Across the north metro area, several elected officials have been censured. Here’s what that means.

The last time the Blaine City Council voted to censure a member was in 1988. The Robbinsdale school board didn’t have any record of a member being censured in the past two decades. And Brooklyn Park had never placed a censure on a council member.

But that has now changed. Across the north metro in recent months, all of those governing bodies took the rare action and officially reprimanded members of their boards.

The Brooklyn Park City Council has voted to censure two of its six members, Boyd Morson and Maria Tran, over claims of inappropriate behavior. The Robbinsdale school board in August reprimanded member Sharon Brooks as an investigation revealed a high level of dysfunction on the board. The Blaine City Council in October agreed to censure Lori Saroya after an outside investigation substantiated claims she disrespected staff.

And in Lino Lakes, the council in September voted to censure Council Member Chris Lyden for applauding an email with anti-Muslim comments. He argued he did not deserve the action. Before that, the last time a council member was censured in the city was in 2017.

“I’ve been in government for a long time, and it’s a very rare thing. It’s a serious thing,” Jim Scheibel, a former St. Paul mayor and adjunct professor at Hamline University, said of the string of censures. “It can be very appropriate, also. We’re in a time of very heightened tension in government at all levels, at the federal level and, this is an indication, at the local government level.”

Scheibel and others who keep an eye on local politics said many residents are unfamiliar with what the public reprimand means. There’s also been confusion among some elected officials on their options for taking such a vote of no confidence, as it is not spelled out in many municipal codes.

“I would guess most people don’t know what a censure means or what it does,” said Amber Eisenschenk, research manager with the League of Minnesota Cities.

Brooklyn Park did not have specific rules for how to censure an official until 2017, when the City Council was starkly divided and embroiled with controversy.

The tension at the time, which included the high-profile resignation of the fire chief and claims a council member created a hostile environment, led the council to revise its code of conduct. Council members agreed on a clear path for how to censure a city official.

Those rules weren’t used until 2022, when Morson was censured for the first time after an employee claimed he harassed her. The council voted to censure Morson again this past spring over claims that he disrespected staff and displayed inappropriate behavior online. He has denied the allegations and said he feels he is being retaliated against for speaking out about city issues.

The council earlier this year also reprimanded Tran, saying she violated city code — leaving one-third of the body under censure.

Since adopting the new code of conduct, Brooklyn Park spokeswoman Risikat Adesaogun said other cities “have reached out to us in the past year or so to ask how we approached censures.”

It’s unknown territory for some cities, Eisenschenk said, as “censure” is not defined under state law and is not contemplated in many city codes.

“A censure is the majority’s way of saying we don’t agree with something you’ve done or said, usually something done in public,” Eisenschenk said. “It is used in a rare circumstance, in a framework where members of governing bodies generally don’t have authority or control over each other’s actions or ways to punish actions.”

A felony conviction can disqualify elected officials from holding office. But governing bodies cannot remove members.

Many cities do not have a path to recalling an elected official. (Cities that operate under their own charters may have recall provisions.) Along with a censure, some governing bodies have imposed restrictions on members, such as barring an elected official from speaking with staff or removing them from committee assignments. But it is up to voters to decide at the ballot box whether to keep officials in office.

In the November election, residents in Brooklyn Park and Blaine voted out two of those council members, Morson and Saroya respectively. Saroya has defended her actions and argued she was unfairly targeted by the council for voicing concerns.

At the county level, Anoka County Commissioner Mandy Meisner previously pushed for the board to implement a code of ethics as a former commissioner was accused of harassment. She believes more municipalities should have a formal process for handling such complaints.

“I don’t think it should be taken flippantly,” she said. “Having a formal process with best practices in place ensures it is truly objective.”

Working with cities across the state, Eisenschenk said anecdotally she hears of roughly three officials being censured each year on average, and that has stayed consistent.

The Columbia Heights City Council in 2022 voted to censure one of its members who was accused of making a racist phone call to a biracial candidate. That same year, the Robbinsdale City Council agreed to censure a member facing charges in a drunken driving crash.

But some local leaders say the number of officials currently under censure in the region is unusually high. The reasons behind each censure vary, but some speculate that the recent actions could demonstrate a trend in local politics.

“I don’t think it’s coincidental,” Blaine Council Member Terra Fleming said. “I think it’s indicative of where our society is going, the lack of respect for authority and just feeling as if you’re able to say whatever the heck you want.”

Scheibel said a censure is a serious action and he doesn’t see officials “taking these actions lightly. Elected officials generally don’t like tension and try to avoid it.”