Comments on: “‘Somebody has to pay,’ Margiotta said.”

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 22:07:36 +0000

Update: county lawmakers have voted to discontinue the fee as applied to ticket dismissals, instead raising the fee on convictions.

By: JTW

JTW — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 16:06:57 +0000

“I gather he is not charging those who were actually innocent,but rather those who were granted dismissal as a courtesy after repairing a minor infraction, eg dead tail-light.”

if you read closely, it seems he actually is charging people found innocent on appeal as well.
And going that way, he could well end up charging them more, so much more that appealing a ticket can end up costing you more in administrative fees than the ticket would have cost you in the fine.
Which is for the city a very good result, as it would mean no more appeals, no more statistics showing a large percentage of tickets handed out that are incorrectly issued. Which makes the police look particularly good.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 14:51:56 +0000

Look, after approx. 13 years of one party being in control of Suffolk Co., it is flat broke, even to the point of selling off County facilities and property to developers (see, e.g., the sale of the County infirmary and adjacent lands in Yaphank).
This is an old municipal shell game, in which unjustifiable fees are raised so that the executive and legislature can crow that they have not raised taxes.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 05:44:26 +0000

It should be pointed out that the “administrative fees” are often more than double the amount of the fine for the infraction.

By: David Schwartz

David Schwartz — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 01:00:21 +0000

It seems there’s a factual dispute. I think most people agree it’s reasonable to charge people fees in line with actual administrative costs when they were in fact guilty of an offense but got the ticket dismissed because of corrective action. And I don’t think anyone wants to stand up and defend the policy of charging people an administrative fee if they are actually found not guilty of the ticket is dismissed because they didn’t break the law.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 00:34:42 +0000

Here's some earlier Newsday coverage indicating that the county hasn't always lived up to the aim of not collecting fees on erroneously issued tickets. For the category of tickets validly issued under a state mandate of forgiveness for quick correction, yes, it's easier to argue plausibly for some sort of fee if consistent with the state rules for the program.

By: blhlls

blhlls — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 21:46:26 +0000

According to the underlying story, he was not arguing they should collect the fee on erroneously issued tickets.

By: Frank Bogulski

Frank Bogulski — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 21:41:54 +0000

They have made a similar “money-grubbing” move in Buffalo, NY. After about 20 years of the same alternate side of the street parking rules for residential city streets, they instituted a change it the weekdays for switching to the alternate side. So many residents were used to the same 2 days over those 20 years, that after the change, one could witness, at minimum, 2 cars per street that fail to remember the new dates. At $35 a ticket, per however many streets there are in the city, equals to large influx of cash for the city. Makes one think, doesn’t it?

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:58:34 +0000

I think it only fair that if a ticket is dismissed, then the person who issued the ticket erroneously should pay the administrative fee. Or have it docked from their salary.

By: Hugo S. Cunningham

Hugo S. Cunningham — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 19:29:44 +0000

I gather he is not charging those who were actually innocent,but rather those who were granted dismissal as a courtesy after repairing a minor infraction, eg dead tail-light.