Edward Lotterman

Late-night TV comedian Taylor Tomlinson describes telling a boyfriend that she is “the lesson that you just cannot learn!”

That Catch-22 applies to what a changing climate is to the people of our nation, and world. We need to get slapped upside the head again and again until, finally, we learn. Until we don’t. So we get used to the slapping.

We are still in a learning experience right now. Weather this year is like a ‘50s DJ’s playlist: The hits just keep on coming! As this is written, wildfires fostered by heat waves threaten the Phoenix area. In the Upper Midwest, multiple rivers remain over flood stage with some receding but others rising — and rain in the forecast. Various heat domes have covered much of the nation.

And up next: Models predict an active hurricane season.

On the weekend of June 23, tornado warnings were issued for an unprecedented broad area of the Northeast, including all of Vermont and New Hampshire, along with significant portions of several other states.

Our country is not alone. Floods in China exceed normal seasonal ones and involve some 300 million people. A month ago, the temperate-zone states of Brazil adjoining Uruguay had destructive floods well above previous records. Early tropical storms in the Caribbean brought damaging wind and rains to coastal Mexico.

Here in Minnesota, rainstorms and flooding dominate the news.

The Mississippi is rolling past downtown St. Paul at 114,000 cubic feet per second. Since 1893, it has passed that level only seven times, and six of those were in April, during rapid spring thawing of large snowpacks. But we didn’t have much snow this year — remember that? This time, it’s rain. With the water flowing in from the Minnesota River, a new summer record for the Mississippi may be set by Sunday.

A week ago, flooding closed unprecedented numbers of highways across Minnesota, including I-90 and state highways in and out of county seats like Worthington, Luverne, Pipestone and Slayton. As the water flowed down the Rock River and into the Big Sioux River dividing Iowa and South Dakota, I-29 was shut, as were many state and country other roads. Further east and north, Waterville in Le Sueur County is threatened by the two lakes it bestrides nearly merging into one. And our DNR’s Cooperative Stream Gaging program shows “Much Above Normal” flows at multiple points around the perimeter of the state.

Most people don’t appreciate the enormity of this.

Last Sunday, June 23, the U.S. Geological Survey stream gauge in Rock Valley, Iowa, recorded a flow of 151,000 cubic feet per second before washing out. That was five times that hour’s flow of the Mississippi at Highway 610 and 2.5 times that at downtown St. Paul. This was all in a stream only fed by two Minnesota and two Iowa counties, one with median flows under 1,000 cfs in summer months. Only once has the volume past St Paul been higher than that. Even accepting that volumes recorded at extreme levels are more estimates than measurements, the more accurately measured height of water blew through all records.

Now rivers are retreating in the area where the states of Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota meet. Yet many fields are still flooded, some with crops totally destroyed. Basements are still being pumped, uninhabitable houses tagged and road infrastructure getting hasty temporary repairs. The collapse of an old, obsolete but heavily used railroad bridge near Sioux City, Iowa, will tangle traffic on BNSF and other rail lines in Minnesota for months, including the ones paralleling Highways 23 and 60.

The partial wash-out of the Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River brought us national attention. The old dam had long-known structural problems. Logs and other debris clogging its spillway gates was the proximate cause of its overtopping. But before its gage washed out on Wednesday, river flows hit 34,700 cfs. The only volume above that in more than a century of data was the spring 1965 snowmelt that set records across the Upper Midwest. Any summer flows that even approach this week were relatively recent, 2010, 2018 and 1993. Prior to that, the record summer flow was in 1953 at half of this week’s levels but equaled by that in May 2023.

Yet we are bitterly divided on the causes. Twenty years ago, concerns about climate change were voiced by politicians in both parties, though more commonly by Democrats than Republicans. For years, Big Oil, Big Auto and Big Energy tried to play down the “man-made” influence, and politicians in their pockets played along. The economic incentives here should be obvious.

But going forward, what are the economic issues? The starting point is that the population of our nation is coming to accept that the climate is changing, and we are adapting. Many people now realize that adjustments will be forced on households and businesses going forward. These adjustments will have many spillover effects — from insurance rates and property values, migration patterns and the availability of fresh water and food, to name a few.

