PAGEDALE • A public interest law firm is suing in federal court in St. Louis to stop Pagedale from incessantly ticketing residents for things such as high grass, mismatched curtains and sagging pants — a lawsuit spurred by a Post-Dispatch article that highlighted the city’s practices.
The civil rights suit, filed on Wednesday by the Institute for Justice’s office in Washington state, is seeking class action status. The lead plaintiffs are Valarie Whitner and Vincent Blount, who were featured in the newspaper article after facing an onslaught of violation notices from the city for minor housing code offenses at their home on St. Charles Rock Road.
When Whitner and Blount couldn’t keep up with the repairs and fines, Pagedale officials threatened to demolish their home of nearly 20 years, while acknowledging it presented no public safety threat and was merely a nuisance.
The Institute for Justice, which began investigating the situation, found Pagedale’s reliance on revenue from court fines led to “an unprecedented governmental intrusion into the homes of its residents,” according to the lawsuit.
Notably, Pagedale has focused its enforcement efforts on the types of code violations that are not regulated by the municipal court reform measure passed to rein in abusive ticketing. The newspaper found that the city had issued 2,255 citations for these types of nontraffic offenses last year — or nearly two per household. That’s a nearly 500 percent increase from five years ago, according to an analysis of state court data.
Residents can be ticketed for a long list of “violations” that anywhere else are considered life’s small pleasures — barbecuing in the front yard, for example, or having a beer within 150 feet of the grill.
The fines from nontraffic violations are not subject to the tighter revenue limits established for municipalities.
“If we are successful, we’re hoping to see the city stop relying — or unduly relying — on fines and fees from the tickets it issues,” said William Maurer, a managing attorney at the public interest law firm and one of the lawyers who filed the suit.
The goal, he said, “is to change the city’s approach to its residents. It’s not designed to get damages, it’s not designed to punish the city. The idea here is the city has to stop violating its residents’ constitutional rights.”
Sam Alton, Pagedale’s city attorney, disputed on Wednesday many of the claims in the lawsuit.
“Both the lawsuit, and any perception that these people are being treated unfairly, is unfortunate,” he said. “The city is doing everything it can within the boundaries of the law to make sure that properties within the city are code compliant and do not present any type of danger or risk to the residents of the city.”
Blount, 55, and Whitner, 56, said that every time they fixed one thing on their home, the city would find another reason to cite them.
The court fines and fees have cost the couple $1,810. Whitner, who works nights at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, had to take out a payday loan to pay the fines, the lawsuit said. Blount, a former Marine who is unemployed, has been ticketed for code violations at the home — even though, the suit notes, he isn’t even an owner of it.
The couple told the newspaper they would move if they could but had used their savings to put their three children through college.
After the Institute, and Michael Lanahan, of the Bryan Cave law firm, who is local counsel, became involved, the city took the couple’s home off the demolition list. But officials reserved the right to reclassify it as a nuisance if needed.
Alton said Blount and Whitner’s home had been out of compliance with city code for many years now.
“The city is simply attempting to get these individuals to bring their property up to code like everyone else,” he said. “If they just work with the city, and just do something minimally every month, those fines will be abated.”
Another named plaintiff is Mildred Bryant, 84, who is retired. A recent notice from the city required more than a dozen improvements to her home, including repainting it and having matching curtains or other window treatments, according to the suit.
The lawsuit says Pagedale uses tickets and fines for conditions that should be subject to abatement proceedings.
“And that presupposes that there’s actually something there that needs to be abated,” said Maurer. “Simply saying a harmless condition on somebody’s house is now a nuisance doesn’t make it a nuisance.”
It accuses the city of regulating things that aren’t even written into code — such as cracks in driveways or unstained fences — and citing residents for inapplicable parts of the code.
When the attorneys held an open house in August to discuss the city’s actions, about 20 residents showed up, Maurer said.
“I suspect a big chunk of Pagedale falls into the class,” Maurer said.
Alton said that the city was not using the demolition process as a threat and that “to say that something is unconstitutional or illegal — I’d have to see the specific allegations about that — but until there is a finding that a specific violation in the code is unconstitutional or illegal, well, frankly, it’s not.”
