On Tuesday, Nov. 4, St. Paul will hold its 2025 mayoral election, featuring two referendum questions to keep your eye on.
City Question One
This question will ask voters whether they support granting the St. Paul City Council the authority to impose civil penalties or administrative fines for violations of city ordinances as an alternative to criminal citations.
Voting “yes” supports amending the St. Paul City Charter to enshrine the authority of imposing civil penalties and fines.
Voting “no” opposes amending the St. Paul City Charter to enshrine the authority of imposing civil penalties and fines.
What are administrative citations and their current alternatives?
Currently, the council can write warning letters or order criminal citations to people (often property owners) who violate the municipal code through acts/situations like violating labor standards, zoning ordinances and/or housing codes. Criminal citations in St. Paul are filed as cases in the Ramsey County District Court, and defendants are required to appear in court or respond to the citation by a specified deadline.
Defendants can plead guilty and receive a fine, or they can go on trial.
Proponents of administrative citations say criminal cases are resource-intensive and too heavy a burden on everyday people, while too little a burden on large businesses and corporations, whose legal teams can avoid penalties by stalling the criminal process. Administrative citations are direct fines and penalties for the same kinds of code violations as criminal ones, but they stick to the city council’s public process to determine which violations receive what fines, instead of the Ramsey County District Court’s.
Supporters of the new citation system include St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, State Representative Kaoly Vang Her and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Both citation structures involve appeal processes and guarantee due process. If administrative citations are amended into the city charter, the city council will hold three public meetings, one of which will hear public comment from residents before the new citation structures can go into effect.
Opponents of the proposed citation system argue that allowing administrative citations will place a burden on property owners, particularly small owners, leading them into greater debt. Former St. Paul City Councilor Jane Prince wrote in the local news site My Villager earlier this month arguing that the new citations could cause excessive fines on property owners and that the city should instead continue the use of summary abatements and criminal citations. Summary abatements describe the process by which the city removes (or abates) conditions that violate city codes when a property owner has failed to do so.
Summary abatements apply to things like hazards, waste/tall grass removal and boarding vacant buildings, but not to labor standards like wage withholding. The costs of summary abatements are higher than what a property owner would pay to do the work themselves, but they only seek to cover the direct and indirect costs of the city’s work to remove these conditions. Administrative citations, Prince points out, do not follow this same rule.
Peter Butler, who led the petition effort to put city question one on the ballots, wrote last week in MinnPost, pointing to Duluth, Minn., where, despite the existence of administrative citations, tenants continue to be concerned with landlords neglecting unit repairs. Duluth residents will vote in November on a “right to repair” ordinance in response to these concerns.
History of the proposed change
The city charter amendment allowing administrative citations was unanimously approved by the city council and signed into law by Carter in January 2025. However, St. Paul residents began a citizens’ referendum campaign and gathered enough signatures to get what is now City Question One on this November’s ballot.
The new citations amendment has had a rocky journey into law, failing to be passed on numerous occasions, namely in 2021, despite strong support from Carter, his administration and others.
School District Question One
The second and final city question comes from the St. Paul school district, and proposes an increase in property taxes by a median of $309 annually for ten years to fund an additional $1,073 per pupil of St. Paul public schools.
Voting “yes” supports increasing St. Paul property taxes $309 annually over the next ten years to fund an additional $1,073 per pupil of St. Paul public schools.
Voting “no” opposes increasing St. Paul property taxes $309 annually over the next ten years to fund an additional $1,073 per pupil of St. Paul public schools.
