The Saint Paul City Council met on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, at 3:33 PM in the Council Chambers. The meeting was called to order by Council President Rebecca Noecker, with all seven council members present. The agenda included consent items, a contested minimum wage violation, an ordinance on tree preservation for city projects, several public hearings on budget amendments and grants, and a legislative hearing consent agenda.
Item 17 – RES 26-837: Minimum Wage Violation by Class A Valet, Inc.
Item 24 – Ordinance 25-4: Tree Preservation for City Sponsored Projects
Public Hearings (Items 25–30)
Legislative Hearing Consent Agenda (Items 31–38)
Some people made it out of the question. All right. Call the meeting of the St. Paul City Council to order. Roll call, please. Kim. Here. Yang. Here. Bowie. Here. Coleman. Here, Johnson. Here, Jose. And Council President Naker. Here. That is seven present, none absent. Welcome everyone, and thank you so much for joining us for our city council meeting today. We invite everyone to join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God. Indivisible liberty and justice for all. Consent agenda items four through 23 are before you for your consideration. I know we are pulling number 17 from consent. Is there anything else to be taken from the consent agenda? Seeing none, I'll take a motion from Vice President Yang for the balance of the consent agenda. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Seven in favor, none opposed. The consent agenda is adopted as amended. Item 17, resolution 26-837, finding that the Class A Valet Inc. violated St. Paul Legislative Code, Chapter 224 and imposing restitution in the amount of 21,658 dollars. And I wanted to pull this item off of consent because this is a really important action that the city is taking. It's not one that often comes to the city council, normally because we have employers who are more responsive to our human rights and equal economic opportunity department. And in this case, that did not happen. So wanted to welcome folks from our uh human rights department to say a little bit more about uh what we are seeing here and why this is in front of us. Thanks, Council President Andrea Ledger, uh, the interim director of the Hero Department, joined by our assistant city attorney, Libby uh Cantner, who's going to do the bulk of the presentation, but I'm happy to answer any policy questions that you have. Welcome, Ms. Kenner. Thank you, Council President, Council members. Uh, Libby Cantner, as uh Director Ledger said with the City Attorney's Office. Um, so today we are bringing to you the first uh minimum wage violation that's been before the city council. As you may know or remember, the minimum wage ordinance was adopted in 2018. Um but the majority of the complaints that the department receives are resolved through predetermination settlement agreements with the employer. Um these are agreements where the employer, hero and the complainants work together to correct their wage violations and issue back pay to employees. They sometimes even enter into monitoring and compliance agreements with these employers to make sure that the employers continue following the rules going forward. But in this case, we have a situation where the employer has not been willing to work with Hero, and we are hoping to bring this to a council vote today to increase uh procedural protections, transparency, and council oversight. Uh, to be clear, the role of hero is to investigate the complaints and make findings on whether the ordinance was violated, and then the role of the city council is to adopt those findings or not, and impose or not impose the restitution amount. So class A valet is the contracted valet parking services company that previously operated out with a restaurant in the city of St.