License Suspensions: A Primer

I'm always amazed: every time the Enquirer has the opportunity to educate the public about a criminal justice issue, it fails. Today's article on license suspensions is an excellent example. The article notes the number of individuals who drive despite having a suspended license, and quotes HamCo Municipal Court Judge Nadine Allen regarding the drag this becomes on the court system.

Judge Allen is right: we don't do a good job, either in Ohio or in Hamilton County, on dealing with the enormous number of individuals who are caught driving with a license in a non-valid status. In this post, I'll describe the problem in greater detail. In my next post, I'll lay out my suggestion to fix this.

Driving without a license or with a suspended license in Ohio is a first-degree misdemeanor, which means that it's an offense punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. (The exceptions are driving on a license expired for fewer than 6 months, which is punishable only by a $150 fine and no jail time, and repeat driving under OVI-suspension, which is punishable by up to a year.)

It's important to understand the types of license suspensions. I suspect the most common is an "FRA suspension." "FRA" stands for Financial Responsibility Act, the Ohio law that requires all motorists to carry car insurance. The easiest way to get such a suspension is to be cited for a simple traffic violation during a time when you don't have car insurance. The BMV suspends a motorist's license in this situtation. (The BMV also conducts random checks on motorists' insurance; if you fail to respond to a BMV notice requring proof of insurance, your license is suspended.)

Closely related to the FRA suspension is a "judgment suspension." This generally occurs when a person is an automobile accident and doesn't have insurance, and the other driver sues and gets a judgment. In those cases, your license becomes suspended until you've paid off the judgment or entered into some sort of payment arrangement.

Falling too far into arrears on child support can cause a suspension. This can be fixed only by paying a certain percentage of the arrearage and making other arrangements with CSEA.

All felony drug offenses in Ohio carry a mandatory driver's license suspension.

The above suspensions don't carry mandatory jail time. But there are two that do:

First, a twelve-point suspension occurs when you accumulate 12 points on your driver's license. It's done automatically by the BMV. If you're caught and convicted of driving under a 12-point suspension, you'll face a mandatory three days of jail time.

Second, driving under an OVI (formerly DUI) suspension carries mandatory time that increases with each offense (first three days, then ten days, then thirty days). If you're convicted of OVI, the court will suspend your license (your license is also suspended automatically upon testing at or above .08). Ignoring either the automatic (or "administrative") suspension (even prior to conviction) or the court-ordered suspension are treated the same under Ohio law.

Finally, there are a broad category of people who, if caught driving, would be charged with "failure to reinstate." These are people whose license was suspended by either the BMV or a court and whose suspension has expired, but who failed to go to the BMV and pay their reinstatement fee (and perhaps satisfy some other requirements). These folks don't have a valid license, but aren't technically suspended. Nonetheless, the offense is a first-degree misdemeanor.

Now that we now what the various license suspensions, if we're worried about the impact these motorists are having on the court system, what do we do?

Speaking of Food

It shouldn't be suprising that the Freestore Foodbank will be in high demand over the next two months. The Enquirer reports that they're predicting record demand.

For what it's worth, you don't have to donate actual food items; the Foodbank has a virtual food drive where you can donate cash based on what items you'd give had you actually gone to the store.

It seems there ought to be a way for all of the local blogs to have some sort of contest to see who can raise the most money and food for the Foodbank. I'm still thinking about how that would work and what the prize would be (other than bragging rights). For the time being, I'll be satisfied by challenging every other Cincinnati blogger to link to the Foodbank's virtual food drive on their blogs.

And if you're stuck deciding between an "Obama Victory" T-shirt and a donation to the Foodbank, go for the Foodbank. Barack will understand.

Whoops (Top Chef Spoiler Ahead)

Julie pointed out that this season of Top Chef would feature a Cincinnati contestant, Lauren Starling Hope of Jag's Steak and Seafood.

Unfortunately, she didn't even make it into the kitchen, being eliminated during the first episode's "quickfire" challenge.

The LA Times offers an episode recap and critique here.

Aside: Bravo's bio of Lauren says that Jag's is the "most luxurious and contemporary steakhouse in Cincinnati." Is this really true? Is it more luxurious than Ruby's or the Precinct?

I Voted For Obama, And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

I donated both time (all day Election Day) and money (twice, both in small amounts) to the Obama campaign. It's no surprise that I was happy when he won. But after a two-year long campaign, I was looking forward to the end of emails and calls soliciting support.

