Carpentersville OKs fine hikes

It’s going to cost a lot more to blast your car stereo in Carpentersville.

Tuesday, the village board approved raising the minimum fine from $150 to $250. The maximum a judge or adjudicator could charge someone for violating the sound ordinance will remain $1,000.

After spending six months reviewing existing traffic and parking violations, the board raise the fines associated with violating 33 of them.

The $250 fine for parking in a handicapped space and the $500 fine for misusing a handicapped placard are among the four that are staying the same. Fines for four other violations would drop.

Carpentersville is trying to bring its fee structure in line with neighboring communities and pay for the increased costs of enforcement. Authorities had not reviewed some fines in as many as 10 years, according to Police Chief David Neumann.

Moreover, the previous dollar amounts did not go far enough to pay for issuing and tracking tickets and the subsequent court proceedings, authorities said.

Trustee Pat Schultz and freshman Trustee Doug Marks were the only board members to reject the increases.

Marks said the new fines would unfairly punish people making minor mistakes and come at a bad time, given the village has approved property tax hikes and water rate increases.

“It just comes across to me that this is just another avenue to generate revenue,” Marks said. “It smacks of another tax. I can’t stand for that.”

Finance Director Lisa Happ said the village is not counting the money as extra revenue and has not budgeted for a particular amount they expect to generate.

The increases are effective next Friday. To see a complete list of the fines and accompanying dollar amounts, visit http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110511/news/705119936/

One of the fines that may increase deals with breaking the sound ordinance, namely blasting your car stereo so loud that other drivers can feel it. The village now charges between $150 and $1,000 for the offense, but the proposal would raise the minimum fee to $250, Neumann said.

Resident complaints are the catalyst behind the increase, he said.

The committee has also eliminated the $75 fine associated with spitting on the sidewalk, a law authorities have deemed obsolete.

“It’s because of tuberculosis,” Rooney said, explaining the ordinance’s origin. “A hundred years go by and you forget why you had a law.”