Richard Connelly speculates that HPD may be under the gun to boost the traffic-citation revenue stream:
You may have noticed it around town lately — a half-dozen or so cop cars at some intersection, pulling over motorists in order to give the cars a good inspection and find something to ticket.
We’ve seen at least two of the operations recently, and it looked like HPD was either stopping every car to find a desperate serial killer or checking for green cards in an illegal-immigrant crackdown. Instead it appears they’re just trying to make up for lost revenue.
From July to September of this year, the municipal courts raked in about $1.2 million monthly in traffic fines. In October that figure fell to $950,000.
That’s quite a slip. And no one in the city bureaucracy is eager to talk about it, or whether HPD is under the gun to get more cash flow to replace the loss.
Municipal courts director Richard Lewis — or, to be precise, a “very busy” Richard Lewis, as he described himself when he finally deigned to answer questions — said he couldn’t offer any reason for the dip and suggested we call HPD. The police department said it was a municipal courts matter.
Two court staffers told us that Lewis had been more forthcoming with them — he had blamed the dip on the fact that police were working overtime responding to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
There’s no question the city’s revenue figures took a dip. What’s less certain is whether the cops have stepped up their traffic-enforcement operations as a result. At a time when the department’s getting heat for a manpower shortage and lengthy response times to citizen calls, you’d hate to think they’d be devoting a lot of effort to finding niggling things to ticket (especially if you’re someone who got a ticket).
You’d hate to think it, but it really wouldn’t come as a surprise. MayorWhiteChiefHurtt are serious about their revenue streams!
ANNE ADDS: Has HPD’s “productivity policy” been rolled out city-wide? Maybe MayorWhiteChiefHurtt need to reissue the memo on the (don’t say quota) policy, as a refresher for HPD officers.
