TRAFFIC CITATIONS Buy your own tickets, court orders police

Police will handle traffic ticket administration, the mayor says.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
and DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The city and township police departments will now pay for their own traffic ticket forms, because Warren Municipal Court says it will no longer foot the bill.
For years, the court paid for the blank traffic citations for the police departments, but Judge Thomas Gysegem says he thinks it's time the police departments take over the expense.
The judge noted that the other four police agencies the court serves -- Howland, Champion, the Ohio State Highway Patrol and Trumbull County Sheriff's Department -- order their own tickets and keep track of the amounts given to their officers.
"Quite frankly, in my nine years here, I have really never given the matter a thought until recent events have unjustly and without any foundation whatsover called the court's integrity into question," Judge Gysegem said today. He declined to elaborate.
Sent tickets, too
He sent a letter to Warren Mayor Michael O'Brien and Doug Franklin, city safety-service director, along with 4,000 tickets after the police chief refused to take them.
Police Chief John Mandopoulos said he refused the tickets because he wasn't given enough notice by the court they were being turned over to him.
The judge said his office is no longer ordering the tickets or keeping track of them.
O'Brien said he would assign police department personnel to handle ticket administration.
"On Thursday, I came to work and found thousands of tickets in Doug Franklin's office with the letter," O'Brien said.
The mayor said he doesn't have a clear understanding of what precipitated the judge's letter and decision.
"We'll double check and triple check it to make sure that administration of tickets" is done properly, O'Brien said.
Mandopoulos said the judge called for a meeting last week between Mandopoulos and township Police Chief Thomas Rush.
"He said the court is not going to handle it anymore," Mandopoulos said.
Not in the budget
He said he wished he had been given more notice about it because the money to print tickets hasn't been budgeted for the police department.
"I asked if we could track the tickets and the court could pay for them and he said no," Mandopoulos said. "The court isn't going to track them or pay for them."
The chief said he'll do whatever he's directed to do by the administration.
"We're going to do whatever is right," Mandopoulos said.
O'Brien said the costs, estimated at $1,200 to $1,700, would come out of the police department budget.
Rush said he has no problem with the judge's request.
"Other departments are doing it, so we should to," Rush said.
sinkovich@vindy.comdick@vindy.com