MACEDONIA: Stow Municipal Judge Kim Hoover is asking some Summit County communities to consider dissolving their mayor’s courts.
Hoover recently sent letters to officials in Macedonia, Peninsula, Boston Heights and Northfield asking for the opportunity to explain why they should ship the misdemeanors they handle in-house to the Stow court instead.
Macedonia was the first to accept Hoover’s offer and hosted him at a council meeting last week. The judge shared his financial and philosophical reasoning.
But Mayor Don Kuchta, given sole discretion via city charter as to whether the city operates a mayor’s court, said he’s keeping Macedonia’s. So far this year, the court has earned a net profit of about $135,000 — money that would cover the costs of a police officer and a cruiser, he said.
Peninsula Mayor Doug Mayer, in the midst of his first year in office, said he also intends to accept Hoover’s invitation to visit.
Mayer said that although the village has long operated a mayor’s court, he’s not familiar with the “mechanics” of the system and was looking forward to hearing what Hoover had to say.
Mayer recently met with some staffers to collect information, “basically trying to do our homework so we can have a good conversation. … I’m still very open-minded.”
Hoover said he has not heard from Boston Heights or Northfield. He said he didn’t bother to write the other two mayor’s courts in Stow’s jurisdiction — Cuyahoga Falls and Munroe Falls — because they already have affirmed their stance on the matter during previous political conflicts.
Hoover said mayor’s courts make sense if they are based on convenience, such as a sparsely populated rural county with one court that would require someone to “drive 40 minutes to deal with a speeding ticket.”
But he noted that it took him 8 minutes to drive from his court to Macedonia City Hall for last week’s meeting. Besides, he said, many folks using mayor’s courts for traffic citations can pay a waiver online or by mail.
As to whether mayor’s courts are profitable, Hoover said communities already receive 100 percent of fines collected in cases sent to the Stow court, so the only additional money to be made is in court costs.
At least one-third of court costs are paid to the state or other agencies. That leaves two-thirds available for the salaries and benefits of mayor’s court staffers, such as a magistrate, clerk of courts and prosecutor, as well as supplies and other overhead costs.
“I have no idea what they are paying their staff, so I said, ‘Here’s the proper questions for you to ask so you can do your own financial analysis,’ ” Hoover said.
There is also the argument that mayor’s courts financially harm the Stow Municipal Court, which serves all of northern Summit County.
Communities tend to keep easy cases for their mayor’s courts, Hoover said, “taking the heart out of the melon and sending us the real work.”
Also, the portion of court costs a city uses to pay its mayor’s court staffers would amount to pure profit for the Stow court because those easy cases would be absorbed by existing staff.
Keeping the Stow court financially healthy is important to everyone in its jurisdiction, Hoover said. If the cost of operating the court exceeds revenue, there is a formula that allows the court to keep a share of the fine money that otherwise gets forwarded to individual cities and villages.
That hasn’t happened in the past two years because new revenue-generating programs have been keeping the court in the black, he said.
Hoover said he also has expressed a basic philosophical problem with mayor’s courts because they are controlled by the executive branch, which is inherently contrary to our country’s system of three separate but equal branches of government.
While such courts are legal, he said, having the executive office in charge of a judicial function “is subject to abuse, favoritism, and at the very least, the appearance of impropriety,” Hoover said.
Despite their differing opinions, Hoover and Kuchta said there are no hard feelings.
Kuchta said Hoover has helped the city several times in the past, including offering ways to help keep the city jail open during the recession and coming to the rescue when equipment the police department uses for televised arraignments failed.
Hoover’s visit last week “was like a benevolent uncle coming to see you and saying, ‘I don’t want you eating at this restaurant anymore’ and you want to say, ‘But I like the food better,’ ” Kuchta said. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for him.”
On Hoover’s part: “I won’t criticize them one way or the other. I won’t presume what’s best for the city of Macedonia.”
Kuchta said he’s convinced the mayor’s court is convenient for residents, a deterrent to crime and a financial boon to the city.
When Macedonia was facing a budget shortfall several years ago, the city studied all of its activities, including the mayor’s court, Kuchta said.
“It was thoroughly investigated … and proven to be a necessity,” Kuchta said in an email to City Council and other officials after Hoover’s visit. “If I weigh the pluses and minuses, at this time I cannot in good conscience recommend doing away with our mayor’s court.”
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.