St. Paul voters handed the city council the authority to craft new civil fines — or non-criminal penalties known as administrative citations — to crack down on scofflaws who violate city ordinances.
A question on Tuesday’s citywide ballot sought voter approval to amend the city charter, or municipal constitution, to allow the council the power to create new fine ladders around ordinance violations. “Yes” votes rolled in with an overwhelming lead, 68% to 32%, with all 86 precincts reporting.
“I think people, once they learned about administrative citations, it was almost unanimous that they understood it was a common-sense tool,” said Matt Privratsky, chair of the “Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul” campaign, as results came in.
“There was almost no one I spoke to who had a question about whether it was the right choice for the city,” he added, noting most other large cities already implement them. “Based on the conversations I had, it’s not surprising.”
Pointing to run-ins with errant landlords, employers who fail to pay out sick leave and other scofflaws, the council had attempted to amend the charter in both 2018 and 2021 but was rebuffed both times by the charter commission, whose members expressed concern at the time about city overreach.
Backed by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and all seven council members, department leaders from Public Works and the Department of Safety and Inspections made their own case to the charter commission last year, focusing on some 15 key areas where enforcement was lacking and largely limited to warning letters or, at the opposite extreme, criminal charges.
Those areas ranged from animal control violations to landlords who fail to fix broken toilets or hike rents despite the city’s 3% rent control cap. Department leaders also pointed to construction work completed without proper permits, potential violations of the city’s new wage theft ordinance, and illicit discharges into storm and sanitary sewers.
DSI officials said dozens of participants in the city’s diversionary ETHOS program have sought to have their criminal histories expunged in the last four years due to dog bite convictions alone. In one highlighted case, a family dog ran past a single mom attempting to get her kids out the door and bit a person in the hallway. She was issued a criminal citation, which raised the possibility of eviction.
The charter amendment ultimately received the support of the charter commission and city council, as well as progressive organizers and labor unions, but former City Hall financial analyst Peter Butler gathered enough petition signatures to block it and force it onto the public ballot, under the premise that the public should have the right to review details.
A majority of the city’s single-family housing stock dates back to before 1930. Former City Council Member Jane Prince and other critics have expressed concern that the city will attempt to balance its budget through fines, and city inspectors could become too heavy-handed and issue citations for tall grass, chipped paint and other mundane code violations common to century-old properties and low-income neighborhoods.
After the results came in Tuesday, Butler noted the “Vote Yes” campaign drew the support of city and county officials and state lawmakers, and nothing in the way of organized opposition. He said the long vacant CVS at the corner of University and Snelling avenues had served as a visible symbol of the type of blight that city leaders said they hoped to address through administrative citations, a convincing argument for voters concerned about the state of the city’s business corridors, including downtown.
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