On a personal and not political note, rest well and be safe. The emotion and tragedy of helping our community has been a trying time for all of us, public servants and citizens alike.

LOL regarding “pucker”. I thought I was quoting somebody who had used the word before, but I can’t find it now. Perhaps I was reading a different blog altogether. You’ll have to forgive me, as it’s been kind of an exhausting few days.

At any rate, who I am really is not important, as everything I’ve said is public information and can be verified if you so choose…unlike these mythical people who receive tickets for 3 over the limit and people who “know an officer who had a neighbor who told me…” etc.

BTW, You seem as fond of the word pucker as I am about the word chilling.

The numbers are readily available on the city’s web site.The budget is still there. I don’t know if the PD’s annual report is still up there or not since the site redesign, but you can probably obtain a copy down at city hall.

Don’t forget, also, that a chunk of those tickets are issued as the result of a crash investigation. So, your pucker factor should decrease even more if you don’t rear end someone while changing radio stations.

If all of this has not decreased your pucker factor, then perhaps you are just doomed to forever pucker in a state of constant paranoia. Hopefully the mathematics might at least convince you that ticket revenue ain’t paying for much in the city.

Because honestly, these numbers don’t keep me from puckering.

Thanks.

In the last budget year with final data available (2008), city court fees and fines plus parking fines brought the city $768,845. Total city revenue was $54,797,564. This means that ticket revenue accounted for about 1.4% of the city’s cash flow. The budgeted/estimated numbers for 2009 and 2010 are similar. So, now you’re going to tell me that this is the money that the city is relying on to be a major cash cow?

Some more numbers. Last near the police department issued about 10,000 traffic citations. Dividing that by 80 (the approximate number of officers assigned to patrol or traffic…the odds of being ticketed by detectives, management, etc are slim) yields an average of 125 tickets per year per officer. Dividing by 208 (the average number of work days per year per officer before they went to crazy 12 hour shifts) yields about 1/2 ticket per day per officer. Obviously some write more than others. But gosh, that low average must mean there are going to be a lot of fired officers. On any given day of the year, 27 people on average will get tickets. That’s 27 out of 55,000+ residents and who knows how many passers-through.

All of these numbers are verifiable by looking at the city’s budget or at the police department’s annual report. So, perhaps now you won’t have to pucker up so much when you go to the store or breathe such a heavy sigh of relief when you make it home without a ticket. However, if you plan on going 20 over the limit or blowing through red lights every time you go to the store, it’s possible that you may fall victim to the city’s evil money-making scheme.

Really? I think Franklin can live without a day of ticket money.

Ugh!

We are tired and I’m sure you must be as well. Your neighborhood has been hit hard.

But please make no mistake, this isn’t about the men and women of the Police and Fire Departments who are working to help the community.

This is about the leaders of the Franklin gov’t who are commanding them to issue excessive traffic citations to pay for their decisions and who have built a $38 million dollar travesty.