True, cross-political concern still exists in the general public. In late 2023, the most recent “Climate Change in the American Mind” surveys conducted by a team at Yale University, found that half of all Republican voters were “cautious, concerned or alarmed.” But in elections and in debates and votes in Congress, the position that climate change is a hoax dominates GOP actions. These divisions reflect other ways in which deep-party politics have become much more deeply divided than voters themselves.

This may merit a column of its own. Meanwhile, the immediate challenges we face are serious and diverse, and could require serious investment of time and resources.

How much effort will we put into fighting the effects of a changing climate by building levees and seawalls, further tapping aquifers or transporting water across the country? Will we subsidize rebuilding towns like Rock Valley, Iowa, situated in flood plains that are likely to be inundated again? Will we forbid it? Will we subsidize home and business place relocation? Subsidize investment in alternative energy forms? What fraction of incentives for change will come from government mandates, carrots or sticks? How much from private market pressures such as property insurance rates or property values themselves?

In an ideal world, where political parties could work toward some degree of consensus and compromise on measures to take, we might have coherent sets of measures at federal, state and local levels. With current bitter politics that is not realistic in the foreseeable future.

So we will muddle through. Political power is not shared equally across all income categories. People owning beach- or canal-front properties in the Carolinas and Florida have clout. So do many people whose lakefront house now is a mudflat-front house. So we inevitably will spend some public resources protecting what cannot be protected and restoring what should not be restored.

For lessons from parallels, we might think back a century. The 1927 flooding in the lower Mississippi was the worst natural disaster in the history of our country. Passive GOP President Calvin Coolidge did nothing, but his energetic Commerce Secretary, engineer Herbert Hoover, initiated vast relief efforts, ensuring his position on the GOP ticket in 1928. Frozen by the economic crisis that unfolded months after his inauguration, Hoover froze for four years and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was swept into office in 1932. Roosevelt’s New Deal included building a vast array of dams for electric power, flood control and transportation plus other infrastructure. Much of this was useful, part kicked problems a few decades down the road.

Now the forces of nature have grown too large and too global. No new New Deal can build ourselves out of a changing climate. Yet leadership can make a difference. Hoover was the best commerce secretary we ever had; FDR the president who most shaped what our economy and society look like today. No one like that is on the horizon, but if we all could come closer to agreement on the challenges we face there could be more hope.

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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

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For current and historic stream data, search: “USGS river flow data” and follow links. For help, write to stpaul@edlotterman.com.

Minnesota United’s coaching staff has directly spoken to DJ Taylor about the need for a “detailed approach to defending in the box.”

But it happened again Saturday.

The Loons right-sided defender gave up a penalty kick in the 3-2 loss to Portland Timbers. Playing slightly out of position as a right-sided center back, Taylor grabbed Felipe Mora in the 18-yard box; Mora recognized the contact and went to ground, earning the PK.

Evander scored from the spot and Portland was immediately back in the game, trailing 2-1 just before halftime. They would score twice in the second half to send MNUFC into a four-game losing skid.

“That was costly for us,” head coach Eric Ramsay said postgame. “There’s no way around it. There’s no two ways about it.”

The Loons have conceded three PKs this season; Taylor has allowed all three.

“Again, that’s one that he’ll have to have a good look at,” Ramsay continued. “We’ll have, again, an open, honest conversation with him about those moments that define games for us and I’m sure it had a big bearing on him. It’s for him and us to have that difficult conversation, I suppose.”

No subs?

One of the biggest breaths of fresh air is how Ramsay substitutes a lot more than predecessor Adrian Heath did during his seven seasons with MNUFC. Heath was regularly near the bottom of MLS in the amount of subs used, while Ramsay and MNUFC are tied for eighth in the league with 89 subs (4.4 per match) through 20 matches this season..

While the Loons were succumbing to steady Portland pressure in Saturday’s second half, Ramsay didn’t make a single change through 90 minutes. He made two changes in stoppage time.

The Loons were without nine players Saturday, so the bench didn’t have MLS-level reinforcements — Zarek Valentin was the only regular MLS player on the bench.

But the lack of changes was still uncharacteristic.

“I felt that was a game, in some senses, you can make an argument that fresh legs make a difference but also the players were in the game, they were in the rhythm of having to defend,” Ramsay said. “They were really dialed into what the situation was and I think in some senses, fresh legs isn’t always the answer.”

Ramsay continued: “I can’t pretend to have the same tools at our disposal late on in games to change. That was obviously the rationale behind keeping us largely as we were to start the second half. To an extent, I stand by that, I think those situations, it’s immensely important that the players are really tuned into the situation and I think to a man we were at that point — albeit (it) did feel the tide had turned.”

