The recent snow emergency in Minneapolis brought in nearly $1 million in fines and fees (4,615 snow emergency related towings per open data request, each around $200 in fines and fees equaling $923,000), the majority of that extracted from low-income neighborhoods, squeezing budgets of already rent burdened communities. A $200 fine for many means constrained budgets for necessities like food and housing. That money is required to get a car back. If someone can’t pay, it will go up $18 per day. Only after that can you schedule a hearing to challenge, reduce, or eliminate those fines.
The data speaks. Snow emergency fines and fees prey on low income, non-English speaking residents of color.
Visiting the Minneapolis impound lot the day after the snow emergency to help a friend, I saw the majority of people were not white and non-English was not their primary language. The only other white person besides myself was a Ukrainian refugee who was confused, frustrated, and needed support from an English speaker to navigate the system.
While wealthier neighborhoods are likely to have more leisure time, work at home and resources available to clear sidewalks and move vehicles during snow emergencies, low income neighborhoods may face higher language barriers to understand snow emergency rules and less resources to clear sidewalks and move snowed-in vehicles.
[image_caption]Spencer Polk[/image_caption]
Spencer Polk is an Urban Planning student at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and lives in South Minneapolis.
Sorry, folks know, they just chose to ignore. Language etc. has little to do with it. We’ll see 20 no parking signs on a block for street sweeping and no surprise 3-4 cars that never get moved.
What I would say however is the City/county could be a lot more proactive in notifying folks, seems our leaders tend to be more neanderthal about that. They could easily, very easily, require home owners, renters etc. have an email or text-able phone number on file with the city, and every time there is a snow emergency or other notifiable event, could be proactive and advise folks what is going on, but no that would be way to easy to be pro-active.
PS: From another perspective Its very condescending to think that folks aren’t smart enough to know that when it snows the city is going to come through and plow the streets, and the sidewalk will need shoveling. Many of the un-shoveled sidewalks around here are absentee landlords! Why are folks parking in the street, their garage is full of junk, and their driveway full of junkers. Not to mention, the car parked in the street may also not run, and that is why it never gets moved.
Once someone gets towed, they have little chance of getting back the costs of towing.
“A neighbor of mine without a car walked in the streets next to traffic in order to get hot food because the sidewalks were not useable.” Maybe the neighbor could have shoveled the sidewalk. On my block, people rush to see who can be the first to shovel because if they don’t, their neighbors will have shoveled for them. I guess it depends on the neighborhood.
Thank you Spencer Polk! I live in a red neighborhood RE: the accompanying map of parts of the city most ticketed, fined and towed for not keeping up with snow removal on sidewalks and obeying Snow Emergency rules. I received a letter from Public Works regarding my sidewalk around a month ago, advising me of impending charges for clearing my sidewalk, which is a corner lot across from Powderhorn Park. I immediately put sand and pet friendly salt on my snow-packed walkways as was indicated by the letter would suffice if sidewalk could not be cleared to the cement. I wrote them at their website advising them I had done what I could do to obey their mandate and would continue to make sure my sidewalk was not hazardous to walkers-by. I requested they not send a crew to do something unnecessary as I was complying. Monday this week a subcontractor to the City showed up and drove up and down my walks with a huge bobcat which did nothing but scrape the top off the packed down snow and the sand/salt I’d put there, after which they poured many buckets of rock salt on my sidewalk. Long story short, they’ve been back twice, did more bull-dozing and bashing of my walks and heaped more salt on what wouldn’t come off. Now, my walk is full of salt, chunks of ice and frozen puddles which makes the walk much more hazardous than it ever was!!! For this I will be charged at least $229, by assessment billed directly or added to my property taxes. I feel totally abused by this and have driven all over S. Mpls. to see MANY sidewalks not maintained or shoveled. Especially in ‘nicer’ neighborhoods shown green on your map! Thank you for publishing this opinion Minnpost!
Correction: Looking at the map accompanying your piece I see that I’m in a ‘pink’ area but certainly am in the income demographic noted in the legend. Thank you.
It is a bummer to get your car ticketed and towed. I know it’s happened to me. Back when I was a poor student living in a less than affluent area of Saint Paul. So, what did they do? I scheduled a court hearing and told my sad tale of ignorance to a very patient kind judge, and he graciously reduce the fine. And then told me to go back to school and study hard. It was a very pleasant and educational experience. From then on, I paid a lot more attention to snow emergency notices and I’m happy to report it never happened again. And as Dennis points out above life has gotten even more convenient when the city will happily text or e-mail you anytime there is a snow emergency declared.
That happened to me in my youth, too: I didn’t know about the snow rules. Was only ticketed, not towed. I went to court and the judge was not the least bit sympathetic. He complained about the City having to pay the County–or was it vice-versa–for use of the courtroom merely to hear about “snowbirds.” Lacking regular employment at the time and with little money on hand, I opted to have a new and perhaps interesting experience by going to jail for the night instead of paying the fine. I was held temporarily at the bottom of a stairwell with various offenders, one of whom was a male sex offender who seemed relieved to have been caught and thus enabled to brag about his conquests of underage females. Some of the others merely glared, smoked cigarettes, and looked sinister. Then a number of us were moved to the “drunk tank” which involved an unpleasant attempt to sleep overnight by curling up on a wooden bench that had a curved contour. The sanitary facility was one toilet in the center of the room that lacked a toilet seat, for everyone. For dinner, a sandwich consisting of three slices of white bread and two slices of cheap bologna plus a cup of coffee; breakfast another cup of coffee and a sweet roll. For me , it was a fortunately unique 14-hour experience that at least did save a little money.
