city of Luverne
- By Lori SorensonDecember 23, 2025At their Dec. 18 meeting, Luverne City Council members certified the levy at $3,789,392 for taxes payable in 2025. That represents a 6.25-percent increase over the current levy of $3,566,592 for an additional $222,800. The council hosted its 2025 truth in taxation hearing on Dec. 18 with City Administrator Jill Wolf presenting the city’s 2026 budget. In the General Fund, there is 6.4 million…
By Lori SorensonDecember 23, 2025Frank Mongold will officially retire at the end of the year after 28 years with the City of Luverne. He started in 1997 picking up city garbage, and on Dec. 31 he’ll end his career in the same position. It's smelly, dirty and often thankless work, and Mongold had opportunities to transfer to other city departments but didn’t. “I liked it,” he said when asked why he stuck with it. “I got up…- By Lori SorensonDecember 09, 2025A manufacturing company has expressed in 15-acres of Luverne’s industrial park, according to discussion at Monday’s meeting of the Luverne Economic Development Authority. EDA director Holly Sammons said the city engineer is developing preliminary concepts for road and utility configurations that could accommodate both large and small development sites. She showed a map of Luverne’s industrial…
- By Lori SorensonNovember 05, 2025Luverne City Council members took action last month to assess $19,000 worth of unpaid utility bills to property owners in the form of taxes on the property. The council each year reviews unpaid utility bills at a public hearing where property owners can discuss their bills with the council. No one attended the 2025 public hearing during the Oct. 21 City Council meeting where council members…
By Lori SorensonOctober 15, 2025New options for affordable housing in Luverne will soon be available thanks to a grant through the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership. The Luverne Economic Development Authority during their Monday meeting reviewed progress on three twin homes (six units) that will be constructed on three lots in the Reisch Addition. The addition is located near the newly developed Lopau Housing Addition…
By Lori SorensonOctober 15, 2025The Luverne Economic Development Authority recently approved three more façade improvement projects representing investments of more than $60,000 in downtown properties. Last month, board members approved applications for the Rock County Historical Society and for Bruce and Cody Henrichs, and on Monday, they approved one for Revel Kitchen and Cocktails. History Center project The Historical…
By Lori SorensonOctober 08, 2025Luverne City Council members approved a mineral extraction land lease with Northern Con-Agg, LLP. The agreement outlines the lease of 15.15 acres of city-owned land along 150th Avenue northeast of Luverne for the purpose of mining sand, gravel and rock. According to council discussion at the Sept. 23 meeting, the city had purchased that tract of land back in the 1960s for the purposes of well…- By Lori SorensonOctober 01, 2025At their Sept. 23 meeting, Luverne City Council members approved a preliminary levy of $3,887,585 for taxes payable in 2026. That represents a 9 percent increase over the current levy of $3,566,592 for an additional $320,998. By statute, local governments are required to set preliminary levies in September. Those amounts can be lowered but not increased by the time levies are certified in…
- By Lori SorensonOctober 01, 2025At their Sept. 23 meeting, Luverne City Council members approved a cannabis registration application for Prairie Sky Enterprises, LLC for a retail cannabis microbusiness at 1551 S. Kniss Ave. Donavan Hakim and Justin Dunaskiss, Edmond, Oklahoma, secured preliminary approval from the Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) for a cannabis microbusiness and have now secured their local…
- By Lori SorensonAugust 20, 2025“Revel Kitchen and Cocktails” is one step closer to opening in the former Sterling’s building following the Aug. 12 Luverne City Council meeting. Restaurant owner Rick Thompson and restaurant manager Rich Rislov appeared in council chambers Tuesday night when the council approved the business’s liquor license. The liquor license takes effect Sept. 1 and expires Dec. 31, 2025. It will be…
- By Jason BerghorstJune 25, 2025Members of the Luverne City Council approved four of five conditional use permit (CUPs) requests to operate cannabis retail establishments in Luverne at their June 17 meeting. The four approvals and one denial were each recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission following a June 9 public hearing. The Planning and Zoning Commission considered the same conditions for the cannabis…
- By Jason BerghorstJune 18, 2025The City of Luverne Cable Commission met Monday to discuss the city’s cable TV franchise agreements. The city has 10-year franchise agreements with Bluepeak and Mediacom. The Bluepeak agreement is up for renewal in August and Mediacom’s agreement ends in 2027. “We’re here to discuss the renewal of the agreements, but also the role of the cable TV board overall,” said city council member and…
- By Lori SorensonMay 14, 2025The city of Luverne received five conditional use permit applications for cannabis licensing during the first round of applications that closed Friday, May 9. They will be reviewed by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, and a public hearing on June 9 will consider the applications in the order they were submitted. Terry Gray, Sioux Falls, who owns Herb ‘N Legend in Luverne, submitted the…
By Lori SorensonApril 30, 2025The city of Luverne has so far received three conditional use permit applications for cannabis licensing since the process went live on the city’s website last week. The conditional use permit application window for the first round of applicants is from April 25 through May 9. The non-refundable application fee is $400. They will be reviewed by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, and a…
By Lori SorensonApril 09, 2025Luverne’s Braydon Ripka, 21, is working this week in Window Rock, Arizona, with a team of volunteers for the 2025 Light Up the Navajo Nation initiative. Ripka, a 2022 Luverne High School graduate, works for Luverne’s electric utility, which is a member of Missouri River Energy Services (MRES). Light Up Navajo is an initiative of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, in coordination with the…
By Lori SorensonFebruary 19, 2025The city of Luverne no longer burns piles at the tree dump south of town. Instead, branches and other untreated wood waste are ground into wood chips that get sold for other uses. They’re used for animal bedding in area feedlots, turned into landscape mulch, and used as boiler fuel for wood-burning heat systems. Mueller Pallets, Tea, South Dakota, services community tree dumps in the tri-…
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