I-71 construction speed limits could cost you plenty

By Randa Wagner -

The upcom­ing con­struc­tion on Inter­state 71 involv­ing a 27-mile stretch between SR 36 and north of SR 95 will bring with it a 55 mph max­i­mum speed limit, with fines dou­bled in active con­struc­tion zones.

Mor­row County Munic­i­pal Court Judge Lee McClel­land told com­mis­sion­ers at the March 4 Elected Offi­cials meet­ing the 55 mph speed limit applies 24 hours a day.

“You can’t go 65 mph just because there’s no one work­ing in a con­struc­tion zone at the time,” he said. “It’s a two-point violation.”

The stan­dard (vio­la­tion) cost right now is $94, McClel­land said of the ini­tial fine, and that’s mostly state fees. Then the court charges $3 per mile an hour over the speed limit.

“So, if you were going 65 mph, for exam­ple, your fine would be $124.00,” McClel­land said. “If you’re in a zone where con­struc­tion is going on, it dou­bles the fine, so now it would be $154.00.”

McClel­land said there was increase in traf­fic vio­la­tions dur­ing the Phase 1 work last summer.

“We saw quite a few, and I imag­ine if they’re work­ing all three phases, it will increase,” he sur­mised. “Nobody slows down – they just keep going. They could hand out tick­ets 24 hours a day and still not get them all.”

He sus­pects the county will see a sub­stan­tial increase, and 90 per­cent of them will be waivers.

McClel­land said his office is work­ing with the state attor­ney gen­eral to turn over unpaid fines to the state’s collections.

“If peo­ple don’t show up within the pay period we give them, that case will elec­tron­i­cally trans­fer to the attor­ney general’s office for col­lec­tion,” McClel­land said. “If they col­lect, they will add 10 per­cent to it and col­lect every­thing. What­ever they get, they send back to us and their final pay is their 10 per­cent. A lot of col­lec­tion agen­cies add 30 per­cent; I just can’t jus­tify that.”

Mor­row County is not the first county to turn over fine col­lec­tion to the state. McClel­land said he has heard reports back from two or three other coun­ties, and it’s work­ing out well.

“The attor­ney general’s office has the author­ity to send it on to a pri­vate col­lec­tor, but we’re going to have them send those back to us,” he said.

Unpaid traf­fic fines can result in hav­ing your license can­celled, even if you live out of state. The Non-Resident Vio­la­tor Com­pact (NRVC) is an inter­state con­tract used by 44 states in the United States to process traf­fic cita­tions across state borders.

In a rec­i­p­ro­cal agree­ment such as the NRVC, you must pay the state you owe before you can get your license back in your home state.

The state gets the biggest major­ity of the fine when paid; the rest is divided between 48 dif­fer­ent funds, McClel­land said. “By the time it gets down to the county, there isn’t much left. It’s a book­keep­ing nightmare.”

In other elected offi­cials reports, Trea­surer Elect Tim Garry, who begins his term Sep­tem­ber 1, 2013, intro­duced him­self and said he is a cer­ti­fied pub­lic accoun­tant who has lived in the county since June 2001 when he came to run News Color Press. He left in 2009 when Brown Pub­lish­ing bought the com­pany and now has a cou­ple of busi­nesses he runs in the county.

County Engi­neer Randy Bush reported he applied last Octo­ber for an Issue 2 job on a bridge on County Road 11, The bridge is down to one lane, he said, and he has secured a grant to repair it. The total project cost is $442,301 and the grant is for $327,303. The county’s local share is $114,998.

Com­mis­sioner Tom Harden sug­gested Bush give the fire depart­ments and emer­gency ser­vices a copy of the new bridge load lim­its that were recently released.

Pros­e­cu­tor Charles How­land said Dave Homer has been assigned to replace Asst. Pros­e­cu­tor Joce­lyn Stephancin. Homer is a for­mer assis­tant pros­e­cu­tor for Rich­land County.

Sher­iff Steve Bren­ne­man reported his office received $24,617.98 from the ATF for the county’s por­tion of the money from the for­fei­tures in the Roush case.

“That all has to go into the fed­eral drug for­fei­ture account,” He noted. “It has lim­ited uses.”

Dixie Shin­aberry thanked the sheriff’s office for help­ing with sup­plies for the recorder’s office. She also men­tioned a long-running heat sit­u­a­tion in her office and would like to have it resolved. Com­mis­sioner Dick Miller noted there’s a sim­i­lar prob­lem at the com­mu­nity ser­vices building.

Shin­aberry men­tioned there has been no increase in oil activ­ity (gas leases) at her office.

Com­mis­sioner Harden said they are doing the final punch­list (check­list) on the cour­t­house (con­struc­tion and repairs).

“We’re hold­ing $20,000 back from the con­trac­tor until the punch­list is com­pleted to our sat­is­fac­tion,” he said.

Com­mis­sioner Dick Miller said as part of the county’s Well­ness Pro­gram, a goal is to make the cour­t­house a smoke-free area. He has spo­ken to the pros­e­cu­tor, who is mak­ing some recommendations.

“We’re try­ing to be rea­son­able about it but also be respon­si­ble,” he said. “Also we have a lot of peo­ple with con­cealed carry (license) who are employ­ees. There are some rec­om­mended poli­cies out there that we’re look­ing into.”

He added the com­mis­sion­ers are look­ing at adopt­ing a retire/rehire pol­icy for county employ­ees. There seem to be dif­fer­ent rules for peo­ple who work directly for the com­mis­sion­ers, he said, requir­ing a pub­lic hear­ing and 60 days in advance of retire­ment. Some offices have labor unions, so it’s dif­fer­ent in other sit­u­a­tions. “There needs to be some ben­e­fit to the county to retire/rehire.”

The next elected offi­cials meet­ing is April 1 at noon, and the pub­lic is wel­come to attend.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Mar 13 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.