Wyrsch and I are supposed to meet for the evening session of the Florissant Municipal Court. It’s a little after 7 pm on a sticky August evening in Florissant, Missouri, when I meet James Wyrsch, Khazaeli’s law partner, but I am at first a little confused. There’s also a widely held sentiment that the police spend far more time looking for petty offenses that produce fines than they do keeping these communities safe. To many residents, the cops and court officers are just outsiders who are paid to come to their towns and make their lives miserable. Residents of these towns feel as if their governments see them as little more than sources of revenue. In Flordell Hills, it’s 91 percent and 25 percent respectively. ![]() ![]() In Velda City, for example, blacks make up 95 percent of the town, but just 20 percent of the police. Louis County municipalities where blacks made up 10 percent or more of the population found just one town where black representation on the police force was equal or greater than the black presence in the town itself. (Disclosure: Khazaeli is also a personal friend.) “But I think Ferguson really showed just how much that can be a problem.” A recent St. “It was always apparent that police don’t usually have a lot in common with the towns where they work,” says Javad Khazaeli, whose firm Khazaeli Wyrsch represents municipal court clients pro bono. Locals say the cops and court officers often come not only from different zip codes, but from completely different cultures and lifestyles than the people whose fines and court fees fund their paychecks. They hadn’t been fined for having trash on their property, only for not paying for the only legal method the town had designated for disposing of trash. In a white paper released last month (PDF), the ArchCity Defenders found a large group of people outside the courthouse in Bel-Ridge who had been fined for not subscribing to the town’s only approved garbage collection service. Louis’s light rail system), loud music and other noise ordinance violations, zoning violations for uncut grass or unkempt property, violations of occupancy permit restrictions, trespassing, wearing “saggy pants,” business license violations and vague infractions such as “disturbing the peace” or “affray” that give police officers a great deal of discretion to look for other violations. A majority of these fines are for traffic offenses, but they can also include fines for fare-hopping on MetroLink (St. Louis County can derive 40 percent or more of their annual revenue from the petty fines and fees collected by their municipal courts. Traffic control requests are handled mainly by the engineering department.Some of the towns in St. The division also manages all pavement markings such as crosswalks and striping. This division is responsible for all maintenance associated with 1600 streetlights, 7576 street signs and 29 traffic signal systems. If you need to report a problem regarding city streets, such as potholes, visit. Any replacement or new construction of city assets is handled by the engineering department. The division also maintains other city assets, such as retaining walls, guard rails, city-owned bus shelters and bollards. Maintenance includes, but is not limited to, snow removal, ice control, pothole repair, patching and street sweeping. This division is responsible for all maintenance associated with 377 lane miles of streets, 116 miles of sidewalks, 21 miles of alleys and 10 municipal parking lots. ![]() Louis Park Streets and Traffic Division is to provide a transportation system in the city that is safe and functional for both vehicles and pedestrians.
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