Archive ▸ 2015 ▸ 2015-04-13

Policy Order O-2

City Council, April 13, 2015

Councillor Mazen

WHEREAS: Civil fines such as parking and speeding tickets are intended as a deterrent against breaking minor laws and ordinances, and are priced accordingly; and

WHEREAS: License suspensions and legal fees resulting from unpaid citations have been shown to have a disproportionately negative effect on low income individuals and households; and

WHEREAS: "Day-Fines" - fines tied to an individual's daily income - lessen the impact on vulnerable individuals and provides a meaningful deterrent against unethical behavior for residents of means who would otherwise treat civil fines as a trivial fee; and

WHEREAS: Pilot programs in Staten Island, NY, Phoenix, Arizona, and Milwaukee, WI demonstrated that day-fines could be implemented easily, with little interruption to the day to day operations of the departments that handle them; and

WHEREAS: The results of these pilot programs indicated that day-fines were successful in reducing the fees low-income individuals pay, and legal practitioners who participated in the pilots generally agreed day-fines were a fairer sentencing option; and

WHEREAS: Technological advancements since the aforementioned pilot studies have alleviated many of the reported difficulties with processing fine collection data; and

WHEREAS: Cambridge's unique position as both a technological hub and the home to renowned educational and research institutions such as MIT and Harvard allows the city to coordinate with leaders in the fields of technology and public policy on innovative legislation; now therefore be it

ORDERED: That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to confer with the appropriate departments to determine what types of traffic, parking, and other citations the city has legal jurisdiction over; and be it further

ORDERED: That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to confer with the appropriate city departments to institute a day-fine policy in Cambridge; and be it further

ORDERED: That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to report back to the City Council on this matter.

← O-1 · meeting of April 13, 2015 · O-3 →

Recovered record. The city's clerk database (2002–2015) went offline; this page was rebuilt from the Internet Archive's capture of the original page (2015-10-11). Dates and codes are read from the document itself, never from the database's ids.