by Jim Barton on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 7:00pm
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Tony Martinez made a proposal at the 1/17/12 City Commission meeting that could make past due traffic citations less costly for those ticketed in Brownsville. Martinez spoke of "hard times" and the need not to put an excessive burden on locals who had difficulty paying traffic fines. Martinez explained that the current practice has been to ad a 30% administrative fee to all citations after 60 days, providing revenue to an outside collection firm collecting payments. He stated that the collection rate was still rather small, perhaps as low as 22% on delinquent fines.
City Manager Charlie Cabler and Municipal Judge Ben Neece both expressed their willingness to try in house collections of all delinquent tickets for a 6 month period. Evidently, the contract with the outside firm had expired leaving an opportunity to at least try in house collections.
Judge Neece seemed pleased that the mayor was attempting to ease some of the financial burden on those with tickets. "If someone does not show up in court, another charge of 'Failure to Appear' adds $200 to the fines. The warrant issued adds another $25 to $50. If you add an additional 30% for outside collection, one ticket could eventually cost up to 10% of the annual pay of some of our residents."
Commissioner Ricardo Longoria questioned the plan. "There's a reason that city's all around the state use outside collectors." Despite Longoria's objections the proposal passed.
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This looks a little fishy. Since when is Tony concerned about hard times?
ReplyDeleteSince someone threaten to tell that the vendor contacted some of the commissioners and were asking for votes for the contract. Guess who it was? Was it the Law firm that lost the Fort Worth School District Tax Collecting Contract last year? Someone recorded the calls...............scary!
ReplyDeleteWe alway know Ricky always has his hand out.. Trust me he will always say
ReplyDeleteBola de RATAS!!
ReplyDeleteTonia Martinez is only interested in fu@king the tax payers to pay HIGHER TAXES for everything the city fu@king misspends. Violators who are probably the ONLY source of revenue the city actually collects, let's fu@king give them a break, and of course we can't count on the PORT FOR REVENUE, OR THE AIRPORT for revenue, OR THE SPORTS PARK for revenue, OR THE GOLF COURSE for revenue. Fu@k the tax payers to pay for everything!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteRick Longoria, I'm sorry! I like you, you've always been a gentleman to me and my wife, but the reasons communities, local govt. and school districts use collection agencies is because of the money donated to public officials by these firms to get people like Enrique Escobedo and most politicians elected. Every local govt. should have collections done in-house and hire staff and use the teeth of the law to get results.
ReplyDelete