u/e-daemon

The change being proposed here is for mixed-use development (the T-type zones). The commercial portion of a mixed-use building is taxed at the commercial rate. In effect they are advocating for more commercial property like you're hoping for, just with housing on top of it.

I just thought this was nice to see.

This is cool, thanks for making it.

Hm, it shouldn't be that high for food, the sales tax in St. Paul is 9.875%. There's 6.875% from the state, 0.5% from the county, 1% from the metro council, and 1.5% from the city. The state imposes an extra 2.5% for liquor, so over 12% is correct for that.

Sales tax is generally 2-2.5% higher than in other counties/cities in the state.

Were you seeing a credit card transaction fee as part of the "tax/fees" line maybe? Those are imposed by the restaurant itself.

The nearest grocery store to this address is a 15 minute walk, 2 minute drive.

I was curious about the lawsuit so I looked it up on MCRO (case 27-CV-25-15740).

Carter claims Friese "has been misappropriating the Company’s funds" and that Friese ousted Carter as CEO when he asked to see financial records, Friese denies the claim and says he provided the records and Carter was removed as CEO because "Amplified underperformed financially during Carter’s tenure as Chief Executive Officer."

I don't know any more than that but it seems a little... messy?

Same. It eventually went through, but now the problem is that their system seems to be "catching up" by charging all of the credit cards I tried.

Really annoying.

From what I remember CVS isn't even involved anymore, they were just tenants. The owners of the lot are some stack of shell corporations or something similarly mysterious.

Thankfully the renders of the new building don't look too bland. It could be far worse.

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-lifestyle/redevelopment-renderings-for-billys-on-grand-in-st-paul-revealed

I don't know if they'll have trouble getting tenants. It's not owned by that awful Ohio pension fund that's kept a bunch of buildings vacant.

There's more than enough room for both! They also don't feel that similar to me, Nelson is a sandwich counter and Cecil's is a full-service restaurant plus a full deli.

You're right. I think it's referring to the Dan Patch Line. The MN&S Railway was created in 1918 to take over those tracks. They're still there today, they terminate near the Oak Hill Cemetery, which is only 3 blocks west of Nicollet but it's a good bit south of 54th St. Apparently they used to go a bit further north and connected with the Minneapolis streetcar system at 54th and Nicollet:

• https://northfielddepot.org/history/timeline/
• https://slphistory.org/danpatch/
• You can see it on this map: https://trolleyride.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1914-TCRT-Line-Map-Color-small.jpg (from https://trolleyride.org/resources/historic-maps/)

This company installed an EVSE for my dad: https://rayoflightelectric.com/

I don't remember the exact price but it was reasonable. I installed my own and it cost ~$450 in parts alone (some COVID-era material pricing is involved there), not counting the EVSE itself.

That's the valuation of the remodel. The current assessed value of the property is $1,751,500.

You would have to imagine! There wasn't an MLS game in Minneapolis this November. (MNUFC plays in St. Paul.)

We are certainly seeing issues in us-east-1, but it's hard to be sure what the cause is since there's no open health event. In our case some proportion of requests are failing to connect to our EKS pods, even if they are routed to the same node and the requests are identical.

Ah, yup, I see it there now. I didn't when I checked just a bit ago. They actually published it for everyone (as starting 20 minutes ago): https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status?eventID=arn:aws:health:us-east-1::event/MULTIPLE_SERVICES/AWS_MULTIPLE_SERVICES_OPERATIONAL_ISSUE/AWS_MULTIPLE_SERVICES_OPERATIONAL_ISSUE_30422_580368C1278

Did they delete this event? I don't see that on the status page right now.

Many of your questions are addressed here: https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/safety-inspections/administrative-citations

Not moving your car during street sweeping.

There is already a fine for doing this, you get a parking ticket.

Not moving your car during snow emergency.

Same deal, you already get a ticket.

Commercial vehicles parked on residential streets.

Same thing again, you already get a parking ticket: https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/public-works/traffic-lighting/truck-parking

What protections are in place to prevent the city council and mayor from adding ordinances?

Elections, in a word. Public support is how the city council and mayor decide to add or rescind ordinances.

What limits are out there? 20 new ordinances a year?

There's no specific limit on the number of laws the city's legislators can pass, that would be very strange.

What fine limits are included in the measure?

That's an odd premise, measures like this wouldn't include limits. The process to propose and implement ordinances includes a review of any fine amounts where the council attempts to set fair and reasonable levels.

Wil there be some sort of group formed to oversee city council so that this doesn't spiral out of control? Looking more than two weeks out, or even 2 years out. What does this look like 20 years out???

Yes, there are already two groups for this: courts and the electorate. If you are issued a fine that you think is unjust or unreasonable you can contest it in court. If there is systematic abuse of the administrative citation mechanism we can elect different council members.

Like what?

Propose a solution to an ongoing problem (civil citations) but dont bring up the fact that the city council and mayor can just decide to start presenting new ordinances and passing them.

What do you mean by this? The city council can already pass ordinances, that's what they do as a city council.

If the city wants to do something about CVS, bring criminal charges. That's a common sense solution. Something like building neglect or abandonment.

That's not really a common sense solution. The most common approach to this in American cities is to issue fines but St. Paul can't do that right now.

What crimes would the building owners be charged with? Prosecuting a criminal case for "something like building neglect or abandonment" would cost a ton of taxpayer money, take months to years, and might not even result in conviction.

That's what the ballot measure does, it adds one more solution.

Right now the city can enforce its laws by 1) sending a letter, or 2) filing criminal charges. The letters are ineffective and criminal prosecution is expensive and takes a long time. This initiative is adding a third option, which allows the city to issue fines for ordinance violations. This is very normal for a city. In fact, it's highly unusual that St. Paul doesn't have this option.

So we would have city employees driving around with a tape measurer, measuring the height of your grass?!

This is mentioned in the article: there is already a system in place where the city notifies you repeatedly, then they will come clean it up themselves and bill you if you don't take care of it. (And it's not for unsightly grass or something, it's for overgrowth that gets in the way of public property.) You don't need to be worried.

Administrative citations are useful for things like the derelict CVS on Snelling and University or other vacant properties, businesses that don't pay the city's minimum wage, companies that don't obey trash disposal laws, etc. The city can't afford to criminally prosecute all of those cases so the violators just get away with it.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. There's already multiple buildings operating with retail and business space, and they broke ground on five more buildings with dense housing and retail space 3 months ago. There's also four new public parks. Plus, those row homes are significantly more dense than normal single-family homes, and they're obviously providing more housing than the derelict Ford Plant was.

Kind of. It's from the parkland dedication program: https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/parks-and-recreation/design-construction/parkland-dedication-ordinance

Essentially developers can either build parks or pay fees as part of the building permit process. The fees are pooled and then disbursed by the council to fund new park construction or improvements like this one. So it is the city's money already, they've just allocated it.

I didn't know this but based on what came up when I searched, they're probably referencing when the owner was a featured speaker at a Trump 2020 campaign event: https://www.startribune.com/after-destruction-and-controversy-lloyd-s-pharmacy-is-back-in-st-paul/600094470

It's not clear to me if he made any overt political statements, but then again it was a campaign event. The article has more context and information.