By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – A perceived jaw-dropping decrease in the number of traffic citations issued in Waldport looked to be the death knell for the city’s long-standing traffic court.
And while the court may still go the way of the dinosaur, it turns out a miscommunication months ago left city officials believing only one traffic citation had been issued since July 1.
City manager Dann Cutter reported the single citation to the city council during its October meeting and asked them to consider ending the court.
Citations for the court, which began around 1996, once brought in an average of $20,000 a year before dropping precipitously after the Covid pandemic. It now costs the city money, Cutter said.
“At some point you’re paying the judge and your staff more to handle the stuff than you are bringing in and that is where we are at,” Cutter told the council.
He said he discussed the lack of tickets with Lincoln County Sheriff Curtis Landers but said it “did not move the bar” so far as issuing more citations.
Cutter said Landers had told him there is a difference in philosophy today when it comes to issuing traffic citations.
“He says nowadays they don’t like pulling people over that much because it creates an opportunity for an escalation,” Cutter said. “And he says that when they do, they try to do education as opposed to citation.”
But as it turns out, wires were crossed during the conversation because as Cutter learned last week – there were actually 187 traffic stops and 32 citations issued from July through September.
What initially led Waldport city staff to report only one citation had been issued is because without any notification, offenders were suddenly being sent to Lincoln County circuit court in Newport.
After learning the correct number, Cutter talked with sheriff’s Lt. Karl Vertner to figure out the disconnect.
“We’ve got an idea where the miscommunication happened,” Cutter said. “I don’t think it was anybody’s fault. If it was anybody’s fault it was mine. I think we were talking about (moving citations to the circuit court) and it was taken to mean ‘Oh, we should make that change right now.’”
The city will leave the tickets to be adjudicated in circuit court until Cutter can return to the council for a decision. But it will not change his recommendation to phase the court out over the next six months to address older citations before ending it.
Dropping traffic court will not move the dial on how deputies go about enforcement, it simply means offenders will have to appear in Newport instead of Waldport. If it stays in Waldport, the city will retain about a quarter of the revenue.
The average citation is about $200, Cutter said. But that amount is usually halved if the violator appears in court. From the remaining $100, the city remits $15 to the county and $50 to the state.
Biting further into the revenue is the fact the lawyer hired as the city’s municipal judge cannot process 75 percent of the citations that end up in the local court due to failures to appear, Cutter added.
“And often when we have a court date or something and we need a deputy to show up, the deputy can’t show up and it gets dismissed,” Cutter told councilors.
There is also the staff time, approximately 10 hours a week to deal with past citations, often repeat offenders. And with the overall number of citations dropping, the time involved dealing with outstanding tickets – contacting people and arranging court dates and handling holdover cases – has not.
“It’s just one of these things that’s time consuming because these people are never going to come back,” Cutter said.
Staff time is also required to undergo training and certification to handle the related documents which come with rules and restrictions about who can access and view them. Then there is sometimes having to endure the anger or rude treatment by some violators when paying fines.
It no longer makes sense and weighs on staff time considerably, Cutter told the council. “Staff don’t want to do it,” he said. “Universally, staff are like ‘This is a huge waste of time.’”
Deputies have no quota on issuing tickets.
Cutter said eliminating the court is both an economic and time-management decision. But the decision will rest with the council, which will weigh the new facts at its meeting Thursday.
“But effectively, assuming it passes, the effect will simply be that we will direct the sheriff’s office to start citing into circuit court,” Cutter said. “To be blunt, it’s not like this is going to change any policing. This just changes the place people have to go if they get a ticket.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
A big “shout out” to Dan Cutter. Way to go. If you continue searching, you may discover additional insight. Thank you for standing tall friend, cut the fat. You are clearly for the citizen, the fund-ers.
JB Dunn