The on-field Loons were so used to defending in the second half because they couldn’t consistently clear their lines nor retain possession to relieve pressure. Their back was consistently pushed against their own goal.

“I will say that was one thing that, irrespective of the game’s difficulty, that was something we could certainly have done better,” Ramsay said about a lack of full clearances. “We were nowhere near as clean enough in clearing the boxes as we would want to be and obviously that causes problems if you end up defending for far longer than you want to defend. But again, in the circumstances, it’s difficult to criticize a back line that were right at their limit physically, I would say, and everyone to a man has, from my perspective, able to walk away with their heads held high for effort and application and a desire to help us get over the line.”

Another trap door

The Loons’ bad luck struck again about an hour before kickoff. Key defensive midfielder Wil Trapp felt a muscle injury in a leg and took himself out of the starting lineup.

“It does feel at the moment that what can go wrong, will go wrong,” Ramsay said. “Certainly, Wil is a player, almost the last player you would want to lose at that point. And also at the point we’re at where we really need that experience, that leadership, and the personality traits that he has.”

Moses Nyeman stepped in for his first MLS start since he was with D.C. United in 2022.

Ramsay hopes there is a bit of a silver lining in Trapp pulling himself out. If Trapp sensed the injury early, maybe he will be fine for Wednesday’s home game against Vancouver Whitecaps. Hassani Dotson will be available after serving a red-card suspension Saturday.

Debut overshadowed

Minneapolis native Rory O’Driscoll made his MLS debut in the 92nd minute Saturday. Before his big moment could be fully commemorated, Portland forward Jonathan Rodriguez had scored the eventual game winner seconds later.

“He came on with bad timing, in a sense, that the goal that immediately followed him coming onto the pitch (and) was not through his doing in any way,” Ramsay said.

O’Driscoll, a 24-year-old a MNUFC2 player, earned the opportunity with his maturity.

“Rory is a great kid,” Ramsay said. “Brilliant to have around the building. A very capable player, so I’m pleased for him. It was a nice moment.”

When a renter approached Mitra Jalali to complain that a neglectful landlord failed to fix her broken toilet for more than a week during a hot stretch of summer, Jalali was largely at a loss for how to respond. As president of the St. Paul City Council, she’s learned, she said, she has surprisingly few tools at her disposal to force compliance with city codes and ordinances.

She could seek to have the city revoke the apartment building’s certificate of occupancy and have it condemned, a lengthy process that could leave tenants without a home. Or she could press the city attorney’s office to take the equally onerous step of filing criminal charges through the court system.

The apartment unit was filling with odor, which was heartbreaking “and disgusting,” said Jalali on Thursday. “Who wants to experience that? We have what I would crudely describe as a ‘0-to-60’ compliance approach. You’re getting a letter that says, ‘Will you please comply?’ or ‘Your certificate of occupancy is being revoked.’”

A potential avenue not open to her — but available in cities like Hopkins, Minneapolis and Woodbury — are administrative citations, or non-criminal fines imposed for breaking city ordinances. The St. Paul City Council explored the possibility of amending the city charter to allow for the creation of administrative citations in 2018, without success. They revisited the effort again before the city’s charter commission in 2021, where the request died by a vote of 7-6.

Third time’s the charm? Jalali certainly hopes so.

Eager for more enforcement tools to back up rent control, paid sick leave, a $15 minimum wage and other worker- and tenant-driven city ordinances, the city council president has joined Mayor Melvin Carter’s administration — including a wide cast of city department leaders — in pushing for a charter amendment. It’s a first step toward crafting a menu of new fines geared toward specific violations of city code.

“We are determining the timing right now,” Jalali said. “I think the general commitment is to advance it this year, so sometime within the next six months.”

After reducing fine, more fines?

It’s an unusual ask, given that both Carter and Jalali previously called excessive fines and fees a tax on the poor. The mayor abandoned the practice of charging residents for overdue library books in 2018, the first of several revisions to the city’s fine and fee schedules.

Jalali said she recognizes that asking for the authority to create administrative citations could be a tall order before the city’s charter commission and the general public. Critics have repeatedly raised concern that a current or future council, as well as the city’s housing and safety inspectors, could go overboard, imposing administrative fines for mundane code violations like an overgrown lawn or a broken window pane.

