LEE COUNTY – The Lee County Board of Supervisors reminded the public Tuesday morning that any outstanding tickets from the automated traffic cameras that were in place in the county, are still due.
During Supervisor Garry Seyb’s comment time, he said there is still more than half a million dollars in tickets that are outstanding and those citations could wind up in court if not paid.
Seyb said there are close to 5,300 tickets still outstanding and there may have been a mixup in some communication that was sent out from SiteStream, the Massachusetts company that administered the program for the county.
Apparently, SiteStream conducted an internal test of collection notices, and about 1,400 notices were accidentally sent out to motorists. When people called the Lee County Sheriff’s Office regarding the letters and the fact that the cameras were no longer functional, sheriff’s administrators were instructed by SiteStream officials to tell the motorists to disregard that communication. However, Seyb said that has led people to believe that the tickets aren’t due and payable, and that only the collection communication was to be disregarded at that point.
Seyb said he and Supervisor Ginger Knisley met with SiteStream officials last week and reviewed the tickets issued while the cameras were functional between January and June of 2024. There were three northbound and three southbound.
“There were approximately 22,000 total tickets issued during the lifespan of the SiteStream being there. 16,000 of those tickets were paid during that time which means there are roughly 5,683 that have not been paid,” he said.
“Those tickets would have been anywhere from $100 to $125 depending on the speed, so at minimum, they were that. They could have been more than that.
When legislation was signed into law limiting camera usage and use of the funding in May of 2024, the baseline ticket went from $125 to $100. It also resulted in Lee County having to pull down their cameras because they weren’t fully utilized prior to Jan. 1 of 2024. They were still in test at that time.
Seyb said with those figures and the number of tickets outstanding, $566,925 is still needing to be paid and/or collected.
He said at this point there is no appeals process on tickets outstanding because the time has expired.
“Those are basically ‘desk due’ on 5,683 tickets,” he said.
A 3rd letter is set to go out and that will include a collection notice as part of the letter, which would also provide notification of added expenses on the tickets for having to move them through district court.
Those additional expenses would include the court costs the county would have to pay to file the collection in court as well as a 30% administrative charge. Seyb said if violators didn’t pay the fine within the time allowed in the third notice, they could be assessed the $85 court filing fee and the 30% administrative charge for efforts in collecting the fine.
“If you still do not do that, then there will be basically a judgment filed with the state and it would come out of your tax return, assuming you get a tax return,” he said.
“It would be in everyone’s best interest to pay the initial fine and be done with it.”
He said motorists had already received the citation and a later reminder to pay them, so motorists had already received a couple notifications to pay the fine.
A new notice coming out will look substantially different with SiteStream’s logo on it with authority of the sheriff’s department.
“The thing for me is, you were speeding. You had the ability in a time frame to appeal and you didn’t. You received a second notice saying you owe this and now you’re going to get a third notice,” he said.
“If you don’t pay it at that time, you have the potential to pay more.”
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