The city is attempting to catch up on hundreds of traffic tickets issued between May 2015 and March 2018 that sat, unprocessed, on a municipal court desk.
The tickets represent more than 700 traffic violations worth almost $150,000 in fines and costs.
City Councilman Rudy Garza says an audit uncovered the problem.
“They found there were 700 tickets that were not able to be entered because there was a field missing,” Garza said.
Court officials say, sometimes, tickets arrive missing key information – such as the location where an alleged violation took place – and that can pose a data-entry problem when trying to log it in.
The solution?
Mass-entry that happened in a single Saturday last fall, when court employees auto-populated certain fields, in an effort to speed the tickets along.
Municipal Court Director Gilbert Hernandez says hundreds have since been cleared – including several that had already passed the statute of limitations. But, many more await review at the city prosecutor’s office.
“If the prosecutor decides to recommend dismissal, they’ll take that process,” Hernandez said. “If the prosecutor decides to move forward, then at that point, we’ll notify the citizen.”
Summonses began mailing about 10 days ago, he says.
If you’d like to search for your name among those still pending, click here, then, hit “CTRL + F” and enter your last name.
