Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston said he’s asked judges at the municipal and county level to stop levying fines against chronic offenders.
During an October work session on issues facing downtown Morgantown, Preston said the municipal court alone issued more than 1,600 fines that went unpaid over an 18-month span.
Many of these fines were charged to chronic offenders, some of whom had more than 100 interactions with the MPD through the first 10 months of 2019, Preston said, noting the unpaid fines totaled more than $200,000.
“I brought that up in October and, come November, I took it upon myself to go to the judicial officials, both city and county, to ask that they sentence individuals to community service in lieu of fines we’re never going to collect,” Preston said.
There have been five individuals sentenced to community service since his request.
“What we’re doing during that community service is they’re picking up trash along the areas that are our worst spots, our problem areas,” he said.
Preston’s efforts dovetail with a separate initiative being explored as an offshoot of the drive to combat homelessness started in December by Rachael Coen of the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness and Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom.
Councilor Ron Dulaney is one of three members of city council participating in that effort, along with Zack Cruze and Dave Harshbarger. All three are part of a subgroup looking at issues facing the city’s downtown business district.
During council’s most recent regular session, Dulaney said one of the ideas being researched is a policy for the potential expungement of fines.
“The importance of that is that once people get on their feet, sometimes it’s hard to get out from under the debt that they’ve incurred as they suffered through their addiction and illnesses,” Dulaney said.
Dulaney said there have also been discussions about additional training for those selling alcohol downtown, be that in a bar or a store.
Preston said his department has been requesting and participating in those efforts for years in conjunction with the West Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Administration.
“We’ve been requesting for a long time a focus on the point of sale, to be able to recognize the signs of impairment, intoxication,” Preston said. “Because serving an impaired, intoxicated person, or a known alcoholic, could subject individuals to civil and criminal liabilities. We do have dram shop laws in this state.”
Whatever the underlying causes, Harshbarger said, it’s the behavior that’s most damaging to the reputation of the city’s downtown. He said the push to assist people dealing with chronic issues isn’t coming at the expense of addressing illegal behavior.
“We’re concerned with criminal behavior and the uptick of that,” Harshbarger said. “Just prior to this meeting, speaking with several of our officers, there is an increased effort to have more of a police presence in those areas. I want to make sure that people are aware that we’re still addressing that and not negating that at the sake of just trying to provide more social services.”
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