Ronald Kunz, the Justice Court Judge for the City of West Jordan seemed to be waxing nostalgic recently for the ‘good old days’ when West Jordan police officers used to issue hundreds of more traffic citations every month than the do now. In a report before the city council on May 25th, Judge Kunz compared present day law enforcement to when the West Jordan municipal building was erected in 2005.
“In 2005 and where we’re at today in regards to our challenges and our caseload and our work in 2005 and prior to that time there was a lot of emphasize from the administration and police officers to enforce traffic laws and for those of you who are around back then you would hardly go down the street without seeing a police officer out enforcing traffic laws and pulling people over and as a result of that people would get citations they’d have to appear before the court and they they would have to pay a fine. Courts [at that time] were having a reputation and the criticism especially of municipal courts was that they were cash cows just trying to enforce the law and gaining revenue.”
Up to that point in Kunz’ report it wasn’t clear if he thought over enforcing traffic citations was a good idea or bad one. Unfortunately it become obvious as the Judge continued to speak that he wants to see more aggressive traffic enforcement, and of course more money for his court.
Kunz went on to chide the current West Jordan police department, saying, “Last year I think was the all-time low. Our case filings for the total year were 7460 or 45% of what they were in 2010 and traffic citations averaged 422 traffic citations per month or 36 percent of what they were in 2010 that 422 average is for the entire year. I want you to keep in mind Ron Wood wrote that many in a month because he’d love to write traffic tickets. Like I said I don’t give you this information to be critical but to let you know where we’re at.”
Please Judge Kunz, let’s not go back to overzealous enforcement of traffic citations. Of course we need to support law and order, but we don’t need to criminalize basic driving, which is what it used to feel like when driving in West Jordan.
Hey. great website. Judges absolutely get paid by shaking down their neighbors. I am learning how the money changes hands. I’ll get you that info as soon as I can. We the People are cash cows for the filthy attorneys because we don’t mind and we have been since the day we were born. I say we don’t feed them, cut their hair, fix their cars, root canals, overflowing toilets, furnaces in the winter…in short give no aid to the enemy that takes far more than half of our production on an annual basis one way or the other. Parasites have to have a host.