Pretty embarrassing, eh? When your police department starts nosing around in old desk drawers and finds 3,173 unpaid tickets?
See the article and the comments at www.dailyherald.com/article/20110128/news/701289876/
What should Island Lake P.D. and Village management do now?
Well, first of all, make a plan. So far, it sounds like they are putting the cart before the horse by identifying a collection agency (and an out-of-town one, at that. TekCollect is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. What? No local business that could handle the collection?
Isn't there an inventory of ticket numbers? How could someone not "notice" that there were (how many?) drawers full of old tickets?
I'll bet that many of them will end up being non-collectable. Should Island Lake draw a line and just void all that are older than 6-12 months? Or maybe just void all of them? What kind of tickets are there? Are they parking and other local ordinance tickets?
Put a trusted employee (is there one?) to work creating a spreadsheet: date of issue, name, violation, officer. That might be enough for starters. Look for a pattern. The pattern will help the Village and the Chief decide what to do next.
If they think they are embarrassed now, they are quite likely to be more embarrassed if they don't create a solid plan right now.
Maybe the public should be informed just how these tickets surfaced, and whether any officers complained previously that there were lots of unpaid tickets in drawers.
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6 comments:
Someone’s head should roll. Even the most antiquated accounting methods should have shown this deficit. Based upon about $10.00 each that is over $31,000 in unpaid fines. One squad car, one part time officer, a whole lot of road salt, the list goes on.
Brilliant!!
I hope whatever the Mayor, present Board, and Police Chief decide to do, regarding these recently discovered "unpaid" tickets...everyone should be mindful of this town's MEDIA reputation...and the resident's who live here and businesses who are trying to survive here.
Maybe a special PUBLIC meeting should be held, in order to formulate a plan, and approach...that everyone can support and work towards accomplishing. The concerns of everyone must be recognized and publicly addressed.
More importantly, we must break from the "Reactionary Type" cycle of management...it quickly drains the mind of clear thinking and results in personal and needless confrontations. Our community is not unique in this regard...this problem permeates throughout our country.
The public comments in the Daily Herald, are embarrassing, and needlessly suffered by our community.
I hope we do our due diligence...before anyone jumps to pre-mature conclusions, and then jumps to hire "professional" bill collectors.
I think the whole ticket drama being portrayed is ultimately for political purposes.
Don’t get me wrong, I think if people transgress the most-often-times POLITE way of living, or as George Costanza once said, “Hello! – We’re trying to have a civilization here!”, they should recognize their fault and pay up. Same goes for vehicle stickers. $20 here as compared to what - $120 in Chicago? Chump change – pay up! All too often those who complain about the condition of the streets in the Village are the very same that are unwilling to pay for a sticker.
But still, this latest is drama. First, it’s disclosed that there’s a more than 20-year backlog. Weed out those invalid by the statute of limitations, and you’re down to 33%, or 1,000 or so tickets.
THEN, weed out Village stickers. Should there be some actually economical way forward in suiting these tickets, is the Village prepared to meet the burden of proof in court, that they can actually prove that the majority of those tickets issued are actually for vehicles that were “housed” within the Village after the formerly purchased sticker expired? Surveillance videos? Records or notes sworn by patrolmen at differing times and days of the week? Really?
I’ll bet were you to extract these tickets from the remaining pile, there are probably less than 500 left. But even then you’re forced by simple economics in disregarding most. Certainly, there must be at least a few sets of ticket groupings naming one particular individual as an offender where their entire combination of fines is likely worth pursuing economically, but that’s likely a tiny amount. So, 450 left?
So why bring all this up then? Because it makes the Herrdmann look “concerned” and “proactive”. It allows her unilaterally handpicked choice for Chief to look “can-do”. It allows them all to denigrate past Chiefs for a further political boost in ratifying the “extreme” measures currently being taken by them against the PD.
However, we’re left with wreckage for the residents of this Village, as a situation that they’ve exploited for political goals ends up hurting those residents that pay the freight, who are willingly to voluntary comply in paying the bills.
By using this issue as a political football, by introducing this issue for public knowledge and discussion, they’ve essentially told a bunch of dirtbags out there that should they desire to flaunt the schmordinances and receive a ticket for a schmordinance violation, that all they have to do is endure 3 phone calls, and that they’re then “home-free”.
Way to go, HERD! You’ve demonstrated that there IS a “free-ride” they might avail themselves of! You’ve told them how to get away with it, and you’ve told them what the puny price for doing so is!
Meanwhile, you wave off meaningful and considered means of collecting those outstanding tickets that might still be collectible via actions as outlined by Saville and Ponio, actions that you’re willing to grant alien entities (NMWRD), yet will not allow granting yourselves, or more accurately, the honest residents of Island Lake?
Purely self-dealing political benefit for the Herd, and NOT for the benefit of tax-paying residents.
Moooooo!
DBTR, many thanks for your insight and excellent comments about this ticket SNAFU.
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