Court
of Appeals Office of Appellate Courts
Lori
Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and Jody
Winters, Lester Prairie City Attorney, Amber R. Donley,
Assistant City Attorney, Glencoe, Minnesota, for appellant.
Ted
Sampsell-Jones, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, Saint Paul,
Minnesota, for respondent.
Lori
Swanson, Attorney General, Michael Everson, Assistant
Attorney General, for amicus curiae The Minnesota Attorney
General.
Aaron
Van Oort, Faegre Baker Daniels, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for
amicus curiae The Appellate Practice Section of the Minnesota
State Bar Association.
Chutich, J. Took no part, Hudson, J.
SYLLABUS
1. To
determine whether a respondent's conviction is supported
by sufficient evidence, an appellate court must first
determine the meaning of the ordinance under which the
respondent was convicted.
2. The
plain language of Lester Prairie Municipal Code section
5.5.1.2 (2014) prohibits a person from keeping a junked or
abandoned vehicle or other scrap metal on her property for
longer than 30 days without a special use permit.
3. The
State presented sufficient evidence to prove that respondent
violated Lester Prairie Municipal Code section 5.5.1.2
because she kept an abandoned vehicle on her property for
longer than 30 days without a special use permit.
Reversed
and remanded.
OPINION
CHUTICH, Justice.
Respondent
Renee Anita Vasko was convicted of a petty misdemeanor for
violating Lester Prairie Municipal Code ("LPMC")
section 5.5.1.2 (2014), which prohibits keeping certain
causes of blight on a person's property. A divided panel
of the court of appeals reversed. State v. Vasko,
No. 15-1172, 2016 WL 1551666, at *2 (Minn.App. Apr. 18,
2016). The court of appeals held that the Lester Prairie
ordinance was ambiguous and resolved the ambiguity in favor
of Vasko. Under its interpretation of the ordinance, the
court of appeals concluded that the State did not present
sufficient evidence to prove Vasko's guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt.
For the
reasons that follow, we hold that Lester Prairie Municipal
Code section 5.5.1.2 is not ambiguous. Based on its plain
language, it prohibits a person from keeping a junked or
abandoned vehicle or other scrap metal on her property for
longer than 30 days without a special use permit. We further
hold that the State presented sufficient evidence to prove
that Vasko violated section 5.5.1.2 by keeping an abandoned
vehicle on her property for longer than 30 days without a
special use permit. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of
the court of appeals and remand to the court of appeals for
consideration of Vasko's remaining arguments on appeal.
I.
Vasko
owns property in the city of Lester Prairie. Lester
Prairie's municipal code prohibits certain blight
conditions on residents' property, including the open
storage of unregistered or inoperative motor vehicles.
See LPMC §§ 5.5.1.2, 5.5.1.3 (2014).
During a routine blight inspection on September 5, 2014,
Lester Prairie Chief of Police Robert Carlson saw a maroon
Oldsmobile parked in Vasko's front yard. The car's
registration tabs had expired in 2012. Chief Carlson
determined that the car violated the Lester Prairie blight
ordinance.
Chief
Carlson attempted to contact Vasko. He knocked on the door of
the house, but no one answered. He sent a notice regarding an
ordinance violation through the regular mail but received no
reply. On September 11, he sent a notice by certified mail,
but it was returned undelivered. Finally, on September 29,
Chief Carlson posted a notice on the door of Vasko's
house.
The
notice stated that the car was in violation of the blight
ordinance, instructed Vasko to remedy the condition within 10
days, and informed her that the city would tow the car if it
remained in her yard "after thirty (30) days of
service." It made no representations as to whether Vasko
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