On February 8th the Town Council voted to pass an ordinance to establish a Municipal Court. This was the first step in the process. We will keep you updated on this issue and try to get answers to your questions.
We want to hear from all of you - below are some of your comments on this issue. Keep the comments coming! Click on this link to send us more comments
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Does anyone know what this will cost the tax payers?
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How much more money is THIS going to add to the Town's municipal budget? We'll have a court in Charlestown..... c'mon, are you kidding me? Our illustrious Town Councilors will not even let McDoanld's opena franchise in the area. Please!!
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It is a reasonable idea, depending on circumstances. Presently, Charlestown police write tickets and go to the state court. The town gets about $5 for every fine paid and the state gets the rest. So collecting $110 for a speeding ticket, the state gets $105 while Charlestown gets $5. Presently, the state pays police overtime if someone contests a ticket. A policeman showing up in court is given a minimum of 4 hours overtime. The state clerk usually books numerous appeals with that particular officer to be cost effective. Bringing the court in-house, Charlestown will pay each officer 4 hours overtime to be a witness against drivers.
Determining the court's cost effectiveness, you need to determine the amount of citations police write each month and figure out what percentage are contested. If the number is small, then you're best to leave it with the state. However, if you only have to pay 2 police officers 4 hours of overtime each totaling $240 and you collect fines on half of 50 tickets, the town could make a $2400 profit if the judge fines half of the 50 drivers and lets the other half walk based on the good driver's statute, etc.
One caution is that this can lead to ticket quotas. This has happened in many towns including Hopkinton. See link below on Hopkinton Police setting ticket quotas under the supervision of Bill DiLibero. We would not want our police officers pressured to write tickets for the purpose of balancing budget shortfalls, and not traffic safety. Nor do we want to impact businesses here with Charlestown getting a reputation being tough on visitors traveling here.
The municipal court can have jurisdiction over all parking offenses plus any moving violations except DUI refusal and criminal offenses (such as vehicular homicide) that are subject to district or superior court.
The story about ticket quotas in Hopkinton:
http://www.projo.com/news/content/BZ_HOPKINTON_TICKETS_04-1109_G6E0L25_v11.34f540f.html
The state municipal court compact:
http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE8/8-18/INDEX.HTM
A pdf file with a schedule of violations:
http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText10/HouseText10/H7235.pdf
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I can already see one job that's created by this...clerk of the court...Wonder who DiLibero has in mind for that one?
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Hello CCA,
Again the fingers do the walking here:
I would like to suggest that the Municipal Court could turn out to be a profitable endeavor for the town. Please lets not get so out of touch with things that we micro-manage every endeavor for the sake of micro-managing! How the council reaches this goal is consistently being inconsistent to their platform of open government "for" the people; however, that is another story. The task at hand is the formulation of a municipal court. I am not certain--so some research has to be done--but I believe that if a municipal court is in place for a town, then "all" the fine monies go to the town. Without one I believe that the state gets a large portion and the town gets a $5.00 processing fee for each ticket. The town of Westerly has had a municipal court for many years, I do not believe it would take too much research to find out how their system works and it is profitable. As for a ticket quota being formulated there is not any such process in place, however if one were to check with AAA they will find that there is a warning about speeding through Charlestown placed in their trip tickets. All the officers in the department are professionals and I am certain that the leadership would certainly not allow such a condition to exist; nor would its officers
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Do we really need to grow government in Charlestown by adding a municipal court? One of the reasons I left “The City” and moved to Charlestown in the 1990’s was to get away from the shenanigans of towns like Johnston. They created their municipal court system I believe, In the early 1990’s. They were notorious for writing tickets for going just a few miles over the limit. I would hate to see that same mentality adopted here in Charlestown. As it is now, South Kingstown’s police force is overly zealous in their pursuit of those cruising just 55 miles per hour on route 1 or 30 miles per hour on any other road. I know a few Charlestown Police officers and have watched them in action out on the roads over the years and I feel that they are operate in a fair and just manner. Regardless of what the powers that be say, I feel that our fine officers in Charlestown may come under pressure to operate in a manner such as South Kingstown’s .
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As a homeowner in Charlestown, I DO NOT MIND Charlestown possibly getting a reputation of being tough on visitors who speed. All the visitor has to do is OBEY the current speed laws that are posted all over our town. I do. Keeps everyone safe. Perhaps signs on either end of Rt 1 should be added such as "SPEED LIMITS STRICTLY ENFORCED" would help.
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It is hoped that the Town Manager will present all costs for creating a Town Court, not just projected salaries,vacations, but office space, computers, telephone etc. etc. and last but not least, the HEALTH/PENSION BENEFITS COST TO THE TAXPAYERS !!! I would not be surprised if the total cost for two qualified people would be in excess of $100,000 and could be $200,000 or more annually ?????
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