We held a hearing about whether or not the mayor should also be the Judge. The mayor has decided that the mayor runs the court impartially and there is no need for a 3rd party magistrate.
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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All the other corruption and such aside, imagine how terrible this is for the urban development of your town.
The municipal government has no incentive to invest in forward-thinking policy that will lead to healthier and more economically sustainable communities. If they invest in any kind of maintenance or developments that increase road safety - and thus decrease fines - it hurts the government's ability to operate. Indeed, they have direct Financial incentive to make the roads less safe. Not to even mention that they have no incentive at all to do things that improved the city in ways that won't affect their traffic fines.
They've committed to giving up on good governance of their small town. They found a way to function by just parasitizing others. They've given up.
It's a town of 226 people, I don't think they're too interested in urban development or anything that would involve taxes instead of extorting out of towners.
Yes this village basically exists to give traffic tickets, and everyone else in the area hates them. Talking about building city infrastructure here is kind of absurd. Sure the mayor-judge could start attempting civil projects, but the 226 residents live there because of how things are now.
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They’re basically acting as modern day robber barons.
It's Louisiana, they would go back to 1800 if they could.
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I'm generally for local control over local matters, but this shit should be illegal at the federal level. The right to due process is impossible to implement when the executive and judicial branches are run by the same person.
the most, worst, and most blatant corruption is usually in local government. it's just so much harder to get people to notice or care until it's like Flint Michigan water levels of bad.
It's also much harder to investigate and shine a spotlight on it, since local news sources have been in decline for years. For many smaller metros, the only local news source may be a weekly newsletter or NPR affiliate, and those rarely have the investigative impact that an old-school local paper would have had, and small-town corruption has flourished like fungus in the dark.
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This is the exact all powerful executive situation the foundation intended to stop from ever happening.
I found this telling (emphasis mine):
Mayor’s courts operate in a gray area of Louisiana law. Like municipal courts, they handle violations of local ordinances. Municipal judges must hold a law degree and pass the bar; a mayor can preside over court without meeting any qualifications. Yet, like a municipal judge, a mayor can impose fines or sentence people to jail.
Mayor’s courts must ensure defendants have fair trials. But unlike other courts in the state, they aren’t subject to rules like the Code of Criminal Procedure that are supposed to ensure courts are run fairly and properly.
Wow. Truly land of the free. /s How is this permitted to go without consequences?
In The United States we believe in freedom in the abstract and only the abstract.
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I’m from this area. A mayor got in trouble for embezzlement a few year ago. Look it up.
the most expedient solution would be to drive nowhere near Fenton, LA
This is impossible. You have no choice but to drive through Fenton to get to lake Charles without at least an hour detour through moss bluff. I live in this area and my in-laws live in Fenton (it’s bigger than it seems. The town itself is small but the surrounding area has lots of home. A lot more than 225 people in the town too.) You just don’t speed. You get a warning sign about it changing to 50. Go 50. I used to pick up my buddy in kinder, one town over heading to lake Charles for work, and we would wait to light the blunt till we passed though.
I've seen this movie. Stars dan Aykroyd and John candy.
Nothing But Trouble is the movie for those curious.
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Reading the article, there is obviously there's some shady-ass conflict-of-interest shit going down in this specific case.
However.
Literally any municipality in America could make bank if they enforced the traffic laws to the letter. Conditions permitting, most drivers regularly go 5-10mph over the speed limit. Distracted driving is common, and evolving (apparently the new things is people watching streaming videos while driving). In certain areas drivers leave their cars parked on sidewalks, blocking crosswalks, inside bike lanes, etc. Laws about stopping for pedestrians waiting to cross the street may as well not exist. Buzzed (and more recently, mildly-stoned) driving is socially acceptable. My local municipality could probably fund itself exclusively off tickets from drivers who don't have their lights on in the rain.
To be very clear: enforcement is a terrible way to get people to follow traffic laws (an outsized number of encounters that end in police violence started with a traffic stop, traffic stops are disproportionately made against people of color, tickets are regressively priced, etc etc). However the case study of this little town reveals a big truth: lawbreaking while driving is widespread on American streets to a level so extreme that nearly all drivers on the road will break the law (however minutely) every time they get behind the wheel. What kind of a broken system is that?
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My cat's name is Fenton!
Hey, it’s the plot line to “nothing to lose”. Is there a coal fire under the courthouse?
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And here I thought that city that the Spiffing Brit did in Cities Skylines (and, to a lesser extent, Tropico) that subsisted entirely on toll tickets were just too dumb to be real. If that game allowed you to exist on fines, I suspect it'd be exactly like this place
PS - Invidious link to the vid - https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=gBe39Tn_75c
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