Town gets permission to process local tickets

More than three years after starting the process, the town now has permission to handle some kinds of moving violations with local tickets instead of state tickets, and to keep more of that ticket money for use in the town budget.

The Nashville Town Council, Nashville Chief of Police Ben Seastrom and then-Town Attorney Andy Szakaly started putting the wheels in motion in 2016.

Since the state changed the rules in 2014, town officers haven’t been able to write local tickets for moving violations like speeding and disregarding stop signs; they’ve had to write state tickets, which come with much higher fines, and the vast majority of that ticket money then goes to the state, explained then-town council President “Buzz” King in 2016. To do things the old way, the state mandated that the town have a traffic court, which Nashville didn’t have.

The town council passed an ordinance in the fall of 2018 setting up the structure that would enable Brown Circuit Court to act as the town’s traffic court on certain days; determining which acts were violations; setting the fine amounts for tickets; and creating a procedure for paying those fines, contesting them or entering into a diversion program.

However, the Indiana State Board of Accounts wasn’t comfortable with the way the money was to be handled, so the program was never implemented.

During the last regular town council meeting in December 2019, Town Attorney James T. Roberts announced that the SBOA had approved the ordinance. On Dec. 19, the council repealed the 2018 ordinance and unanimously approved a new one.

Moving violations are handled differently than parking tickets; this new ordinance only affects moving violations.

Tickets can be paid at the county clerk’s office, and that office will then cut a check to the town clerk’s office. Originally, the town clerk’s office was the place where one could pay a town ticket.

According to this new ordinance, it is now officially illegal to drive the wrong way on a one-way street in Nashville, to exceed the speed limit, to fail to stop or yield as posted on town streets, and to fail to stop and yield to pedestrians at marked crosswalks. The town’s ordinances actually didn’t list these as violations until the first attempt at this ordinance was passed in 2018, but police could write tickets for them under state law, Roberts said at the time.

The penalty for violating the rules of one-way streets, stop or yield signs, and crosswalks is $85 per ticket, plus court costs.

The penalty for speeding is now $85 plus $10 per every 10 mph over the speed limit, plus court costs.

State tickets were closer to $150 per violation, and only about $4 of that went back to the town, King said in 2016.

Under the town ticket system, the town will get to keep about $15 per ticket, Seastrom said; however, that’s before the town attorney’s fee is deducted. Roberts will act as the prosecutor on these tickets in court, and he must sign each one. Seastrom was talking to Roberts about ways to keep the attorney’s billable time to a minimum.

Ticketed drivers will have the option of entering into a pretrial diversion program by paying $70 and a user’s fee, and agreeing to conditions that Roberts sets. If the violator complies with the terms of the agreement, the ticket will be dismissed; if that doesn’t work, the ticket will proceed to court, the ordinance says.

Completing the deferral program also means that no points would be added to a person’s license, Seastrom said.

Seastrom said that town officers usually write a maximum of 2,000 tickets per year which would fall under this new program, and that’s not being “overly aggressive.”

He said the split between in-state drivers and out-of-state drivers who get tickets in Nashville is fairly equal, with the exception of certain game days at IU.

The ordinance was published in the Jan. 1 Marketplace section under legal notices.

Nashville police getting new Dodge Durangos

The Nashville police are getting some new vehicles to join their silver Dodge Chargers.

Most of the new vehicles will be leased instead of purchased. The leased vehicles come with a five-year warranty, so the town won’t have to cover so many of the maintenance costs that they’re currently responsible for paying, said Dax Norton, strategic director adviser for the town. The town also wouldn’t have a payment due in 2020; the first payment of $42,091 would be due Jan. 1, 2021.

The police department has 11 vehicles now; this plan would take the fleet down to a total of nine. Right now it includes four 2018 Dodge Chargers, “then it drops off dramatically in age and reliability,” Norton said at the Dec. 19 council meeting.

Under the lease, the Nashville police will be getting three 2020 four-wheel-drive Dodge Durangos, they’ll keep the Chargers, then “slowly get out of those over time,” Norton said.

Another Durango is being purchased to replace a Charger that was severely damaged in a police pursuit this past fall. It’s expected to mostly be covered by insurance.

In response to a question from the council about how much money this would save the town, Norton said it “may all come out in the wash,” but officers will be in more reliable vehicles that the town can rotate through the lease program.

Norton also will be working with Nashville Utility Coordinator Sean Cassiday to get public works vehicles on a lease rotation as well; that department currently has trucks in various stages of repair.

Scout to provide picnic tables for new park

A local Eagle Scout candidate has volunteered to build picnic tables for the town’s new park, Lincoln Pinch, at the corner of Johnson and Washington streets.

Cole Bowman visited the Nashville Town Park Commission on Dec. 19 to float the idea, said commission member Anna Hofstetter. He only asked that the town pay for the materials, which were estimated at $300 for three tables. Bowman also offered to find sponsors for the tables if the town was not willing or able to spend that money.

Commission member Alisha Gredy said the tables are expected to be completed by March.

The town council approved the project.

Resident proposes monthly pitch-ins in street

The Nashville Town Council has OK’d the idea of a Franklin Street Supper Club after a resident presented it at the December council meeting.

Jeff Miller has moved into the McGrayel house at 196 W. Franklin St. He said he and his neighbors had an idea of doing a monthly community pitch-in, closing off a portion of Franklin Street to do it. He brought up examples from the past when the community had done this sort of thing.

The vision is to close the portion of Franklin Street between Jefferson and Johnson streets on the first Sunday of every month for a few hours starting in April.

The council told him he’d need to submit right-of-way applications to get permission to close streets, but in general, it sounded like a great idea.

Anyone would be welcome to attend the gatherings, Miller said.