« Ind. Law - "New Ind. law bars electronics from regular trash" | Main | Ind. Gov't. - More on "Special judge named in Elizabeth clerk-treasurer case" »
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Ind. Courts - Still more on "Clarksville may scrap its town court"
Updating this ILB entry from Dec. 26th, Braden Lammers reports in the New Albany News & Tribune on the Dec. 27th meeting - some quotes from the long report:
CLARKSVILLE — The Clarksville Town Council quickly made a decision on whether or not to retain its town court at a special meeting Monday night.A unanimous vote will keep the court in place, at least for another term.
The discussion to eliminate the town court was prompted by Judge Sam Gwin’s announcement that he would retire at the end of the year. A caucus will be held to decide who will take the bench in 2011 and since the four-year term expires in 2012, the seat would be up for re-election again next year.
Council President Greg Isgrigg said the discussion was brought up because of the timing of Gwin’s decision.
“If we were going to think about it, we had to do it before the end of the year because you can’t do it in an election year,” he said.
Another factor was that the court was operating at a loss.
“Well, the numbers were brought up to me by the clerk-treasurer, so I passed it onto the council,” Isgrigg said.
Clerk-Treasurer Gary Hall provided financial figures at the outset of the meeting that the court was operating at a deficit of $150,470 this year. The numbers presented for 2010 were an improvement on the previous two years, when losses totaled $165,487 and $226,206, respectively.
“The figures are important, but the idea of collecting revenues and being self-sustaining ... to the best of my knowledge you do not have a single department in this town that is totally self-sustaining,” Gwin said. “What the court is here for is to provide services to the community.” * * *
The Indiana Judicial Conference released a report last year calling for drastic changes in the state’s judicial system, including eliminating all municipal courts.
“The state is trying to do that on every level,” said Bill Wilson, president of the Clarksville Community Schools Corp. board, in reference to the state eliminating local offices. “I am a firm, firm believer in local control. The more you move government away from the people, the more people have trouble controlling that government.”
A different plea was made by Clarksville resident Chris Kraft.
“We talked about numbers, but we’re talking about people,” he said. “When you’re talking about doing away with the town court, you are talking about the jobs of these seven people right here,” he said, referring to the court employees in attendance. “If you begin to eliminate these departments, where does it stop?”
If the court was eliminated, the bulk of the caseload would have been passed to the Clark County courts. Sellersburg and Charlestown voted this year to eliminate their municipal courts, although Isgrigg said Charlestown have discussed reimplementing its court.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 28, 2010 10:11 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts