PnZ Meeting Notes 1/30/24: Tensions Rise as ICW Landlord Representative Points Blame at Town Residents in Zoning Hearing
No, this is not a satire article, and yes, that actually happened. But, first let’s delve into the decision. The PnZ, town officials not withstanding, did an excellent job. Gary Sprague did an excellent job at organizing the meeting even though two town officials did their best to disrupt it (more on that later). The PnZ decided that the napkin drawings, indecipherable block drawings and verbal promises were not enough to get approval for the special use permit. However, there is so much more that one can learn from this meeting by identifying a potential conflict of interest and observing general attitude of those involved. Here are the names of those sitting on the panel from left to right:
PnZ Boardmember: Cary Betts
PnZ Boardmember: Eric Goers
Town Secretary: LeAnn Strait
Town Attorney: Rob Dillard
Chairperson: Gary Sprague
PnZ Boardmember: Meghan Kaminski
The meeting started out with both sides stating their cases. And then the property owner was allowed to speak, accuse and said things that were not truthful. But worry not, the newly minted St. Paul Post Fact Check Department is on the case. Let’s just say whatever good will the rest of the ICW membership made last weekend was greatly diminished by their last commenter, with the help of our ever astute town officials.
Lets start with the public comments. We start out here with three ICW applicants who repeated the parking mitigation plan that we discussed in our last article. Everyone was cordial and followed decorum rules discussed at the beginning of the meeting. The next set of comments included a mix of residents and non-residents. Question is, why were non-residents allowed to talk in the first place? Residents are required to state their name and address but non-residents were not required to do so. It is starting to seem like a two-tiered system of comments at this point.
The comments remained cordial, and one St. Paul resident, who did not specify their address, mentioned that being good neighbors was part of their belief system. It's encouraging to hear that sentiment; however, being good neighbors should entail having well-thought-out plans and parking solutions in place before reaching this point. The speaker then continued to repeat the same message, focusing on the three action items listed in the last article.
One St. Paul resident brought photo evidence of the Friday-parking-on-one-side-of-the-street solution already not being followed while another mentioned correctly that it is up to the business or in this case the place of worship to fix their growth issues. This is reasonable and it’s something that everyone in this situation needs to deal with legally and within the confines of the law.
After this is where things got interesting, at this point in the meeting everyone who had requested to speak by filling out the required form had spoken, but it just wasn’t enough for the town officials. It appears that they broke their own protocol which required everyone who wished to speak to fill out a request prior to the start of the meeting, and allowed the brother of the property owner speak. Why are the town officials running the PnZ public hearing? Shouldn’t the PnZ be in control of it? This is where Tarique, the brother of the property owner began his accusations. Lets do a fact check on his speech:
Fact Check: The ICW meeting property is zoned as commercial
Verdict: Misleading. It is zoned commercial but Places of Worship require a Specific Use Permit in St. Paul, as they have different rules and regulations that they must follow.
Fact Check: Road was attempted to be closed to the ICW several years ago
Verdict: Irrelevant. This is off topic and is unneeded information to discuss the current parking situation. This does not follow the decorum guidelines.
Fact Check: The residents and city present only problems, not solutions.
Verdict: True. That is how city permits work. Businesses/places of worship have to solve their own problems and present their solutions to the city. You are lucky if the city helps you out at all. There are many other places of worship who regularly and repeatedly meet with the PnZ to gain approval for a special use permit.
Fact Check: Problem is only on Friday
Verdict: False. While it is certainly at its worst on Fridays, parking issues happen every day of the week roughly 5 times in a 24 hour cycle. Prayer times can be seen on their website and those correlate to the parking issues.
Fact Check: You are legally allowed to park on the street.
Verdict: Irrelevant. The town code and the permit acquisition is specifically designed to prevent the street parking problem in the first place. It is a safety and good-neighbor issue as well.
Fact Check: We are picking on the ICW because of religion
Verdict: False. Christian Churches regularly have to deal with the PnZ to get approval. Check the past meeting minutes, there were at least two that failed to get approval last year and cannot legally operate.
Fact Check: Never had a problem with the residents before
Verdict: False. Talking with other residents on the street, this has been a problem for years. Only recently have things been escalated because the town is actually attempting to enforce their requirements as a direct result of the parking problem being out of control and thus infringing on residents rights.
Tarique was also permitted by the town officials to break the three minute time limit that residents were forced to adhere to and also he turned to address the public (also out of decorum) and told us to please help and not to create problems. You think that’s bad? It gets worse. After his speech he had to discuss the poor state of the paperwork sent to the committee which we covered last week. Then at timestamp 42:18 he says on Friday they WILL park on both sides of the street for 30 minutes but one of their members will guide traffic. Wait, what? That is the absolute worst time to park on both sides of the street especially with school letting out around that time. Parking on one side of the street was also one of the two suggestions they came to residents and the PnZ committee saying that they promised they would immediately enforce. Again, it was their suggestion that their congregants repeated over and over again during the public discussion.
OK, on to our town officials. we already discussed the town secretary letting Tarique speak without following any of the procedures every other person who spoke had to follow. Is that favoritism? Why was he picked last which is a prime position to rebut dissenting points of view? At timestamp 50:19, the town attorney mentions to Gary that he knows the property owner who lives in Houston and several in the audience heard this. Does that represent a conflict of interest? Then at 50:50 the town attorney makes a hand signal indicating he wants to talk to Tarique and he proceeds to spring into action around the desk and shake Tarique’s hand. If there is a conflict of interest, this is addressed by Rule 1.7 of the American Bar Association’s rules of professional conduct. In those cases, a lawyer must recuse himself from representing the client.
So what do we conclude from all of this?
The council needs to look at potential conflicts of interest between the town attorney and the ICW. If there is a conflict on interest, more investigation needs to be done by the council to determine how the situation got this far.
Thanks to everyone who showed up and also to those who communicated in any way with those involved. From the evidence presented above, this has the appearance as a setup for a rubber stamp approval. In all likelihood, the St. Paul residents who attended the hearing prevented this from happening.
Possession is nine tenths of the law, so the council needs to put a timeframe on when permits need to be approved before action is taken.
The ICW still plans on parking on both sides of the road on Friday (the worst time; this was one of the three parking suggestions proposed by the ICW) from the video evidence presented.
A gravel lot will not pass St. Paul code, so creating that lot (one of the three parking suggestions proposed by the ICW) is going to be a problem.
Tarique wanted solutions from residents so I’ll take a shot at a few:
Pay for a shuttle to bus people over from an offsite location.
Meet code by reducing the number of attendees. This could be done by opening up an additional meeting place somewhere else or meeting in homes. Follow the code and you will not only be being a good neighbor but will be in compliance of the law.
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