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The problems with most tickets is getting them paid. If the person who received the ticket can pay, is willing to pay and afraid not to pay, those tickets were paid years ago. What we have are tickets on people that are unable and unwilling to pay.
Lets look at those people unable to pay. They are a lot of them, on welfare but had a car in the past or need their car to get to work (Most new jobs over the last 40 or so years have been in the Suburbs NOT the Cities). Once they pay their rent, food and gasoline, they have no more money to pay out. You can confiscate their car and even jail such people, but if they do NOT have the money they can NOT pay no matter what you do.
OK, lets call the people who are unable to pay the minority, that makes the people who are unwilling to pay the majority of people who have NOT paid their tickets. If they live outside Illinois Chicago has to take the case to court, get a Judgment and then transfer that Judgment to where the the person who was given the ticket lives. This can be done but every court involved has to be paid, and if the person still does not pay, the City eats the costs. Most states will NOT pull someone license for parking tickets and will NOT pull a car license plate for parking tickets. Those states will pull someone's license for traffic violations like running a red light, but then those same drivers will just drive without a license. Attachment of wages is possible, providing the person given the ticket has a job, but if he does not, the city is just out of luck.
The people who live outside of Chicago has the same rights, but since they come into Chicago every so often Chicago can go after their car. The problem here is if the city does so, what if the car is worth less then the Ticket? What if the ticket holder values the car less then he values the money to pay the ticket (Leave the City pay to sell the car, often at a loss). Traffic Ticket can be enforced by the action of the State, but in most states (I am unfamiliar with Chicago and Illinois) then the money goes to the STATE not the City. Chicago thus has no incentive to turn this money over to the state, but has no way to enforce these tickets on people who live outside Chicago.
Thus the problem of these outstanding tickets, if the person given the ticket was willing to pay on the ticket it would already be done. If the car or person is in Chicago, Chicago can go after the car or the person by confiscating the car (i.e. the Boot), or arresting the driver and jailing him or requiring him to post a bond till the hearing (The bond amount is generally the ticket amount). That is about all the City can do. Remember most of these tickets were NOT given to upstanding middle class people in Chicago (Those PAID their Tickets) but to people who have none or very little connection to the work force (Some may be dead, from natural causes for all I know). If Chicago can NOT find the car to boot it, or arrest the Driver, they is not much else the City can do. You have to catch the person before you can collect and often when you catch him or her, all Chicago gets is further costs (i.e. arrest for someone for outstanding fines and find out he or she is wanted for more serious crimes, which sends the person to jail, where he can NOT earn money to pay off his fines).
Most Cities have such large "reserve" of tickets, but find it hard if not impossible to collect on them. This will continue till Chicago starts to arrest people for each violation and demand a bond for them to be released (or held in jail till the trial). The problem is most of these are just crimes subject to a fine offenses, to jail them for one violation is excessive. For a lot of violations such arrest makes sense, but where do you draw the line and given that many of these tickets were given by mail, i.e. photographed running a red light and then sent a summons, how do you airest them? Especially if they live out of the City?
No this $59 million does NOT really exists. The ability to collect on it is slim and to hope for the people given these tickets to pay on them is out of the question. What Chicago have to do is what I fear most cities will have to do, raise property taxes.
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