--- title: Minutes - Final --- 15 West Kellogg Blvd. ## Saint Paul, MN 55102 ## City of Saint Paul ## Minutes - Final ## Legislative Hearings ## Marcia Moermond, Legislative Hearing Officer ## Mai Vang, Hearing Coordinator ## Joanna Zimny, Executive Assistant legislativehearings@ci.stpaul.mn.us 651-266-8585 ## 9:00 AM ## Room 330 City Hall & Court House/Remote Thursday, May 14, 2026 9:00 a.m. Hearings ## Special Tax Assessments ## RLH TA 26-1101 Ratifying the Appealed Special Tax Assessment for property at 318 BAKER STREET EAST. (File No. CG25Q4B1, Assessment No. 260141) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Delete the assessment. No one appeared Staff report by Jillian Barden: the property owner reported there were no carts on site, and recently requested cards be delivered. We recommend removing the assessment. Moermond: recommend deletion. Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## RLH TA 26-1092 Ratifying the Appealed Special Tax Assessment for property at 317 ## DALY STREET. (File No. CG25Q4B2, Assessment No. 260142) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Approve the assessment. Elizabeth Eirwood, owner, appeared via phone [Moermond gives background of appeals process] Staff report by Jillian Barden: the property owner is disputing 9 extra bag charges from Quarter 4, 2025. FCC already agreed to reduce the count to 5 bags, however the property owner still disagrees with the bag count and says there was only one extra bag present on November 25th, and no extra bags on December 2nd. Staff doesn’t remember removing or reducing the assessment. Moermond: how do you count extra bags? Barden: any bags along side your cart, or 6” above the rim of the cart. Page 1 ## City of Saint Paul May 14, 2026Legislative HearingsMinutes - Final Moermond: if your cart lid won’t close properly, basically. What are you looking for today Ms. Eirwood? Eirwood: the photos they provided don’t reflect the 5 bags. One photo does show there is one bag on top, which I agree with. The other bags they are stating are there are hypothetical—one bag is barely showing above the bin—it is barely above the rim. Another they say is behind the bag you can see. It is very hard to tell if it is another bag, I think its more likely the loose top of a bag below. If there was another whole bag, the top wouldn’t be closed at all, that’s just physics. It would be keeping the lid all the way open. The other photo the bin is tipped over in the snow and the bag is spilled out. The problem is that again, it is hypothetical that that bag was above the top. Our neighbor does sometimes knock over the carts, as well as the recycling truck. Even the wind. There’s a lot of situations. It kind of feels like they see what they want to but not what is actually known. Moermond: one of the things I get to deal with is reviewing a lot of tall grass and weeds and estimating whether it is higher than 8” in a lawn, situations with snow and whether its been shoveled. You get used to looking at those photos. In this case I’m looking at bags and knowing the proportion of the red tie kitchen garbage bag. I do see 3 bags from the November photo that are above the 6” line. For me it isn’t hypothetical. With respect to the tipped over can, I do see 2 bags in that. I do think that count was correct. I also see the area isn’t shoveled, which I know would make a better flat surface for stabilizing the cart. I’m afraid today I can’t help you with lowering this. The Council may see it differently than I do though. Eirwood: okay. Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 10:00 a.m. Hearings ## RLH TA 26-1053 Ratifying the Appealed Special Tax Assessment for property at 877 ## ALBEMARLE STREET. (File No. CG25Q4B4, Assessment No. 260144) ## Sponsors: ## Bowie Reduce assessment from $113.19 to $58.47. No one appeared Staff report by Jillian Barden: this property owner had an every other week cart at the property, but we didn’t have cart information. Public Works then delivered a 64 gallon cart in July so the property could remain compliant with City requirements. The property owner then reached out stating she had been using every other week at the property and doesn’t know why the second, 64 gallon, cart showed up unrequested. Staff recommend reducing the assessment to $58.47. That is the rate of the every other week cart. Moermond: the reduction make sense, I’ll recommend that. Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## RLH TA 26-1074 Ratifying the Appealed Special Tax Assessment for property at 1158 Page 2 ## City of Saint Paul May 14, 2026Legislative HearingsMinutes - Final HAWTHORNE AVENUE EAST. (File No. CG25Q4B3, Assessment No. 260143) ## Sponsors: ## Yang Reduce the assessment from $35.13 to $18.29. Judith Marthaler, owner, appeared via phone [Moermond gives background of appeals process] Staff report by Jillian Barden: the property owner had requested a service hold for the dates of June 25, 2025 through November 25, 2025. The next time the property owner reached out was March 19 stating the refused to pay for the prorated Quarter 4 amount. April 29 the property owner reached out again stating she has never had a garbage cart. Staff delivered a 64 gallon cart on April 30th. Staff doesn’t recommend reducing or removing the assessment. Marthaler: I haven’t had a cart. I put my service on hold since I didn’t have cart so something was being collected. Moermond: so you didn’t have a cart when you called for the service hold? Marthaler: correct. Moermond: is this a single-family home? Marthaler: yes. Moermond: that’s unusual. And you have service now? Marthaler: they dropped of the cart and I received a bill January – March, even though it was on a service hold. When you contest something they start charging you apparently. Moermond: it sounds like the service hold just expired. Ms. Barden, through November 25th, did someone fill out a form requesting those dates? Barden: the property owner did. Moermond: so the property owner filled out the form using those dates. Barden: there was no mention of a missing cart at that time. Not until April 29th of this year. Moermond: you filled out a form asking through November 25th. Is there a time limit on that? Barden: up to six months. Moermond: this is a five month ask. I don’t know I have a lot of leeway on this Ms. Marthaler. I have the form filled out by you that you were looking through the