Mayor's Blog

09.07.15
By: 
Mayor Ryan Smith

For many years the City of Jamestown has operated our City Court in need of some reform.  The cost has been a burden to the City and thus the taxpayer. At the same time, we have had limitations as to how much the fines could be, what possible repercussions could come from not paying or showing up at court, and what options were available for enforcing tickets.  In order to resolve these problems and create a stronger community, we have recently made some significant improvements in our City Court system, a Court system that works with greater professionalism and competence to protect our citizens. We can now better address the problem of repeat offenders, and we have successfully shifted the burden of cost to the offender rather than the taxpayer. In turn, as a benefit to the offenders we now offer local Traffic School.  This creates a “Win-Win” for everyone.  Offenders do not have to spend excess money or time to travel out of town for traffic school, all revenues remain local, and we can better maintain a safe community.

In order to accomplish these things, one of the first steps was for the Board of Mayor and Alderman to appoint Mr. Thomas Potter as the City Municipal Judge.  With Mr. Potter as our Judge, he has the ability to not only enforce payment of fines, but to also order Traffic School.  This may be a benefit to those who do not wish to plead guilty or want to keep points from being added to there license.  This also allows us to properly process tickets to the state for proper record keeping.

With our new Traffic School in place, it is now held the last Saturday of each month in the back room at City Hall beginning at 1:00 p.m. and is conducted by Chief Ken Hancock and Detective Rob Lower. 

 

If you have any questions for us or would like to learn more give us a call at City Hall at 931-879-8815 or message us on Facebook at Facebook.com/CityofJamestown.

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Minute with the Mayor 9-7-2015