BLUE EARTH– With a lot on the agenda, the Blue Earth City Council ended up with a longer than usual meeting on Monday night. And, once again, the council chambers were filled with citizens attending the meeting.

One of the items on the agenda had brought several people to the meeting. It had to do with excess water in the basements of two homes on Nicollet Street.

At a previous meeting the council had decided to dig a trench in one of the yards to see if they could determine the reason for sump pumps in the two houses running continuously for months.

The lengthy report suggested that a sanitary sewer line, which had been abandoned in 1949, had been acting as a drain tile to remove the groundwater from the area. Construction of new water and sewer lines and street surface on Nicollet Street in 2021 had the old sanitary sewer line capped and filled with sand.

Mayor Rick Scholtes explained that there were limited ways to fix the issue, and suggested it could be just that the sump pumps would have to continue to run.

Resident Linda Steinhauer and representatives of the other homeowner, said they felt some other solution should be pursued.

One solution would involve a new drain line, getting easements and digging up the entire area. Mayor Scholtes said it would end up very expensive.

“If we did this in this case, we would then have to do it in any other cases that could arise,” he said.

The residents of the area said this had not been a problem until the 2021 street project was done, so they felt the city needed to fix it.

In the end, the council decided to get more information from the city engineer, including some cost estimates for any ideas for a solution to the issue.

Another water related agenda item was looking at bids on a new water treatment plant.

The city and Blue Earth Light and Water received six bids for the project, with the lowest bid coming in at $16.6 million. It was from Wapasha Construction of Winona.

After discussion the council approved accepting the low bid, contingent upon the city and Blue Earth Light and Water getting sufficient grants to cover a majority of the cost of the project.

In other business at the Monday meeting, the City Council:

— Spent time discussing the possible tiny house idea that is being studied by the Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA).

At a previous meeting the council had voted 6-1 to have the HRA continue to study the possibility of constructing tiny houses in Blue Earth and how it could be financed. On Monday night they voted again to have the HRA continue to study the possible construction. This time the vote was 4-3.

— Looked at both a possible cannabis ordinance for the city, and the proposed 2025 city budget during a work session before the regular meeting.

— Discussed the possible splitting up of the current City Hall into separate parcels. In the end they voted to just split off the alleyway and parking lot at this time.

— Discussed making improvements to Putnam Park next year, but did not make any decisions on the proposals.

— Approved a proposal for purchasing furniture, including chairs and a conference table, for use at the new City Hall.

— Passed a development agreement, purchase agreement and a resolution that all had to do with the sale of two lots on Prairie Rose Drive in the new Prairie View housing development in northeast Blue Earth.