The city of St. Paul has agreed to drop legal efforts to block the state of Minnesota from taking over food, swimming pool and lodging health inspections.
Alarmed by inaccuracies in the city's inspection reports, the Minnesota Department of Health and Minnesota Department of Agriculture terminated a longstanding "delegation" agreement with St. Paul on July 8 and began using state health inspectors to license the city's 2,100 restaurants, grocers, delis, food trucks, pools and hotels.
St. Paul responded by filing a request for a temporary restraining order against both departments in Ramsey County District Court, but Judge Elena Ostby denied the motion on July 12.
The legal to-and-fro is over. On Thursday, Assistant City Attorney Daphne Lundstrom signed a legal stipulation to dismiss "all claims raised by the (city) against defendants ... without costs, disbursements or fees to any party." The agreement also is signed by Assistant State Attorney General Jackson Evans.
City Hall officials say they have no plans to pursue additional legal action, despite the state ending a tradition of city-run health inspections dating back more than a century. The city continues to inspect and license other businesses, such as tobacco, liquor, fuel, entertainment and sidewalk cafes.
Joe Campbell, a spokesman for St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, said the city remains concerned by all of the issues it previously raised with the state, including allegations the state violated a two-year agreement that allowed the city to continue to inspect businesses while adding more staffing and training. The conditional agreement was adopted last November.
State officials say business inspections have always been a state function, but they've allowed some cities to conduct their own under "delegation" agreements, to which they maintain St. Paul failed to comply. Minneapolis, Hopkins and St. Louis Park also fared badly in state reviews that began in 2010.
Minneapolis responded with signifigant changes that included moving its inspections duties out of the city's licensing division and into its Health Department. In the past two years, Hopkins and St. Louis Park voluntarily ended their programs and allowed Hennepin County to assume responsibility for inspections.
St. Paul took a third approach. After failing a top-to-bottom evaluation of its food, pool and lodging inspections last summer, St. Paul devoted more than $720,000 and seven new employees to the department to help comply with state standards. Instead, the city was forced this month to issue layoff notices to 13 of the 15 inspectors and supervisors in that division of the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections.
Two employees have been retained to help as part of a "transition team," which includes former supervisor Gary Edwards.
Coleman, in a letter to 2,100 establishments this week, said Edwards "will act as a liaison between the city and the state to track the progress on new business applications and expansions."
On Thursday, Department of Health Commissioner Ed Ehlinger and Department of Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson said they were not opposed to the idea of St. Paul hiring a business advocate, though they've had no conversations with the city about what role Edwards might play.
What was clear was that the commissioners did not foresee Edwards having any authority over inspections. During inspections, Ehlinger said, "our interaction is with the businesses" and not with St. Paul.
"They have really no statutory ability to inject an ombudsman into this process," Frederickson said.
Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.
Source: http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_23733234/st-paul-gives-up-legal-fight-save-food
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