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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