It is often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but what about the road to heaven in this story? It’s clear paved with speeding tickets. Small Police Department Arkansas The town was banned from writing speeding tickets for an entire year after it passed the state’s percentage limit on city revenue derived from traffic citations.
According to the report of KTHV, state attorneys general established the Menifee Police Department following an audit. More than half of the city’s revenue comes from traffic citations. Arkansas state law states that cities and towns cannot increase their revenue by more than 30% from traffic citations. A 2020 audit found that more than $120,000 was collected from traffic violations, a high income for a town the size of Menifee.
How small is Menifee? The 2020 census says the town 40 miles northwest of Little Rock has a population of 274. However, there are two important roads that pass through Menifee, US Route 64 and Interstate 40.
Local officials are pointing fingers at each other to see who is responsible for the ban. Mayor Gary Green said, “When I hired [the police chief], I said, ‘We can’t write tickets 10 miles or less. But these people wrote tickets 10 miles or less. Sheriff John Randall later commented that he was simply enforcing local law. Randall added that the courts and those cited were to blame for the poor sales numbers in 2020. Randall said, “When they went to court, the judge set them up with a payment plan. They didn’t pay the fine until 2020, where it looks like we brought in a lot of money that year alone.”
KTHV discovered through ticket sales records from 2018 to last week that a single employee issued 771 citations. The next highest official on this list wrote 263 citations. In addition, not a single recorded warning was given to the driver during this same time period.
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A local alderman somewhat gave context to the situation and laid the blame on everyone involved, including himself. He said, “Chief Randall was given permission from the mayor and city council to go after past due and unpaid tickets. The tickets were written by officers who no longer work for the city. We as a council failed to make sure that happened and now face police sanctions for a year.”
While the Menifee Police Department might not be able to write tickets for the next year, other law enforcement agencies, like the Alabama Highway Patrol, can issue citations for infractions in Menifee.
