April 15, 2024 |
Photo – Town of Medicine Bow logo – Bigfoot99 file photo
If you were ticketed recently while driving through the Town of Medicine Bow, you may be lucky. The town of Medicine Bow tossed out municipal tickets after closing its court.
In February, the Medicine Bow town council voted to close its marshal’s department due to budgeting concerns. Shuttering the in-town law enforcement agency also means eliminating the municipal court.
The Medicine Bow Marshal’s Office was established in 2019 using $1 million dollars of impact assistance funding. With the money running out, the town decided it couldn’t afford to pay nearly $200,000 a year, even for a diminished marshal’s department.
The decision was made to close the Marshal’s Office, sell all the equipment, such as police vehicles and guns, and look into creating a Memorandum of Understanding to have the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office patrol the town. Both Hanna and Riverside have MOUs to pay the sheriff a certain amount of money to have deputies perform law enforcement in the towns for a set number of hours per month. Sheriff’s deputies often exceed the required hours at no additional cost to the towns.
The closing of the marshal’s department left the town with no one to enforce municipal ordinances. Since no one can be cited for breaking town regulations, the municipal court is no longer needed.
During the April 8th Medicine Bow town council meeting, Clerk of Court Genevieve Standish said Municipal Court Judge Daniel Massey threw out all disputed tickets. Standish said she thinks the town is nearly finished receiving fine payments.
Clerk of Court Standish said the town must still decide what to do about people who had their driver’s licenses suspended for failing to pay their municipal citations. Standish said Town Attorney Cameron Smith will see if Clerk and Treasurer Karen Heath is able to inform the court when a person has finished paying their fines.
Standish said the municipal court has suspended 10 people’s driver’s licenses for non-payment.
Attorney Smith said he thinks Clerk Heath is legally able to collect payments for suspended licenses. The town attorney also offered the services of his law firm, Laramie-based Pence and MacMillan, to notify the Wyoming Department of Transportation after a person has finished paying their fines.
Clerk Heath said she is comfortable handling the payments and informing the court.
Attorney Smith said the town must determine what to do about Municipal Court Judge Massey’s contract. The town attorney said Judge Massey can be retained to handle municipal ordinance violations in the future.
Keeping the municipal judge on retainer may be necessary to handle certain crimes. Later during the April 8th meeting, Attorney Smith said the Carbon County Prosecutor’s Office will not accept certain cases from the town.
Attorney Smith said the county prosecutor is using a resolution passed by the Board of Carbon County Commissioners to deny municipal dog bite cases. The town attorney said he isn’t sure if the prosecutor’s officer will apply the same resolution to other types of cases.
Councilwoman Kristi Wickizer asked if the county is obligated to prosecute crime covered by state law, such as dog bites. Attorney Smith said he is looking into it.
Mayor Justin George said the county can’t write a resolution absolving themselves of their responsibility to prosecute certain crimes. Mayor George said he and Attorney Smith will continue to investigate the matter.
