CHARLIE HARSHFIELD
CANDIDATE FOR 3rd DISTRICT COUNCILMAN
PLATFORM
GOAL: Enhance and expand Code Enforcement in all areas, including a Rental Inspection Program.
Action: Do research on other cities successful with code enforcement to find answers applicable to New Albany’s current situation. Utilize the resources and research previously provided by neighborhood forums.
GOAL: Work to maintain Historic Preservation and Revitalization of downtown.
Action: Keep open communication with the New Albany Historic Preservation Commission, and make every effort to participate in available preservation programs.
GOAL: Examine the feasibility of a City Court.
Action: Research other city courts to find answers for New Albany. Utilize the resources and research previously provided by neighborhood forums. Explore budgets and work with the code enforcement department.
GOAL: Promote Neighborhood Associations.
Action: Attend neighborhood meetings as much as possible, especially when invited. Address issues, participate in projects, and promote goings-on throughout the district to other city officials and the media.
GOAL: Study Street Department issues in relation to regular trash/debris pick up and disposal.
Action: Discover exactly what issues/challenges face the Street Department with its ability to adhere to a regular schedule. Work with the department and the budget to eliminate these challenges.
GOAL: Work to make the city of New Albany a more viable, receptive location for businesses, as well as new economic development.
Action: Take a hard look at tax abatements. Should a company apply and be granted a tax abatement, there should be a commitment from the company to give back to the city. Should commitments not be met, there should be consequences. Not only will incoming tax money from these businesses be put to use improving the city, the improvements will draw more business development to our community.
GOAL: Encourage all citizens to communicate their issues and concerns to their council representatives and City Hall. Expect or demand more than the status quo.
Action: By establishing regular town hall meetings, I will be accessible and I will listen to everyone. We are all equal and entitled to be heard. In addition to being reachable by phone and email, I will hold monthly or quarterly district forums.
18 comments:
What might be unfeasible about a city court? If Jeffersonville and Clarksville can adequately support a city judge and court, what makes you think it's not feasible here?
I would think that with all the research and discussion that has taken place over the past two years you could declare a preference and announce how you would vote vis a vis a city court.
Would you agree to introduce an ordinance to create the same? Would you be willing to sink the startup costs for the court over the next four years? Do you believe a city court can be created prior to 2012?
I agree with Randy that there is no reason it can't be "feasible" to have a city court by 2012, but the proper question for Mr. Harshfield, I think, is whether or not it is "desirable" to have a city court.
If we have an adequately staffed legal department that gets the job done through Floyd Circuit (which will add a division soon), why do we need a city court? My research is about 9 months old, but at last look, few city courts made money, including Jeff and Clarksville (see Indiana courts website for latest figures). The extra fees you generate from having a city court seem to get eaten up in routine administrative costs, and you really gain no efficiency once your enforcement procedures are in place (not to mention declining violations, pushing certain criminal violations into city court, etc.). If we could figure out a way to make substantial money off of the court, then we should go for it.
Update - based on the latest figures (2005), Jeff City Court made roughly $10,000 Clarksville made roughly $9,000. Not exactly cash cows, but at least they broke even.
You have to look at the raw stats to figure this out, and they don't exactly make it easy:
Indiana Courts Statistics
(scroll down to Volume III)
If the main reason for desiring a city court fall into enforcing and collecting fees from ordinance violations, I believe that the research that was done on the city of Fishers, Indiana and others like it prove that you can be successful in collecting the fines without a court system in place. How? By tacking on the fines (if not paid) to property taxes. Those don't go unpaid nearly as often as the violation fines.
Of course we are going to have some "Landlords" upset about this process, but (and it will take a while) it will eventually flush out those who aren't willing to do tenant background checks and regular checks on the property.
As Mr. Harshfield pointed out, it's going to take some major reorganization, and it certainly isn't going to happen over night, but it can be done.
(correct me if I am wrong about the other reasons for wanting a city court)
I remember seeing a procedure for placing property tax liens on properties for the cost of the city going in (or contracting) to clean up properties, but I don't know how wide that applies (plus, you still need some administrative function to make sure that happens). If we had an adequately functioning legal department, with or without a city court, we could use whatever enforcement mechanisms the law allows, and we could do so fairly efficiently.
One of the issues that would need to be addressed in the consideration of a city court is the enforcement of ordinances not related to property.
Currently, when the NAPD writes a ticket for a moving violation, the majority of the money goes to the state and the county court system. Even though New Albany provides the labor and equipment to make the citation possible, we only receive approximately $2.50 of a $120 ticket. In other words, we're losing money each time a ticket is written.
Tacking fines onto property taxes is a more attractive option than liens for collection. Liens aren't paid until the property is sold, meaning that the landlord might not be held accountable for the violation for years to come, while still profiting from the substandard property. The increase in property values over time, even for substandard properties, would offset the lien somewhat, making it less of a penalty.
A rental licensing program, in which properties would have to pass inspection in order to receive or renew a license to rent, could give the city the authority to evict tenants from non-licensed properties, meaning there would be no landlord income from that property until violations were corrected. That may provide greater motivation to correct problems or sell than even a more stringent fine system.
Making that license/inspection program fee-based would generate revenue that would help the program be at least partially self-supporting, outside of fine collection.
It would also make the inspection process uniform, objective, and all-inclusive, effectively moving us away from our currently very subjective complaint-based system.
We’re preaching to the choir here, but for the sake of public comment (and benefit of the candidates) I’d like to address the good points you raise:
The court revenue statistics include traffic tickets, so I don’t think that is a revenue argument in favor of a city court, but I understand what you mean. I’m not sure what variables are in the $2.50 per $120 figure, but Shane Gibson seemed to think that once we got the system efficient, we could make money off of them using county court. I doubt there is a true perverse incentive not to write traffic tickets. Also, I don’t like the idea of using speed traps for the express purpose of funding the city court (joke).
