St. Paul City Council mulling end to mayor's emergency declaration

After operating in a state of emergency for nearly two years, some members of the St. Paul City Council say they are preparing to sunset the pandemic declaration that gives Mayor Melvin Carter the authority to unilaterally enact certain regulations.

After unanimously voting Feb. 9 to extend Carter's emergency declaration until March 13, the council is considering plans to transition back to St. Paul's regular governance model. Such a move would end the emergency executive orders the mayor issued to rapidly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This is becoming less of a brand new situation and more of the new normal that we're all dealing with," Council Member Rebecca Noecker said. "Emergency orders are just that — they're for periods of emergency. They also detract from our democratic way of making decisions because … they take power away from our legislative body — the council — where we have the ability to hear from constituents, we have the ability to deliberate on ideas, we have the ability to formulate policy that responds."

The conversation comes nearly eight months after DFL Gov. Tim Walz ended the statewide COVID-19 peacetime emergency following an almost yearlong political battle with Republican lawmakers, who argued local governments should be able to make their own decisions about mask rules and other mandates.

Council President Amy Brendmoen said Carter's recently rescinded vaccine-or-test mandate for bars and restaurants was a "catalyst" for the conversation in St. Paul. Council members have said they were given little notice of the mayor's plans to roll out the requirement and found themselves fielding questions and criticism from constituents about a policy they didn't design.

Brendmoen and other council members said they would want to enact laws that extend or make some of the mayor's pandemic policies permanent before they'd feel comfortable letting the emergency declaration expire.

In an interview Wednesday, Carter he and the council are "100% in lockstep in a goal to unwind ourselves from a constant state of emergency as soon as possible."

"Thankfully, we don't have people at City Hall who — like we saw at the Capitol — are going to play political games with the pandemic while it's still impacting countless lives across our city and across our planet," Carter said.

But while the mayor appeared dubious that St. Paul would be ready to end its emergency declaration in the coming weeks, Brendmoen said she could see a vote to let the measure expire happening as soon as next month.

"We need to sort a few things out before that could happen," Brendmoen said. "My preference is always to do those things in partnership with the mayor's office."

Noting that St. Paul's city government is set up to give the mayor more authority than the council, she added: "I think the recent concentration of so much decision-making power in the mayor's office has compounded an already challenging governance system for us."

If the mayor's current declaration expires, Carter could declare a new emergency. A local emergency in St. Paul may not continue longer than three days unless council gives its consent, according to city code.

In Minneapolis, a handful of City Council members in June accused Mayor Jacob Frey of overstepping his COVID-19 emergency powers to unilaterally approve a contract with the Agape Movement, a community group hired to help provide security during the clearing of George Floyd Square. Minneapolis voters in November approved a charter change that strengthened the mayor's authority and prohibited council members from interfering with supervision of most city departments.

In a statement Friday, Frey spokesperson Tara Niebeling said: "As key health metrics are heading in the right direction, Mayor Frey is reviewing the data and carefully considering plans to end the emergency declaration in coordination with public health experts."

In St. Paul, council members have widely applauded the mayor for his leadership through the pandemic, particularly in its early stages, when Carter issued a swift series of emergency executive orders aimed at supporting struggling residents and businesses.

For instance, the mayor's orders made the licensing process easier for restaurants looking to open outdoor dining areas. One waived a signature requirement for zoning petitions, while another ensured that non-union city employees could take emergency pandemic leave.

"These are all things that I've been very supportive of, that have really served our community well and that I appreciate," Council Member Jane Prince said at a meeting earlier this month. In an interview, she added that a shift back to St. Paul's normal governance structure could put city workers at the forefront of a return to a more vibrant, bustling downtown.

Others, like Council Member Mitra Jalali, are wary of relinquishing the city's ability to respond to the pandemic without having to go through the three-week process it typically takes the council to pass ordinances.

"To me, as long as this public crisis is underway, I do think we're going to need the ability to respond to it quickly," Jalali said. "I want our actual city government, in whatever avenue it can get, to have the ability to take care of people."

Council Member Chris Tolbert echoed those sentiments, saying: "The one thing that I feel has continued to be lost in the emergency orders is the underlying reasoning of the restrictions, which were meant to limit the spread of a highly contagious variant and help our hospitals."

As of Thursday, Ramsey County reported roughly 260 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents in the previous seven days, a sharp decline from the nearly 1,900 recorded in late January. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers counties with more than 100 infections per 100,000 residents to be "high transmission" areas, and Carter has cited this metric as one of the data points informing his decision to continue to mandate mask wearing in city-licensed businesses.

"We just need to keep our plan flexible," said Council Member Dai Thao, who said he is open to the idea of letting the Carter's declaration expire because the council could approve a new declaration if future circumstances required one. "We don't have a lot of answers with COVID, and we don't know what's going to happen next."