefer to see kids using the pool than not using it.”

“I do agree that the pool is a public facility, but look at all of the local clubs and organizations that care for our other public properties, like the ball fields,” McNerney rebutted. “They might not pay to use those spaces, but they contribute a lot of time and labor to their upkeep. We can’t say the same for the pool.”

Council member Dan Ristau raised the question as to whether there was some means of tracking pool pass usage, and if there was some way of compiling that data to get a better understanding of how many people were utilizing the free pool passes, and the frequency of their pool visits.

“Do we have a utilization rate for the free pool passes?” Ristau asked. “I’d like to know, out of all of the pool pass holders, who actually used them, and how frequently they did so. I think that would be some important data to have when determining whether or not to continue issuing free passes.”

“I also have a question – when we made the budget for 2026, did we include the cost of free pool passes in the budget?” Drew asked.

Both Collins and Scholtes confirmed that yes, free pool passes for the 2026 season had been accounted for when putting together the 2026 budget last fall. Collins also noted that the council did not need to make a decision on the issue right away, and that they had around a month to come to a final decision.

“I will say that it felt good to give away the free passes last year,” Drew remarked. “Provided that we have budgeted for it, I think I would be okay with offering free pool passes to Blue Earth residents again this year.”

Hearing no further discussion, a motion was made and seconded to offer free pool passes to Blue Earth residents for the 2026 season. The motion was passed unanimously.

Other business discussed at the City Council meeting included:

• The council entered a closed session to conduct an evaluation for city administrator Dawn Collins. After the meeting was reopened to the public, Scholtes shared that Collins had been rated on her performance over the last six months across 11 different categories. On a scale from one to 10, Collins received a total score of 8.46, ranking her “above satisfactory.”

• A food truck permit for Norseman Lobster was unanimously approved.

• A series of new member appointments to boards and committees were unanimously approved. Bryce Werner was appointed to the Airport Advisory Commission for a four-year term, Blue Earth Fire Chief Corey Survis was appointed to the Fire Relief Board of Trustees, and Jacque Drew was appointed to REV.

• A motion to draft an ordinance to amend Section 250.11 of the municipal code regarding the membership structure of the Fitness Center Board was unanimously approved.

• Collins presented the council with a list of proposed revisions to the city personnel policy. After discussion, a motion was made to approve the proposed revision to Section 23, which would amend severance to include 50 percent unused accrued sick leave for employees in good standing with more than 20 years of service. The motion failed for lack of a second. As the motion did not pass, a decision was reached to come back with a clean copy of revisions for approval at a future meeting.