So what would the author like the city to do, not tow cars away and have streets filled with cars and snow? If you own a car, you are responsible for that vehicle. It is not fair and equitable to have my street snowed in and not plowed because you “are confused” about snow removal policies. If you are a member of society, pitch in and make it work for everyone.
As far as sidewalks go, everybody buy a shovel and have at it, amazing how fast you can shovel a sidewalk and save 47 bucks.
The city makes snow emergency announcements on social media as well as sending out emails and text messages. There is a hotline with information in several languages. What does the author of this column propose the city should do differently in order to reach people in high-density neighborhoods and people with language barriers?
Cars need to move in order for the city to plow the streets. We can’t just leave them because we feel sorry for the owners.
“city should do differently” Be pro-active and get an email or textable phone number for all property owners and residents, (land lords know how to get a hold of their tenants) pass it on to the city. As some would say, shove the information down their throat, don’t expect folks to go out and get it, bad strategy!
It’s not a language problem. It’s an I don’t give a shit about rules problem. You don’t have the resources to shovel your sidewalk or shovel out your car? Ever tried borrowing a shovel from your neighbor? Oh no. That would be work. A better solution is for the government to shovel the walk for me, so I can sit inside and watch TV.
Just after getting married, lived in a rental in area of St. Paul where students for the higher learning sites were located. Our future “best and brightest”. Grad students were the worst in obeying parking signs. And when snow emergencies were called…. well it was actually fun to see them wail as they found their car plowed in or towed. Yeah, it was an “I don’t give a shit” problem – until the shit happened to them.
I do honestly feel for those people in the red lined areas. Many are houses built in the twenties and thirties when two car families were not the norm, not to mention the three and four car families of today. In south Minneapolis, prior to getting married I lived with some other guys, and when we looked at the garage, found it full of the landlord’s junk. He said he’d move it, but that day never came. (And yes, he was an absentee landlord who lived in Farmington, and yes there was a junker of his parked in front of one of the garage stalls.) We were just twenty somethings however after one winter, never signed another rental lease without having parking areas specified.
Keeping up with the snow parking regulations was tiresome, but we did it.
Carol, we had neighbors who never shoveled at times. Bane of the neighborhood.
What exactly is a person in a walker or wheelchair to do? Of older folks who want to stay in their homes, it not unreasonable that they should have a cleared path to transit options that allow them to stay in place. And not just a snowbank that has been salted.
I’m OK with ticketing and towing of cars. Scott above learned his lesson. Of the 47 dollar annual fee, it sounds eminently reasonable. Some won’t like it – But THESE are the same folks who don’t seem to like anything.
Easier and cheaper it seems to get 47 dollars out of them up front than pay folks to ticket them and clog up city offices dealing with them after the fact.
And older people, the most venerable, would be able to stay at home much longer, at a much cheaper overall societal cost than just the 47 dollars.
The common theme with the tow map is density. there are wealthy areas with a lot of tows because the more cars on the street, the more tows. The City has myriad ways of notifying people of snow emergencies – everyone who lives in the city has a responsible to pay attention. From the citys website:
There are many ways to find out if the City declares a Snow Emergency.
Call 311
Check the City of Minneapolis website – If we declare a Snow Emergency, you’ll see a banner at the top of every page with an announcement.
Sign up for Snow Emergency alerts
Check our social media pages
Get the Snow Emergency app
Call the Snow Emergency hotline
Watch local TV or radio
Spanish, Somali and Hmong languages are available on the hotline.
This might be a first-ever, but I’m in agreement with Dennis Wagner, Dennis Tester, AND Joe Smith. I’m not a Minnesota native, and dislike the winters here, but it’s fair to say that this is an area that will see significant snow during the winter, and that snow will need to be moved, at least from the streets and sidewalks.
Given what my street looks like this morning out my front window, I have little confidence in the city’s ability to take over snow removal from individual homeowners or renters and do a decent job on sidewalks. My immediate neighbors and I are pretty good at getting out early and clearing the sidewalks before they get a chance to be compacted into a hazardous skating rink. At my local Cub in November, a show shovel could cost as little as $13, provides some exercise for the user, and is WAY less expensive than paying the city to do the job, especially if the city will butcher the task as described by Carol Olyphant. Even a plastic shovel – I favor those because of their light weight and my bad back – will generally last more than one season.
In the meantime, clean out your garage, and pay attention to city directions when it snows, as it does every winter. Move your car when it’s necessary so the plows can do what they’re supposed to do to make the streets usable by everyone. And finally, clear your sidewalk. I try to be diligent in reporting addresses that have made no effort to do so, but the city’s enforcement process for that doesn’t work very well, and it sometimes takes 2 weeks for there to be results. By then, we could be in a different season…
“reporting addresses that have made no effort to do so, but the city’s enforcement process for that doesn’t work very well” Agree 100%, 2 weeks, you are getting excellent results compared to around here! Still got folks been working on since December.
Agree with the comments about the translations in the 6 most common languages. Its all there. Its mailed to every resident and on the city site in the upper right corner for all to see. At this time and age of information technology there really is no excuse.
To Carolyn O and their experience. We live in a green zone, corner lot. We got the notice to0. We cleaned up and contacted the city with the proof.
2.5 weeks later a contractor crew showed up to clean our sidewalk! I politely told them to stop the work and contact the city. The crew leader looked at it and said “will do and we will report this site as property owner did work” and they packed up and moved to the next job down the street.