Posted on 05/31/2009 11:21:08 AM PDT by atomic_dog
John Schiffeler, a 68-year-old retired university instructor on ancient China, was walking his dog on a popular beach south of Carmel earlier this month.
And, though he didn't know it, he was about to learn something disconcerting about the higher costs of modern life.
Schiffeler recalls that the north end of Monastery Beach was almost deserted, except for himself, his 4-year-old German shepherd, Ares, and a couple.
He asked the couple if they would mind if he let Ares off his 30-foot retractable leash. They said no problem.
And Schiffeler broke the law: Dogs are supposed to be on a leash at the beach.
After a five-minute run, the dog was lying at Schiffeler's feet when a park ranger drove up in a pickup. She asked for his driver's license. Schiffeler said he asked her if she could give him a warning this time and skip the ticket. No, she said.
He wondered what it was going to cost. The ranger told him to call the court.
Which he did a few days after the May 5 incident, and what he learned set his head spinning.
The base fine for having the dog on the beach without a leash was $50. The total cost of clearing the ticket would be $245.
"I was flabbergasted. It seemed like I'm paying for every fund in the county, except for the coffee fund in the county employees' lounge," Schiffeler said last week.
He couldn't understand why his total penalty would be almost 500 percent the amount of the basic fine. He thought $50 was a reasonable fine for breaking the leash law.
But $245 — well, he said, "That is a lot of money."
He went to the Marina court, spoke to a court worker and received an itemized printout of how his $245 would be split among 16 local and state funds.
His money would go into pots of money for DNA and fingerprint identification systems, courthouse construction and security, police and prison guard training, emergency medical programs, driver training and witness assistance, among other things.
"I'm supposed to pay a portion of all these things tagged onto a dog fine?" he asked the court worker.
And he's still asking.
In the end, Schiffeler figures he'll write a letter to the court expressing his displeasure and then "fall at the mercy of the court."
But he's far from happy to learn what almost anyone who has received a traffic ticket in recent years has realized in the pit of his or her wallet.
Evolving system
During the past 20 years, the state Legislature and various governors have approved a dizzying menu of penalties, assessments, surcharges and other extra fees onto base fines for traffic tickets and other offenses punishable as infractions or misdemeanors.
"It's simply been evolving," said Philip Carrizosa, administrative spokesman for the Judicial Council of California, the agency that runs courts in California.
The added charges started in the late 1960s in California, when the Legislature tacked the first assessment onto traffic tickets to help finance drivers' education school programs. Since then, many more have been added.
"Various groups — the justice system, the counties, courts and cities — have needs," Carrizosa said.
Without opposition, a succession of state legislatures and governors have signed laws adding more fees. Now the added charges typically supersize the cost of a traffic ticket or other infractions by 200 percent to 500 percent.
On the Kern County courts Web site, people learn that traffic tickets will cost almost three times the amount of their base fines. In San Luis Obispo County, a $20 ticket will end up costing $141.
And the San Luis Obispo County Web site says starting this year there is a $25 charge for each "proof of correction" on a motor-vehicle fix-it ticket. It used to be a single $10 charge, but state law changed Jan. 1.
In Monterey County, court officials are preparing to post on their Web site similar explanatory information about the rising costs of fines and penalty charges. Now the Web site only offers the 2009 version of the statewide schedule of fines and penalties, which doesn't take into account local surcharges.
"The only thing we can say to people who are concerned is for them to contact their state legislator," said Minnie Monarque, operations director for Monterey County Superior Court. "The trial courts are required to follow the law. They are not responsible for creating these laws."
A 2006 legislative study found there were 16 separate state laws that set up the array of fines, fees, forfeitures and other charges. The money collected by courts in California can wind up in almost 270 separate revenue streams, the study said.
Carrizosa, who isn't aware of any opposition being raised over the years to the added charges, said the money doesn't begin to cover the $2 billion annual budget for the state court system, or to finance all the repair work needed in more than 400 courthouse complexes.
The money, he noted, is not just going into the courts, but to "all kinds of entities."
And it hasn't just been folks in Sacramento who have jacked up the cost of a ticket. State voters, in 2004, approved a ballot measure increasing penalties to help finance local and state DNA and palm-print identification systems.
Under the radar
The slow explosion of charges for traffic tickets and other minor offenses hasn't caught the attention of major anti-tax groups or government watchdog groups.
"We have not looked at that issue," said Dave Kline, spokesman for the California Taxpayers' Association. "We're more focused on straight taxes and tax-like fees."
The fact that there is "some alleged lawbreaking" in the basic offense — unlike non-court related taxes and charges — would make it more difficult to lobby the Legislature against the added fees, he said.
But the soaring fees don't surprise the taxpayers' group spokesman.
"We have seen many instances of fees and surcharges and other sorts of things being added to things," Kline said. "We would hope for more transparency on these and other types of assessments."
As for Schiffeler, the whole episode touched a couple of nerves — one that left him burned up about the $245 and another that left him remembering simpler times.
