The City of Rochester is taking advantage of new state legislation to set up its own City Traffic Violations Agency.
The city wants this because existing traffic violations in the city have to be handled through the State Violations Bureau, which is part of the DMV. But each town is allowed to have jurisdiction over its own traffic cases through the town courts. They’re allowed to accept plea bargains and reduce charges to a lesser offense. But the state bureaus are forbidden by law to make deals; they have to go for the full penalty.
A letter from Mayor Lovely Warren says that means people charged in the city end up paying higher fines and get more points on their licenses, which she says is unfair. The city will have to hire hearing officers and prosecutors to handle the cases, but Mayor Warren says they’ll also get to keep the administrative fees that now to the state. She says Buffalo runs its own bureau and the fees more than pay for the salaries.