My operational definition of works for CSV data has never had to include records with internal newlines. Also, a test on one batch of sample data just works now so either I was doing something incorrect in the past or this sample is somehow more correct than the previous samples. The second scenario is entirely possible since my current data only covers a few portions of Minneapolis while previous data has been constrained to Hennepin county (Minneapolis and some suburbs), just Minneapolis or all of Minnesota.

So... Text::CSV_XS is working flawlessly right now for me though past experience has had me switch to the plain-perl Text::CSV.