Continued: Some cases just perfect for Minnetonka city court

On a warm day in August, Minnetonka police ticketed a resident for violating a city ordinance against leaving a dog in a hot car.

Returning from a 30-minute trip to a store, the dog owner was stunned by the ticket and outraged at the suggestion that she would endanger her beloved Bichon. She asked if she could tell her side of the story.

Yes, officer James Ahmann told her, she could call City Hall and ask for a hearing -- in City Court.

Finding county District Court an unsatisfactory place to resolve issues such as animal complaints, neighborhood disputes and property upkeep problems, a growing number of cities are handling city code violations through in-house enforcement programs known as city courts.

In Minnetonka, Richfield, Roseville, White Bear Lake, Bloomington, Crystal and Brooklyn Park, all enforcement officials -- including police, fire marshals, building inspectors and animal control officers - can ticket residents for violations of city codes.

If residents challenge the tickets, the cities call in an impartial mediator from outside the community to settle disputes.

"It provides quicker results [than District Court], and we can deal on a more personal level'' with violators, said Patrick Peters, community development director of Crystal, which started a city court in 2002.

Crystal gives violators 10 days to fix a problem. If they don't, the city issues additional citations every week that the matter is not resolved, Peters said. If a resident wants to fight a citation, the city calls in a mediator.

"It's less intimidating than appearing in District Court, and yet it allows the violator to have his day in court,'' Peters said.

Quicker solutions

Cities find the system resolves cases much more quickly.

When Crystal relied on District Court, property code violations seemed to drag on and on, Peters said. The city would send warnings and set deadlines and finally -- when enough paperwork had piled up -- turned it all over to the city attorney to file a complaint in District Court, Peters said. Then months would pass before it was heard in court.

District Court, which deals mostly with statewide statutes, is not familiar with city ordinances, and city cases get less attention, said Minnetonka City Attorney Desyl Peterson, who led Minnetonka's City Court setup in 1995. District Court's criminal charges and hefty fines also seem too onerous for the code violations the city deals with, Peterson said.

"It seemed like a better approach would be to find a system that was more user-friendly, that was more prompt, but that was still viewed by all parties as being fair,'' Peterson said. "We tend to use ours as a last resort. We try to get compliance with our ordinances first. Only as a last resort would we issue a city court citation.''

Brooklyn Park most often relies on City Court when "people haven't done what they were supposed to do after an inspection,'' said Gary Brown, director of engineering and building inspection.

"We fine them, and if they don't pay their fine it goes onto their taxes and they have a right to appeal,'' Brown said. "It gives people the chance to have a third party hear the case.''

It all works out well for the city financially, he said. For a mediator, the city pays a couple of hundred dollars, and 100 percent of the fines paid "go directly to us,'' Brown said. In comparison, the city gets 80 percent of the fines paid in District Court and pays much higher legal fees, he said.

Bloomington, which started its City Court in 1999, last year issued 100 citations and held 17 hearings, said Sandy Johnson, associate city attorney. The city was looking for a middle ground that allowed it to act on problems without threatening to send residents to jail. "It seemed more effective to handle some things in-house," she said.

More cities interested

Judging by requests for information, Johnson estimates that at least six other cities are considering starting city courts.

Brooklyn Center has it on the ballot for November. The city's Charter Commission chair, Stan Leino, said District Court is so backed up it takes three months to get on the calendar, and people take advantage of that. "If a matter goes to the District Court, it consumes a lot of resource time for staff and the city attorney.''

Most cities use city court for everything but alcohol and speeding violations. Some would like to write a less expensive city ticket to crack down on neighborhood speeding, but state law does not allow it, and so far cities' efforts at the Legislature to win that authority have failed.

City court hearings are considered administrative proceedings, so are not open to the public. In the Minnetonka dog case, the dog owner agreed to let a reporter sit in with the understanding that her name would not be published.

The dog in the car

At the hearing, officer Ahmann told this story: The outside temperature was 75 degrees and the temperature in the car was 90 when he responded to a report about the dog. One window of the car was down about 2 inches, but there was no cross ventilation and he couldn't tell if the dog was asleep or dead. When he opened the door, the dog woke up and was not panting, so he moved it to the shade instead of taking it to a vet.

The dog owner said she loves her dog and takes it everywhere and would never hurt it. She had thought it was about 70 outside.

After listening to both sides, the hearing officer ruled it was not clear that the temperature in the car was high enough to endanger the dog. He excused the resident from the ticket.

Afterward, the dog owner said she found the process fair and was glad it was available to her.

"I didn't even know there was such a thing as City Court,'' she said. "I didn't even know there was an ordinance.''

Laurie Blake • 612-673-1711