A week later, and not so much. I'm still getting emails. Apparently, the DNC went into debt for the Obama campaign. So President-Elect Obama is still fund-raising. But I can get a T-shirt if I give $30 or more.

Woo hoo.

Pulse Ends Print Edition

In a surprise move last week Cincinnati Pulse (Formerly known as the Downtowner) haulted the printing of their weekly newspaper and launched a web only edition at www.cincipulse.com.

Web only news sites, as I can tell you personally, are difficult to profitable when you have reporters to pay. As a new source, the paper has greatly improved under the new owners. I hope they are able to make this model work, but without the print copy, they are losing a downtown niche that I think drove readership: available in local establishments. When you could pick up a copy inside Skyline and read it while you ate lunch, that provided a solid niche that will disappear with an online edition.

Silver Lining

Over at PepTalk, Commissioner Pepper notes an 8% increase in third-quarter revenue from the HamCo hotel tax over the same period last year. That's good news.

My guess is that a large portion of this increase is from the NAACP and National Baptist conventions downtown. Are there any indicators that can sort out convention traffic versus what I'd call "pure tourism" (someone saying, "Hey, let's go to Cincinnati for a weekend!")? Nonetheless, it's definitely a positive sign.

Of course, maybe HamCo just found a way to start taxing bedbugs.

(Sorry for the bedbug snark...as a downtown resident, I check my bed and body for signs of the critters daily, given the recent outbreak. They're been spotted everywhere, as has been widely reported, including 800 Broadway--the county building that houses juvenile court--and the courthouse.)

Is There Leadership In Local Government These Days?

Local government does a lot more than it did 150 years ago--or even 50 years ago. Thus, it's much more complicated and difficult to manage on a day-to-day basis. That means that our elected officials need the help of professional managers (some would call them bureacrats, which I think is fair apart from the pejorative sense the term has acquired). We want to elect ordinary citizens (Joe the Plumbers) to lead us. But they don't always have the necessary expertise to keep government functioning, and turn to professionals for assistance.

The City of Cincinnati, like many others, has a "City Manager." Previously, I've been critical of Cincinnati's mayor/manager government, and suggested revising the charter to give more power to the mayor.

Hamilton County has an "Administrator." Presently, Patrick Thompson fills that role. Like the City Manager, he proposes a budget (that's what we saw on Monday). After public comment and tinkering by our elected executives, some version of that is then codified.

Here's my problem: creating budgets is governing. It's policy-making. Non-elected government administrators like Thompson (or the City's Milton Dohoney) should stick with management, non-policymaking tasks. When we permit the professional bureaucracy to create budgets, we let our elected officials off the hook; we relieve them of the responsibility of the office we elected them to assume.

Over the last few years, we've seen a pattern with the City budget process. Dohoney announces a budget with draconian cuts, the public is outraged, and then Mayor Mallory swoops in with a plan to save some of the services axed by the Manager's budget. Presently, I'm cynical enough to believe we'll see some form of this with the County budget: now that Thompson has announced a scary budget, Todd Portune, David Pepper, or both will announce a plan that's less harsh--or at least less unpopular.

Why have we allowed our local elected leaders to delegate policymaking decisions to professional administrators? This isn't criticism of Patrick Thompson. (For those who don't realize it, he and his staff spent countless hours on this budget, and produced it only after soliciting and reviewing feedback from every county department head.) But when the President proposes a budget to Congress, it has the President's name on it. He doesn't have his chief of staff sign it, and then publicly review and revise it. Shouldn't we expect the same of our local leaders?

Our county, like local governments across the nation, is facing a dire financial picture. Frankly, if we had a majority Republican Commission, we'd see a sales tax increase this year. (It's an only-Nixon-can-go-to-China thing. Local Democrats won't raise taxes for fear that they'll be labelled "tax and spend liberals." Republicans in this mess would look at the budget and do what needs to be done.) Commissioners Portune and Pepper won't do that, though, so we're faced with the drastically reduced budget presented this week.

So how do we restore real leadership to local government? I'll renew my call to change the city charter, and add to it the suggestion that we look at the way power is delegated in County government.

UPDATE: Having re-read the post, I wanted to make sure I'm not giving the impression that I'm singling our county commissioners out for criticism. I think all three are good public servants working to do the best by the people of this county (albeit from three different perspectives); I think the same will be true of our incoming commissioner. (Of course, all of this could just be my fondness for lawyers.) The trend towards "managers" encroaching on governance is not unique to HamCo; I just want to raise the issue and discuss whether it's a good thing.