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Conversations in South St. Paul - Ep. 9 | Kori Land - City Attorney

South St. Paul City CouncilMonday, December 15, 2025
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City Attorney discusses municipal legal challenges with council

Economic Development and Redevelopment Projects in South St. Paul

Guidance and Considerations for Aspiring Municipal Elected Officials

Full Document Analysis

Notable Quotes (8)

My favorite part about prosecuting, and this is going to sound really odd, I didn't like the DUIs. I didn't like the domestic assaults and all the traffic things. I liked solving the problem properties. So, the nuisance violations when you had had code violations, those affect people. They affect the people that live there obviously that are creating the code violation, but it affects the city staff. It affects the neighborhood. And those really spoke to me on how you can immediately make a difference in an entire neighborhood if you get to clean up a property, right?

The Evolving Role of the City Attorney in Municipal Government

A city may have eight different widgets, right, that they're making because you have police, fire, you have engineering, public works that are doing roads and sewer and water, right? Uh you have park and recck department that's trying to, you know, make people happy with parks. And then you have admin and all of the things that go along with just administration of government, not to mention the elected officials. That's a whole another layer of people.

The Evolving Role of the City Attorney in Municipal Government

Those are some of the toughest conversations, the gray ones, the gray areas. And and they're not always gray. They're just difficult. Um because you have two neighbors that are going at it and you they're they're talking to their council representatives and they want somebody to solve their problem and not every problem is the city's problem to solve and that's a tough u acceptance.

The Evolving Role of the City Attorney in Municipal Government

So, that project was so challenging because it had it was so many different lots. First of all, it it's not like it was just a parking ramp lot, right? It had never been like platted. And so it was all these tiny well it would have been plotted 100 years ago but it was these tiny little lots or portions of them and there were vacations of streets in them or sometimes there were streets that had not been vacated in them. And then we discovered that actually um the HUD had a a encumbrance on them accidentally.

Navigating Complex Economic Development: The Yards and The Backyards Project

Um Ryan and Garcia was amazing in that role. He was just the perfect fit at the right time. Yeah. To put that together and to he had the right personality to keep all the parties at the table because it so many times developers will get too frustrated and walk away. Right. It's just too hard.

Navigating Complex Economic Development: The Yards and The Backyards Project

First of all, you're one of seven so you don't make any decisions on your own and only time decisions can be made is when you're all in the room so I think that's a key thing to to recognize is that you can't go out in public and say I'll make that happen uh I'll see what I can do u because you're one of seven.

Guidance for Aspiring Elected Officials and the Public's Role in Municipal Government

Um you have to have a more global sense of responsibility to your community. Truly believe in your community, not just I want this or I see a problem with this. Can't be a one-stop shop. It it needs to be a bigger goal.

Guidance for Aspiring Elected Officials and the Public's Role in Municipal Government

Um I think I would ask the public and the residents to just give a little bit more grace to the council and to staff and even to my office. Um it it sometimes feels like everybody is is accusing um the council of hiding information or not saying things and they should be more um transparent, right? That's a favorite word. we need to be more transparent. Um that there might be a reason why we can't fully disclose or we need to redact or we can't share information about things.

Guidance for Aspiring Elected Officials and the Public's Role in Municipal Government

Ordinances & Resolutions (5)

ordinancesOther

General term for city laws that the city attorney helps craft and ensure are enforceable.

charter cityOther

Legal classification of South St. Paul, implying additional specific rules and governance structures beyond general state law.

Open Meeting LawOther

State law that dictates how public governmental bodies must conduct meetings, posing transparency challenges for council members.

Data Practices ActOther

State law governing access to government data, another complex rule for elected officials and city staff.

HUD encumbranceOther

An accidental legal claim by Housing and Urban Development on city lots, which required significant effort to release for The Yards project.

Transcript