At Monday's council meeting, Resolution 42, 2011 was introduced by Councilor Ryan Vaughn to appoint Steve Hardiman to hear parking ticket citation cases.
I checked on the roll of attorneys. Hardiman is not an attorney. Linkedin lists his job as:"City County Council Liaison / Executive Assistant, DPW at City of Indianapolis." His previous job was public information officer with the City.
Pray tell, how does those jobs qualify one to hear parking citations? Another resolution seeks to reappoint John C. Krause to the same position. Krause, I do believe, is an attorney.
When I went to parking citation court one day, I learned that the hearing officer, i.e. judge was letting a bailiff read into the record the parking violation and using that hearsay evidence to find a person committed the parking violation in question despite testimony from the defendant to the contrary. Anyone who has done administrative hearings knows, that while hearsay evidence is admissible in those proceedings, it cannot be the sole evidence upon which a judgment is based.
These are things that most attorneys know, but many non-lawyers wouldn't have a clue about. Given that we have now given a private company an incentive to make money off parking tickets, it is even more important that we have someone with legal experience to know what rules need to be followed.
In additiion, I would point out that scores of attornesy are out of work and are desperate for anything, including part-time work at any rate of pay. There is no reason to fill this essentially judicial position with a non-lawyer. You open this position up for attorneys to apply and I bet you would get 75 applicants, even if it is part-time and low pay.