10-10-2007 AO-memo-Jim Ericson - Laserfiche WebLink

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Subject: RE: questions for upcoming Charter Commission mtg Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:09:18 -0500 From: JimE@ci.mounds-view.mn.us To: barbaralthomas@hotmail.com Hi Barbara. I'll respond to your questions in the order they were posed. 1. Where in the Charter would it go? The Administrative Offense (AO) matter has two components--the allowance to be granted by the Charter to issue AOs and the allowance to certify unpaid property-based AO fines, as we presently do for nuisance abatements, diseased tree removals, unpaid utility bills, etc. As to the latter of the two components, I would propose adding a new section very similar to Section 8.05. The new section could be worded along the following lines: Section 8.06. Other Miscellaneous Assessments. The Council may provide by ordinance that the costs associated with code abatements, diseased tree removals and unpaid administrative fines or utlity bills may be assessed against the associated property and may be collected in the same manner as special assessments. Regarding the authority to issue AOs in the first place, the City has been doing so for many years--I think the practice began in 1988 but am not certain. At some point subsequent to 1996 the scope of the AOs was expanded to include minor moving violations, a tool designed to be used at an officer's discretion. The City Attorney feels that given the uncertainty relating to a City's statutory right to issue Administrative Offenses for minor moving violations, it might help legitimize or validate our practice if articulated in the Charter. I would suggest such a clause be added under the miscellaneous provisions of Chapter 12, specifically, a new Section 12.14 (the existing 12.14 would become 12.15.) The clause could read something like...: Section 12.14. Notwithstanding any state law to the contrary, the Council may by ordinance establish an Administrative Offense enforcement procedure to address property-based code violations and minor moving violations. Fines associated with such Administrative Offenses shall be established by ordinance and recipients of an Administrative Offense shall be provided with a hearing if so requested. I'll need to check with City Attorney Riggs whether in his opinion we already have the ability to issue AO tags for property based violations. If we do, adding such language to the Charter may be unnecessary although it probably wouldn't hurt to do so. 2. What will the process be? The process is already spelled out in Section 702.02 of the Code. We'd likely tweak the language a bit for clarification purposes, but for the most part it would remain as originally drafted in 1988. 3. What limitations do we need to include for application? The Code, in Chapters 104 and 702, is fairly straightforward as to its application. Not sure anything further is needed, although I need to double-check the language specific to minor moving violations. 4. What fees/ fines will it include? As for property-based violations, the Code presently limits the fines to $100. We will propose increasing this fine in 2008 (twenty years after the fine was first instituted) and may consider a graduated fine schedule for repeated 'same or similar' violations within a twelve month period. For police issued AOs, the fee schedule presently limits their application to speeding, stop sign, semaphore or unsafe lane-use infractions with a fine of $40 (significantly less than a Court Citation, if such a ticket were issued.) 5. How do you limit increased usage where enforcement is subjective? I'm not sure there's a need to impose limitations to prevent increased usage. In Community Development, we always give property owners ample time to correct violations, probably too much time if you ask the neighbor of an offending property. It's never our intent to blanket someone with tickets despite the Code allowing for a ticket to be issued EVERY DAY a violation persists. We seek compliance and use the tickets to help achieve that simple goal when other avenues have proven fruitless. The problem presently with an AO is that the ticket has no 'teeth', which by that I mean if the property owner ignores it, we have no recourse but to issue a Ramsey County Court Citation for the offense. A Court Citation naturally is a more serious step and requires the offender to appear in court and potentially pay a fine that greatly exceeds our AO fine. This course of action however is slow, often taking months to schedule the court hearing, all the while the original violation may still persist. Because of this, we've actually skipped the AO process altogether in many