When St. Paul residents go to the polls on Tuesday, they’ll find a question on their ballot asking them whether to amend the city’s charter — which is akin to a municipal constitution — to allow for new forms of non-criminal penalties known as administrative citations.
If approved, the city council would have the authority to propose fine ladders for violations of city ordinances. The charter amendment does not spell out any particulars around the size of the penalty or the type of ordinance violation that would trigger a civil fine.
Instead, each type of administrative citation would be presented as its own ordinance amendment to city code, and get its own individual public hearing prior to a council vote in the months to come.
Officials with the mayor’s office, the city council, St. Paul Public Works, the Department of Safety and Inspections and other areas of city government have highlighted 15 areas where enforcement is lacking and the city could potentially impose administrative citations to improve quality of life for everyday residents.
Those areas include animal-control violations, neglected construction sites, errant landlords who fail to respect building codes or rent control requirements, illegal discharges to storm and sanitary sewers, and employers who sidestep the city’s minimum wage or sick and safe time rules.
Given the city’s difficult finances and aging housing stock, critics have expressed concern that the city could use administrative citations to help balance its budget by fining homeowners for chipped paint, weeds, tall grass and other mundane property issues common to century-old houses and low-income neighborhoods. They say that rather than protect the vulnerable, the fines could amount to a tax on the poor.
Here’s what voters need to know:
The ballot question wording:
“Referendum on Ord 25-2 amending the City Charter.
“Should Ordinance Ord 25-2, amending Chapter 6.03 of the St. Paul Charter, regarding Administrative Citations take effect? Ordinance Ord 25-2 amends the City Charter to authorize the issuance of Administrative Citations that may result in the imposition of civil fines for violations of City Ordinances. Administrative Citations are not Criminal Citations. A ‘Yes’ vote is a vote in favor of amending the City Charter to allow the City to issue administrative citations. A ‘No’ vote is a vote against amending the City Charter and against administrative citations.”
Who is on board:
The charter amendment is backed by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and challenger Rep. Kaohly Her, the seven members of the city council, the city’s charter commission, city department leaders and a wide coalition of labor groups and progressive advocates. They include ISAIAH, SEIU Healthcare MN, the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFSCME Council 5, Unidos St. Paul, Faith in Minnesota, TakeAction Minnesota, Housing Justice Center, Sustain St. Paul and members of local DFL groups backing the “Vote Yes For a Fairer St. Paul” campaign.
Opposition:
While the ballot question has not drawn heavily organized opposition, it failed to pass the city’s charter commission or win unanimous city council approval in 2018 and 2021. Former city council member Jane Prince has written at length about her concerns. Arguing that the public should have the right to weigh in, former City Hall employee Peter Butler gathered enough petition signatures this year to block council approval from amending the charter without first going to public ballot. Mayoral candidates Yan Chen and Mike Hilborn have said they’ll vote “no” on the question, which has drawn mixed reviews from some leaders of neighborhood district councils.
Arguments for:
Proponents have noted that if a landlord fails to fix a broken toilet, an employer refuses to pay out sick time or a dog repeatedly terrorizes the neighbors, the city’s options generally amount to one of two extremes: a strongly worded letter of warning, or criminal charges.
In the case of housing or building code violations, the city can revoke a certificate of occupancy, leaving residents homeless, or cancel a business license, closing the business entirely. Minneapolis and other large cities in Minnesota have intermediate powers to impose non-criminal penalties on rule-breakers, which can roll out more quickly than criminal charges without the long-term consequences of creating a criminal record.
As St. Paul has delved into a progressive agenda, including paid sick and safe time, a $15 minimum wage, rent control, a wage theft ordinance and other rules, the city has found it tough to keep up with enforcement.
To ensure fairness in execution, the city council voted to establish a temporary advisory committee that would spend up to a year crafting an “equitable implementation framework” around administrative citations as they roll out. The committee would be expected to issue written recommendations focusing on the potential disparate impacts of administrative citations on vulnerable groups protected by the city’s Human Rights Ordinance.
“Administrative citations are a necessary tool for St. Paul to have what it needs to keep its residents safe, for the city to run well,” said Matt Privratsky, a former city council member and chair of the Vote Yes For a Fairer St. Paul campaign.
“Right now, the city is forced to over-criminalize penalties because it does not have the ability to use civil fines or administrative citations,” Privratsky said. “And at the time when federal uncertainty has never been greater, the community needs stability, it needs its common-sense tools in place.”
Arguments against:
If city inspectors were empowered to fine everyday residents over mundane property issues, they wouldn’t have to look far. Well more than half of the city’s single-family homes, duplexes and triplexes were built before 1930, and the likelihood of finding peeling fence paint on a century-old property is high.
Even if used judiciously by the current administration, a charter amendment raises the possibility that the next city council — or the one after that — could increase fines, in both size and volume, to help balance departmental budgets, a burden that could land disproportionately on low-income and middle-income communities of color.
Butler has noted that a charter amendment may not be necessary. To institute non-criminal penalties, some cities cite a section of state statute allowing them to impose civil fines of up to $1,000.
Critics have said that administrative citations fly in the face of the Carter administration’s previous commitment to reducing fines and fees, including library fines, in the name of equity. Chen has called the effort overly bureaucratic and Hilborn called citations another burden for small businesses in a city already struggling to attract commerce.
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Prince, the former council member, has noted that the city already charges property owners for abatement — the cost of sending out a city work crew — if they fail to shovel snow and ice from their walk or cut tall grass. The charter amendment proposes no upper limit on fines.
“There are fines and fees when you violate things, but it can’t exceed the city’s cost of enforcement,” said Prince on Tuesday. “In 2022 when they brought (administrative citations) forward, they wanted to cap it at $2,000 and the charter commission voted it down because they thought it was too high. Now they’ve brought it back with no cap.”
For complete coverage of area elections as well as how to vote, visit twincities.com/elections.
Imani Cruzen contributed to this report.
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