end of November. This is a one month bill. Should she be on a smaller cart size? Barden: 64 gallon is what we had on file, so when she mentioned she didn’t have a cart Page 3 ## City of Saint Paul May 14, 2026Legislative HearingsMinutes - Final that’s what we delivered. Moermond: seems like moving forward we could trade that out for an every other week cart and then go back and adjust this downward. Is there another service hold moving forward? Barden: I don’t have anything on file. Marthaler: really? I don’t believe that’s correct. Moermond: we can get that squared away. If she would have had an every other week cart at that time what would the bill be? In the meantime, what do you do with your garbage ma’am? Marthaler: I cart share. Barden: $18.29. Moermond: since the form was filled out to the end of November we’ll have the bill reduced from a 64 gallon charge to the smallest level, which is 35 gallons every other week. 1/3 of that is $18.29. You are cart sharing, and there is a way to do this to get this reduced further. Ms. Barden, can you talk about that? Barden: we can switch it out to the every other week cart to reduce is down to 58.47 and it is 61.08 in Quarter 2. Cart sharing is only for multi family homes, not for single-family home. Moermond: practically speaking what would she need to do to trade that cart out? Barden: if she puts her cart out on her regular collection day, it would be switched out next Thursday. Moermond: put that out, they’ll give you a purple lid. That’s the smallest service we can provide. In the meantime I’ll recommend that reduction. Ms. Barden will email you the service hold form. Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 5 ## RLH TA 26-111 Ratifying the Appealed Special Tax Assessment for property at 679 ## HOYT AVENUE WEST. (File No. CG25Q4B3, Assessment No. 260143) ## Sponsors: ## Kim Layover to LH May 28th, 2026 at 10 am (unable to reach PO). Voicemail left: this is Marcia Moermond from St. Paul City Council calling Marguerite DeSpain about an appeal for garbage hauling services at 679 West Hoyt. We’ll try you back in a little bit. Voicemail left: this is Marcia Moermond from St. Paul City Council calling you again about your appealed special assessment at 679 West Hoyt. I’ll continue this to May 28th and we’ll reach out to you around 10 am and hopefully connect with you then. Laid Over to the Legislative Hearings due back on 5/28/2026 Page 4 ## City of Saint Paul May 14, 2026Legislative HearingsMinutes - Final ## RLH TA 26-1066 Ratifying the Appealed Special Tax Assessment for property at 39 MAGNOLIA AVENUE EAST. (File No. CG25Q4B4, Assessment No. 260144) ## Sponsors: ## Kim Approve the assessment. Char Mays, owner, appeared via phone [Moermond gives background of appeals process] Staff report by Jillian Barden: the property owner purchased the home on June 13, 2025 and the property has been vacant the entire time. However the property owner didn’t reach out until January 2026 to place a service hold on the account and requested we backdate the hold to June. Service hold requirements state we cannot backdate a hold and need at least two weeks notice to become effective. Staff doesn’t recommend removing or reducing the assessment. Mays: we are fixing it up still. Probably another 8 months left. We ran into some mold issues we didn’t expect. We have a dumpster, so we haven’t used the service. I thought we had to start the service, this is our first property in St. Paul. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future. It took a while before we received the mail and as soon as I saw it I called to try and rectify. Moermond: you purchased in June. We’d be talking about the first invoice--- Mays: the first one I guess we paid with taxes, I wasn’t even aware of that. I was going to appeal both but that’s what she said, it was already paid. I said to keep that, didn’t ask for a refund. Moving forward we’d like to not pay anything after that. Moermond: the City didn’t know to NOT send a truck to the house. Someone was there to pick it up had there been any. That’s kind of what I’m stuck with. I’m glad you have the hold in place now, but I really am stuck because the back dating piece isn’t something I feel comfortable doing. The Council may see it differently, but my recommendation to them will be to approve the assessment. Mays: I would like to talk to them. I already paid for service in June we didn’t even use. This would be for January through March, I’m thinking? We put that hold in for January. We shouldn’t have to pay for service we didn’t use. Moermond: that sounds good. Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## Special Tax Assessments-ROLLS ## RLH AR 26-367 Ratifying the assessment for the City’s cost of providing Collection of Delinquent Garbage Bills for services during October to December 2025. ## (File No. CG25Q4B1, Assessment No. 260141) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Page 5 ## City of Saint Paul May 14, 2026Legislative HearingsMinutes - Final Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## RLH AR 26-378 Ratifying the assessment for the City’s cost of providing Collection of Delinquent Garbage Bills for services during October to December 2025. ## (File No. CG25Q4B2, Assessment No. 260142) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## RLH AR 26-389 Ratifying the assessment for the City’s cost of providing Collection of Delinquent Garbage Bills for services during October to December 2025. ## (File No. CG25Q4B3, Assessment No. 260143) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## RLH AR 26-3910 Ratifying the assessment for the City’s cost of providing Collection of Delinquent Garbage Bills for services during October to December 2025. ## (File No. CG25Q4B4, Assessment No. 260144) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## RLH AR 26-4011 Ratifying the assessment for the City’s cost of providing Collection of Delinquent Garbage Bills for services during October to December 2025. ## (File No. CG25Q4B5, Assessment No. 260145) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 ## RLH AR 26-4112 Ratifying the assessment for the City’s cost of providing Collection of ## Delinquent Yard Waste Bills for services during October to December ## 2025. (File No. YW25Q4B1, Assessment No. 260500) ## Sponsors: ## Noecker Referred to the City Council due back on 6/17/2026 Page 6 ## City of Saint Paul