"Perhaps, I'm living too much in the past," he said. "But I've learned my lesson. As a result of that unfortunate incident I haven't been back to that particular beach.
"I wish I could let dogs do what dogs do, but I can't," he said.
He still believes his three-figure fine is more evidence that "we Californians are paying very high taxes. There comes a point."
Supersizing that ticket A $50 ticket for allowing your dog to go unleashed on a beach where leashes are required will wind up costing you $245 in Monterey County courts. Here's a breakdown on where your $245 will go: $50: The citing agency (city, county or state) $50: State penalty assessment, which is split among the county and several state funds: the Fish and Game Preservation Fund, Restitution Fund, Peace Officers Training Fund, Corrections Training Fund, Local Prosecutors and Public Defenders Fund, Victim Witness Assistance Fund, Traumatic Brain Injury Fund and Driver Training Fund. $25: State court construction. $5: County DNA identification fund. $5: State DNA identification fund. $12.50: County criminal justice facilities construction. $10: County courthouse construction. $20: County emergency medical services. $2.50: County automated fingerprint retrieval system. $10: State general fund. $20: Courthouse security. $20: "Conviction assessment" to support court operations. 2 percent of total, in this case $3.60, goes to a state fund to help automate court systems. Source: Monterey County Superior Court; California Research Bureau
"Yee-HAW! $100 + fees for "Impeding Traffic" by driving slower than conditions warrant! Woo-hoo! I hardly ever get to write one of these," says first cop to see you.
He should tell them he can’t pay and that he requests to be taken to jail.
Then the jail will have to pay for food and lodging.
org.whodat, as I am discovering, is another of those bizarre lovers of the administrative apparatus of the State who style themselves as “conservatives.” The world is a better place in his mind because we have low level adminstrators, inspectors and LEOs to watch each and every move and take a piece out of you to pay for it all. If you didn’t want them looking through your garbage, well the solution is obvious. Don’t have garbage. Don’t have a dog either. Man if you would just die, then the state will stop hassling you and move on to your heirs.
Just don't drive 5 mph over the speed limit during rush hour. You could get one ticket for speeding and another one for impeding traffic.
I lived there for more than forty years, and my family goes back several generations in California. I remember the Seventies and Eighties, when the lunatics all came there from somewhere else, and were open and proud of that, and joked about it.
If California could have sealed it's borders in the mid Sixties, it'd probably be a solid red state today. I feel for the neighboring states when they complain about 'Californians' moving in and screwing things up the way they did in California. As far as I'm concerned though, most of them were never really Californians to begin with.
I would love to live in the California that I grew up in, but that place doesn't exist, so I left. For that matter I would love to live in the Unites States I grew up in, ...
This is what I love about Alaska. Regular folks are pretty much left alone. I walk my dog without a leash all the time...while carrying a concealed firearm and nobody bothers me.
Been there, done that...Cleveland asked me to help finance the new Indian’s Stadium some years ago.
10 over the limit, (45 limit on the freeway) while being passed on the right by a school bus, and on the left by a tractor-trailer rig.
We have lunatics moving out of the North East to Florida. A lot of them are conservative for that region. Here they are raging liberals when compared to conservatives here.
They are bringing their stupid ideas with them.
1060 W. Addison, Chicago, IL.
Bingo. I went to California for graduate school and had a very very good reason for being there at the time. I was amazed at the milieu of ne'er do nothings and ne'er do wells that migrated from somewhere else, all doing " a bit of this and a bit of that" and asking me how much I liked it there. Then as I met actual native Californians I discovered that they were decent civilized hard working folks, like an old uncle of mine who lived in the real Berkeley back before it became the modern Berkeley. They were also horrified to watch this beautiful place that they had helped build sink into a cess-pool of drifters and grifters.
I don't know whether there is much if any of the old California left any more.
Nope... Ares.
There are still holdouts there, a lot of the state outside the LA Basin and the Bay Area are pretty red. They feel like they’ve been run over by the left in state politics, and they have. They soldier on and do their best in spite of it.
I find this entire subject very depressing. As I grow older I understand better and better the views of our founding fathers. The Constitution is a document built on our forefathers profound cynicism about their fellow men built over a lifetime of disillusionment in human nature. Basically I think the idea is to tell folks that they have to make their own decisions and stand and fall with the consequences and not bother other people either way. I honestly think there is nothing wrong with that. Our collective defense seems to bring out the best in us. The American penchant for going through dirty linen and dogcrap is a less flattering side of us that is all too true to form.
George Washington was as fine an executive as this country will ever have.
Yup.
As I grow older I understand better and better the views of our founding fathers. The Constitution is a document built on our forefathers profound cynicism about their fellow men built over a lifetime of disillusionment in human nature. Basically I think the idea is to tell folks that they have to make their own decisions and stand and fall with the consequences and not bother other people either way.
So true, unfortunately the nanny state has replaced the federal republic.
University professor? Monterey County? Expert on useless Chinese “studies.”
You made your bed, now lie in it....shut up, pay it and quit yer bellyachin’.
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