City Extends Court Hearing Officer’s Contract for Another Year

By Jeremy Coumbes on December 10, 2019 at 11:50am

The Jacksonville City Counsel approved a contract extension with the Municipal Court Hearing Officer last night.

The Jacksonville Municipal Court allows the city to enforce ordinance violations in the city. Jacksonville City Attorney Dan Beard says that having the Municipal Court, and Court Hearing Officer, Amy Jackson, helps the city stay on top of various ordinance violations.

The contract we approved tonight is just an extension for the Municipal Court Hearing Officer Amy Jackson of the Rammelkamp Bradney Law Firm. She has served as our Hearing Officer since we implemented Municipal Court.

Municipal Court was established after we adopted Home Rule and one of the specific goals of Home Rule was to set up an ordinance violation court where we can handle primarily building code violations, trash and debris, but also things like truancy.”

The City of Jacksonville adopted home rule in April of 2005. Beard said that keeping the ordinance cases can be handled in a more timely manner than if they were heard in the Morgan County Circuit Court system.

Time is limited when we can set hearings in Circuit Court. We were usually limited to one morning a month for hearings, and the judges are very accommodating, but it is much easier, first of all to run the ordinance violations through our municipal court. And second, that maintains the fine system, all the fines assessed stay here with the city of Jacksonville as opposed to going into the state court system so to speak.

Municipal court meets twice a month, on Thursday afternoons, and handles all of the ordinance violations that accumulate during that months time.”

Jackson received a one year contract extension that increased her monthly salary from $1,400.00 to $1,760.00. She has served as Hearing Officer for the court since it’s inception.