City attorney warns code cleanup is needed to avoid magistrate-court dismissals

A member of the public identified in the meeting as Miss Sullivan questioned why the city was adding magistrate-court citation language for zoning and code enforcement when officers historically used municipal court. She said she had not seen a history of zoning citations in magistrate court and asked why the change was necessary.

The City Attorney replied that municipal practice must align with state law: “state law actually prohibits a municipality from siding into magistrate court unless there's a statute or an ordinance that expressly states that.” He said that, in several places, the city code currently sets fines or jurisdiction inconsistently with state law and that a defense attorney could move to dismiss citations not properly authorized. Legal staff said they found several ordinance sections with fine amounts (some written as $1,000) that require redrafting to the constitutionally allowed $500 threshold for lower courts and that the city would publish notices of intent to adopt corrective ordinances.

Council and staff agreed to combine cleanup changes in a single publication and to return final ordinance language at a subsequent meeting. The legal office said it continues to comb the code to identify other inconsistent provisions and will coordinate publication timing with the clerk.