Rushford Supports New Business Opportunity

At its October 26 meeting, the Rushford City Council unanimously supported a recommendation from the Economic Development Authority (EDA) for a Jump Start loan and revolving loan fund application by 116 West Jessie, LLC. The company, owned by Kelle and Keith Dencker, is seeking funding to support the acquisition of the building at 116 West Jessie Street, formerly home to Jessie Street Java and later Escobar Kitchen.

Rushford’s downtown has seen several vacant storefronts over the past five to 10 years, despite efforts to revitalize the area. The EDA has worked to create and improve business opportunities to attract new ventures, and those efforts may soon pay off with the return of activity to one of the community’s former favorites.

The Denckers bring more than 13 years of property management and contracting experience to the project.

According to documentation provided at the meeting, the applicants plan to maintain three apartments – two on the second floor and one on the first floor – and acquire equipment for the coffee shop space. While they don’t plan to operate the retail space themselves, it appears the Denckers have someone interested. The total property purchase is $212,000 and equipment will be another $38,000, for a total cost of $250,000. Forty percent of the financing will come from the EDA loans, while another 40% will come from bank financing through Merchant’s Bank, and the remaining 20% from personal equity. The EDA will split financing between the Jump Start loan and revolving loan, and up to 50% of the Jump Start loan can be forgiven on the back half of the loan term in years 11-20. The loan interest rate is 2%.

With the closing of the sale, scheduled for November 13, the EDA is expected to receive full payment of the outstanding principal from the previous property owners, Kevin and Amy Feller. That amount is $83,941. There was no information provided on the potential retail plans at the time of the meeting.

The council also unanimously approved two other items. First, they approved the seeking of bids for 35 acres of crop land at the Rushford Municipal Airport. Bids will be sought for a four-year lease. In the last three years, the city land generated $16,034 in revenue for the airport.

Secondly, the city entered into a Mutual Aid Staffing Agreement between the Rushford Ambulance Service and the Houston Community Ambulances. The two entities entered into agreement for mutual aid in April 2026, allowing either party to request coverage for a specific time within a week to cover a service area. However, since this wasn’t approved by the council before being agreed upon, the council approved a termination letter in order to ensure the agreement details and officiality.

The agreement includes notice timeline requirements of at least 24 hours. So far this year, the Houston service area averages less than one call per day. In the 90-day time the unofficial agreement was in place, Houston requested staffing aid only once. The agreement is reciprocal as well, in the instance of Rushford needing staffing coverage. If the city ever wants to terminate the agreement, there is a process also written in.

The council spent a good deal of time discussing quotes from Star Energy to update the Rushford Municipal Electric Plan and conduct a rate study. The proposal suggested the work plan be ready within five to six months and the rate study sooner. The study would determine if revenues are covering infrastructure, maintenance, and operations needs. The last study was done in 2014. Another study was in the years following, but no rate increases were implemented.

The previous work plan, provided in 2017, forecasted utility and maintenance projects through 2020. However, some of these projects are still uncompleted, whether due to time, costs, or another hindrance. The proposed cost of the rate study is $9,500 and the proposed work plan is $24,500.

“I’m a little hesitant on updating the work plan when we know we need to update our meter reading system. We don’t need a study for that and we haven’t budgeted for that,” said Mayor Leigh Volkman. “I feel that we should get the rate study done and see if we’re strong enough to adjust the rate if it needs to be adjusted. We should be working towards getting estimates on what it’s going to cost to get the things finalized that were on the original plan.

“It’s difficult to believe that we went through Covid and all of that and never found a time that we needed to increase the rates of the expenses that we know went up. Labor’s up. Every expense related to our electrical service is up, but we have not increased the rate,” added Volkman. “That’s no fun, but also is that being subsidized through property taxes if we’re not adjusting the rate?

“It’s not that fun to procrastinate for 20 years and then decide all of a sudden that one council’s stuck having to make that huge jump when we should have slowly been working at it, regardless if we knew exactly what that number was. We should have been adjusting for inflation and different things that we saw over time.”

The council opted to approve the rate study, but hold off on a new work plan. Instead, City Administrator Hayden Stensgard will do a walkthrough of the previous work plan with Public Works Director Roger Knutson.