Agreed that property tax bills are superior to liens. However, when you get a judgment you can send ye ole sheriff to seize property (including personal property) from our more affluent violators. One of the hidden costs in city court is setting up a judgment collection system (bailiff’s office). We also have to appreciate the deterrent effect legal enforcement has on potential violators. Even a property lien, well publicized, makes folks pay attention.
Also agreed that rental inspections are sorely needed. To make it work, we still need to couple it with efficient legal support. Again, over time this becomes routine (evictions, follow-up code enforcement, gaining access for inspectors, and so on). I disagree with Steve Price that lack of “code enforcement” is an excuse for not setting up rental inspection, although I’d obviously put legal department ahead of rental inspection or court. The trick here is to set these things up in a comprehensive manner, backed by a city council willing to fund and a mayor willing to make it a priority.
The trick here is to set these things up in a comprehensive manner, backed by a city council willing to fund and a mayor willing to make it a priority.
Choir nods collective head...
Please see the following statement posted by Charlie Harshfield from NA Confidential:
Charlie Harshfield said...
I apologize for the vagueness of the statement in my Platform pertaining to a rental inspection program. I wholeheartedly suppoert the creation and implementation of this much needed program. If the present ordinances on the books cannot be adapted to a program like thee city of Kokomo uses then we scrap what is there and start all over. What ever it takes to stop the abuse that presently exists for the tenants of these deplorable situations.
Brandon's analysis of court revenues is sound, but missing one critical element. Courts aren't designed to raise revenue, but to fund enforcement. If fines create the resources to add staff to the city clerk's office and the OEO staff, not to mention traffic officers, who will object to a court "losing" money.
$10,000 a year in net surplus isn't relevant. If that's on $200,000 in fines, then it only funds the operations of the court. If it's on $2 million, it creates an enforcement regime with teeth.
I continue to maintain that any four of us, untrained and unsworn but theoretically authorized, could generate citations equalling $1 million. Hell, I could do that if I were deputized to enforce the speed limits on Spring Street.
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More importantly, where is Charlie's answer to this question?
...and if anyone thinks I'm picking on Charlie, know that I put the question to other candidate blogs, too. My quibble with Charlie's platform is the implication that a court isn't feasible. Why not?
Feasible according to the Merriam -Webster Dictionary is as follows:
1: capable of being done or carried out
2: capable of being used or dealt with successfully
Not to put words in Charlie's mouth, but I think Charlie is correct and on the right track to have a plan on paper with all the kinks worked out “a feasible plan” and all parties working together. A clear plan about what happens and why! I think Charlie has stated that he is for a city court!
In response to all4word,
I am not evading you or your question. My statement about exploring the feasibility of a city court means just that. I didn't say it was unfeasible, if that was my thinking I would have never made the comment. I know there has been some research into other areas that have city courts but I think I or we need to look into it in more depth for our own particular needs. I will support whatever it takes to put some teeth into our present code enforcement program. I am not a proponent of property tax liens because they have no immediate impact on the offender. I think in these situations you get peoples attention by $ signs. If one knows they will be fined x number of dollars per day or offense and they also know there is a means to collect those fines, whether it be a city court or other system they will more readily adhere to what must be done.
Thanks for your comments.
First, the purpose of a court is not to generate money, but to aid in enforcing the law. My point is that if it generates money, then we might have an additional justification for its desireability vs. using the county courts.
Second, the ENTIRE local revenue generated by city courts across the state is approximately $5 million. New Albany will not generate the kind of cash you are talking about. Even if it did at first, we wouldn't have the continued violation volume to sustain it. Even as dirty and speed happy as we are, we could never generate that kind of revenue under such an enforcement regime.
I quoted the Jeff and Clarksville figures only because those are the courts brought up earlier in the thread. We could probably operate a court without losing too much money, but I still have not seen the numbers to justify a belief that a city court is a mechanism to fund enforcement.
I continue to maintain that any four of us, untrained and unsworn but theoretically authorized, could generate citations equalling $1 million. Hell, I could do that if I were deputized to enforce the speed limits on Spring Street.
I should add that I would be willing to give that a try, if only for the entertainment value of giving you a speed gun (grin).
It's a close call for sure, but the hard facts don't show me that the added expense and headache of a city court would assist the enforcement effort any better than using the existing courts. At minimum, I agree that we should at least file to have a court and explore our options. This is all pointless speculation until we get a Mayor and majority council willing to put the money and political will behind enforcement.
Brandon said, "At minimum, I agree that we should at least file to have a court and explore our options".
Just like Charlie stated, Feasible!
My understanding is that the courts that we presently have in Floyd county are over capacity and that another court is needed just to help them deal with the current case load.
We are getting a new division, but even without the new division, routine enforcement dockets would not take much time (according to Shane Gibson, Judge Cody offered such time before anyone thought to ask for a third division). Most enforcement actions would be so routine that they could be handled by a quick docket, I'm guessing two or three times a month max. The larger civil actions take more time, but nothing compared to what's going on there now (enforcement actions aren't that complex). The truth is, we've never enforced the law, so we don't know what the impact on the county docket will be.
Also, most folks don't realize that city court is responsible for all criminal misdemeanors and infractions (which the city attorney doesn't handle). Thus, you create an unnecessary logistical problem for the criminal legal staff, even if you take away some minor traffic from the county courts. I'm guessing a city court handling criminal matters would put more strain, not less, on the county court system in the long haul.
I would be interested in hearing what Judge Cody and the state courts adminstration think about adding a city court. An older article I read (1990s I think) said they disfavored them, but that's out of date.
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