PAGEDALE, Mo. (CN) - Missouri resident Valarie Whitner lives in fear, but not of violence - fear of another ticket for chipped paint on a downspout, or for not having a screen on her back door.
Such is life in Pagedale, a tiny municipality barely more than a mile long in north St. Louis County.
But if the federal lawsuit filed last week by Whitner and fellow Pagedale residents is successful, that could change not only in Pagedale, but for tens of thousands of people living in cash-strapped municipalities throughout north St. Louis County.
Whitner and co-plaintiff Vincent Blount say they have been fined a total of $2,800 for ordinance violations in their Pagedale home. They were ticketed for having chipping paint on a downspout, for not having a screen door on the back door, and for having weeds in their vegetable garden.
As the fines mount, they have less and less to spend on the upkeep of their home. They have lived in Pagedale for 18 years and have three children. Their fellow plaintiff Mildred Bryant is 84 and has lived in Pagedale for 46 years.
Statistics show they are not alone. As the fallout from the Ferguson and Michael Brown protests continues, smaller municipalities that once relied on traffic tickets to balance their budgets have looked for other ways to bring in money - often on the backs of their citizens.
Similar lawsuits against St. Louis County cities that targeted minority drivers for traffic tickets have forced police department reforms in that area.
Joshua House, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, who represents Whitner, Blount and Bryant, calls it "taxation through citation."
The lawsuit claims that the number of non-traffic municipal fines issued by Pagedale has increased by nearly 500 percent in the past five years, and that revenue from non-traffic tickets makes up almost 20 percent of the city's budget.
Pagedale's population of 3,307 is 93 percent black and its unemployment rate is about 7 percent, according to city-data.com. The median income is $29,686; more than $17,000 below the state average and the per capita income in 2013 was $13,622.
So the fines hit extra hard in Pagedale.
"We've met people who said they couldn't afford the paint to paint their fence," House told Courthouse News. "I guess wood wasn't good enough (for Pagedale)."
Pagedale's city code allows residents to be ticketed for having mismatched curtains, walking on the left-hand side of a crosswalk, wearing pants below the waist, holes in window screens, and having a barbeque in front of a house. The city has even ticketed residents for things that aren't illegal, such as having a small crack in a front walk, chipping paint on a building foundation, or an unpainted wood fence, according to the complaint.
House said the city's need for money creates an unconstitutional incentive for Pagedale's prosecutors and municipal court to convict defendants, and creates a substantial risk of bias and prejudgment.
If the lawsuit succeed, it could have consequences region-wide.
According to the 2012 census of governments, there are 387 governmental entities in St. Louis County. Of those, 89 are municipalities, and almost 50 of those are cash-strapped mostly black municipalities in north St. Louis County.
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