Would city officials attempt to balance departmental budgets by citing peeling paint and boulevard weeds? Would those costs be borne disproportionately by low- to moderate-income homeowners and homeowners of color?

Jon Fure, a member of the city’s charter commission, said he’s not overly concerned about potential abuses of power, given that each type of administrative citation would have to be crafted individually before the city council and mayor through a separate ordinance.

“If there were unintended consequences, it would have to go through that process,” Fure said.

Fure, who is the executive director of the downtown CapitolRiver Council, noted that downtown building owners who lock their skyways at night, hours in advance of city regulations, currently face few, if any, consequences. They could, in theory, be prosecuted in criminal court, but that strikes him as unlikely.

“Those kinds of things don’t rise to the same level of priority as more serious criminal cases,” he said. “Administrative citations seem like the appropriate way to handle that.”

Angie Wiese, director of the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections, agreed.

“We have tools, but sometimes they’re not the right tool for the situation,” she said.

An administrative fine would not show up on an offender’s record in a criminal history search, she said. In contrast, even a misdemeanor criminal citation for a loose dog, for example, would be included in court records, which are public information. That could cost the offender their job now or in the future.

“It can have really dire consequences,” Wiese said. “Folks can face eviction or be turned down for housing.”

Heavy-handed enforcement is a red flag

Still, some critics have pointed to heavy-handedness on behalf of some code enforcement officials, or general miscommunications within City Hall, as red flags.

As the long-standing president of the Association for Nonsmokers-Minnesota, Jeanne Weigum appreciates the general thrust of trying to give the city more powers to enforce its own rules.

But “there’s never been a citation, that I’m aware of, for somebody smoking in a restaurant, and compliance with those ordinances and laws is really good,” said Weigum, who said she generally prefers education — even simple signage — over fines and fees.

“Having more tools in the toolbox is a good idea, but they would have to be used judiciously,” she added. “Enforcement should not be your first line of action.”

Bicycle, scooter found abandoned

A recent misunderstanding Weigum experienced with the city’s code enforcement officials underscores her cause for hesitation.

When Weigum, 79, discovered an abandoned bicycle and a two-wheeled scooter in her community garden plot at Snelling and Marshall avenues this month, she took home both items, laid them in her boulevard and called St. Paul police in hopes of reuniting them with their owner.

Police referred the matter to the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections. After some phone calls back and forth, Weigum received two form letters from DSI on Monday, June 24 — both of them “summary abatement orders” for “nuisance conditions” — indicating she would soon be charged a labor fee of up to $260 for the cost of having the items removed from the public boulevard by city workers.

The letters arrived with pictures of the scooter and bicycle in her boulevard, meaning a DSI inspector had come by to document the problem rather than fix it. She had effectively reported on herself.

“Let no good deed go unpunished,” Weigum said.

Weigum again complained to DSI, her city council member, the media and others. Members of the police department’s Volunteer Reserve Officers soon removed the items, and she received a reassuring email from Wiese, the DSI director, explaining that the city’s call center should have referred her to the police department’s Crime Prevention Unit, which maintains an online bicycle pick-up form.

“The example of these bikes is a perfect example. Just saying, ‘You did a bad thing, here’s a fine,’ is not enough,” said Weigum, whose volunteerism was recognized by the city council last year. “There has to be a burden of proof.”

Is the charter commission simply advisory?

The city’s charter commission voted against amending the city charter to allow administrative citations in 2018 and 2021, and the issue died there at the time. Jalali has questioned whether the commission’s votes are binding or whether they could be construed as merely advisory, which would leave the ultimate decision to the city council.

“My understanding is they are advisory, so we can still act, but I would want confirmation from the city attorney’s office,” she said.

If the issue comes before the council, all seven members need to be unanimous in their support of a charter amendment. Former city council member Jane Prince was a vocal opponent of administrative citations, but she chose not to run for re-election last year, and four of the seven council seats turned over after the November election.

St. Paul Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher noted most major cities in the Twin Cities metro already have the power to impose administrative citations.

“We’re the outlier,” Tincher said.

She called it only appropriate that residents will have questions about what kinds of administrative citations would be rolled out. Compared to 2018 and 2021, however, “I feel like we’re in a better spot,” Tincher said. “This will be our third conversation, which sets us up for success.”

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