Ramsey County Law Library Blog

Downtown St. Paul continues to be a hot residential address for Ramsey County.  There’s no denying the convenience and the cultural amenities of downtown living.  Even though the rental market is sizzling, many of the residences in downtown St. Paul are owner-occupied, most often as condominiums or other planned communities.

While condo dwellers seldom have to contend with lawn mowing and flooded basements, they must contend with parking availability and association boards.   Attending your association’s board meetings can do much to make you an informed homeowner.  If you have a point of contention with your board, you might want to start by consulting the Uniform Condominium Act at MN Stat. §515A and the Minnesota Common Interest Ownership Act (“MCIOA”) at MN Stat. §515B.  (Other details of Minnesota condominium law are codified in MN Stat. §515.)  You might also consider reading either Working with Your Homeowner’s Association: A Guide to Effective Community Living (Sphinx 2003) or Condo Owner’s Answer Book: Practical Answers to More Than 125 Questions about Condominium Ownership (Sphinx 2008).   There is also this handy information sheet from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.  Serving on a condo board can sometimes be a thankless task, so show your board some basic courtesy when you raise your issue, or consider volunteering to serve on it yourself.

Have you recently joined your homeowners association board and find yourself a bit overwhelmed? CONGRATULATIONS for being willing to serve your community in this fashion.  Now, see if your organization belongs to an organization like the Minnesota Multi-Housing Association (MMHA), which is “a state-wide, non-profit trade organization…[that] promotes the highest standards in the development, management and maintenance of rental and owner-occupied multi-housing.”  Membership in an organization like this can help you with resources including information archives, legal forms, and even question-and-answer hotlines.  (Dues typically depend on the size of your organization.)  Are you a local tenant living in a condo unit, or a condo unit owner that is having trouble with your tenant?  You can always check out our Housing and Conciliation Court Clinic and discuss your situation with a volunteer lawyer.

In the past couple of years, downtown St. Paul has become a much busier place.  There are more cars, more bikes, more walkers, more dogs, more intercity buses, just…MORE.   The result is more and more traveling bodies trying to navigate within a limited network of streets and sidewalks, alleys and intersections.  On top of this has been the confusion generated by multiple construction sites and the operation of MTC’s Green Line.   What might have been your predictable driving route or crosswalk just a year ago is now fundamentally changed.  Hopefully much of this confusion is only temporary and travelers of all types will better know where they stand next summer.   Unfortunately, we also continue to read about Minnesota pedestrians who trusted crosswalks at their peril.  Drivers will also tell about being illegally cut off by pedestrians darting out in front of them.

It is important to be aware of Minnesota’s pedestrian and crosswalk laws, but the basic infrastructure itself is still open to question.  After all, how well can drivers see pedestrians crossing streets?  How useful is stopping for a pedestrian at a crossing if other cars blow around you into the path of the pedestrian?  How is using a crosswalk with its infinite variables safer than jaywalking in the middle of a block with only two directions of traffic to check for?  Or how fair is waiting patiently for a walk signal and realizing too late that you failed to press the “beg button” hidden behind a tree?

If you feel a complaint about a specific traffic problem is justified, you cmay file one with the City of St. Paul, or with the Minnesota Department of Transportation.  If you feel you have been unjustly ticketed, you may want to explain your case to a Court Hearing Officer.   Most of all, everyone needs to do their part by BEING ALERT, which might mean simply turning off the phone while driving or turning off the portable music when beginning to walk across a street.

The James J. Hill Library as captured by Michael Boeckmann

This week the James J. Hill Library  was named the “greatest historical treasure” among the nation’s libraries in Gale’s nationwide photo contest.  (Kudos  go to local photographer Michael Boeckmann for this award-winning photograph, which appeard in the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press.)  The Hill Library is roughly one block up the street from the Ramsey County Courthouse, and is a must-see stop for downtown visitors making the historical architectural tour.  Built in response to Hill’s preference that celebratory money be spent on a “research center” in leiu of a grand celebration to commemorate the opening of his Great Northern Railway, it was dedicated in 1921.    Don’t overlook the resources of the Hill Library for assistance with your business research.  With access to extensive database resources through EBSCO,  “[t]he Hill’s Business Librarians can assist businesses, freelancers, entrepreneurs and nonprofits in finding information that will be useful in opening a new store, finding new clients and delivering new products or services.”  Read more about the James J. Hill Library and its services here, or check out their excellent blog.

This week is also when libraries everywhere are recognizing National Library Week.  Officially sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), it is a time to celebrate the contributions of libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support.  The Ramsey County Law Library is recognizing National Library Week from Monday through Friday this week.  Visitors to the library can help themselves to a free pocket Constitution. This year’s theme is “Lives Change at Your Library.” 

As the reality of winter commuting sets in once more across Minnesota, let us be aware of the danger in what has become known as “peephole driving.” As explored by this recent article in the Star Tribune, peephole driving is the operation of your vehicle aided only with only the visibility provided by a small ice-free patch that you’ve managed to scraped onto your winter-frosted windshield. No driver can reasonably be expected to see hazards like cars in adjoining lanes, bicyclists, pedestrians at crosswalks through such a pitiful hole of visibility…yet we have all seen them try.

This area of vehicle safety is covered in Minnesota Statute 169.71 Subd. 3, which states that “[n]o person shall drive any motor vehicle with the windshield or front side windows covered with steam or frost to such an extent as to prevent proper vision.” According to Lt. Eric Roeske of the Minnesota Highway Patrol, a citation for obscured vision can cost upward of $130. Of course, “proper vision” might be a debatable concept, but it becomes crystal-clear in the wake of a fatal accident.