Bellevue traffic-ticket sweep stirs up emotions
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Jim Melgard remembers the sunny June day in 1985 when a cop pulled him over for speeding near Bellevue Community College. He's pretty sure he paid the $70 fine. No one ever told him otherwise — until last weekend.
Melgard received a terse, telegram-style notice from the state Department of Licensing, warning him to pay the ticket cost plus $51 in fines. If not, his license would be suspended March 23.
"Seventeen years later, their records show I didn't pay it," Melgard said. "They wanted me to show proof of payment. Who saves payment stubs for that long? My bank's merged since then. It's comical."
Melgard isn't alone in his frustration.
Bellevue District Court computers last week swept through the city's inventory of traffic infractions for the past several years, turning up about 4,000 instances in which records showed violators had yet to pay their fine, failed to appear in court or had some other noteworthy problem with their case.
The information was turned over to the state licensing department, which mailed out the warning letters.
But court officials yesterday conceded some of the hits might have been caused by the court's own bookkeeping or clerical errors. And the sweep turned up cases so old that either the recipients of the tickets or the city doesn't have an accurate record of who paid how much or when.
Court officials were at a loss to explain why the computer check turned up cases as old as Melgard's.
The phones never stopped ringing yesterday at Bellevue District Court, where a small but steady line formed at the cashier's desk. Anxious people clutched their warning letters and asked for explanations.
"It's a madhouse," said Sue Lynn, the court operations manager.
Dougal MacKenzie, 74, of Monroe, told the cashier he had paid his 1990 speeding ticket. The cashier checked computer records and relented. The ticket was dismissed.
"Every ticket I ever got, I paid," MacKenzie said. "You can see why I would get huffy and suspicious."
Joan Eyring, 54, of Bellevue, thought she had paid her fine for driving without insurance in March 1992. The cashier checked computer records but found no record of payments. Her warning remained in place.
"A 10-year-old ticket, like I remember," she said. "My problem with this is that I didn't hear any more about it 'til this week. Now they want to jerk my license."
A 43-year-old Bellevue mortgage broker told a cashier he had already paid his $23 fine for driving without tabs in 1990. The cashier agreed and said a clerk must not have properly entered the payment into the system. The ticket was dismissed.
Doug Mincher, a King County District Court administrator, said these were minor mistakes. The Bellevue court enters about 2,000 new traffic tickets into its system every month.
Considering that number, it's not unusual that the sweep would turn up 4,000 problematic ones, Mincher said.
As for the mistakes, it's hard to say what caused them, court officials said. The court might have received a payment, and the clerk might have failed to enter it into the computer system. Or perhaps the wrong code was entered into the court docket, officials said.
"It's possible (the violators) never responded, or they only made a partial payment, or the court made a mistake," Mincher said. "The ones that we have made a mistake, we will correct that and apologize. The vast majority are not mistakes."
Mincher said the move was not intended to raise revenue.
Mark Varadian, a spokesman for the Department of Licensing, said municipal and district courts frequently check old violations in an effort to update records and clear up old cases.
Michael Ko can be reached at 206-515-5653 or mko@seattletimes.com.