State agency approves loan for tribal cannabis facility over board’s recommendation in Minnesota

The Minnesota Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation is moving ahead with a $2.5 million loan to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa to help build a start-up cannabis business on tribal land west of Duluth. The decision comes despite an advisory board’s vote recommending against it.

At its meeting in Eveleth on Tuesday morning, the IRRR Advisory Board voted down the proposal 5-2 along party lines, with all five Republican members voting against it. State Rep. Dave Lislegard, DFL-Aurora, who announced this weekend he will not seek re-election to his Iron Range seat, was not present.

The vote came just over seven months after the Board supported a $10 million loan to a Missouri-based company to build a cannabis operation in Grand Rapids by a 5-3 vote.

But in a news release issued later in the day, IRRR commissioner Ida Rukavina said she plans to move the project forward, saying the project met the agency’s application guidelines, and the agency’s staff thoroughly vetted the project.

“This project will support numerous new manufacturing jobs in a rural area of St. Louis County that will further diversify and strengthen our region’s economy,” Rukavina said. “For these reasons, I will move this project forward.”