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Local judge pushes for more traffic enforcement from sheriff's deputies Jackson County Fire District 5 firefighters survey the scene of a fatal crash on Interstate 5 near the southbound on-ramp at exit 19 earlier this year. Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch Thursday Dec 22, 2016 at 7:06 PM Dec 22, 2016 at 7:22 PM Nick Morgan Mail Tribune @mtcrimebeat A justice of the peace is calling on commissioners to make traffic enforcement a top priority when appointing a new sheriff after Jackson County saw its worst year of fatal crashes in more than a decade. Joe Charter, who has presided over Justice Court since being elected in 2004, has counted 33 fatal crashes through November, more than the 32 that occurred in all of 2005. “Basically, this year traffic fatalities are the highest they’ve been in the last 12 years,” Charter said. Justice Court, located in Central Point, handles traffic tickets issued by the sheriff's department, Oregon State Police and other agencies. Sheriff Corey Falls is departing this month to take a new job in Gresham, prompting county commissioners to pick a replacement soon. Charter asserts that a lack of traffic enforcement — particularly by the sheriff's department — may be contributing to the increase in fatal crashes. This year through November, the department has written 3,378 tickets, 60 percent fewer than the 8,464 written in 2015, Charter says. In 2014, the number of tickets written was 11,370, he says. Charter believes the lack of enforcement leads to changes in driver habits. He cited a summer Justice Court hearing in which he saw three drivers in a row who'd been caught on Lidar driving more than 100 mph on Blackwell Road. "Their excuse was, 'I was just keeping up with traffic,'" Charter said. "That's a problem." Local resident Margaret Milnes expressed similar frustration to Jackson County commissioners about speeders near her rural property near Anderson Creek and Wagner Creek roads outside Talent. Under former Sheriff Mike Winters, who lost his bid for re-election to Corey Falls in 2014, Milnes said she saw rows of brake lights when the traffic team made its presence known in the area. “As soon as people got used to seeing them on the road, really the speeds dropped significantly,” Milnes said. Speeders are often encouraged by long straightaways on Anderson Creek Road, Milnes said, but they don't realize how narrow the road is. “You don’t have much time to react,” Milnes said. “By the time you feel your tire on the gravel, you’re in the ditch.” Milnes doesn't think the speeders are acting maliciously, but their behavior is dangerous in an area that draws bicyclists and young horseback riders. “It’s not a flagrant disregard of the law, it’s simply self-absorption,” Milnes said. “Everyone thinks they’re immortal until they’re not.” Charter believes Falls' adoption of initiatives from the nonprofit Police Foundation that formed in the wake of the 2014 civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, has led to the drop in traffic tickets issued by deputies. Falls has spoken publicly about shifting the culture in law enforcement from "warrior" to "guardian" mindsets, which Charter believes prompts deputies to let more drivers off with a warning. “We've had more of what I would say is a ‘catch and release’ with traffic stops,” Charter said. The Police Foundation's Strategic Planning Study criticized the Jackson County Sheriff's Department's traffic enforcement team, which until late 2015 funded six sheriff's deputies and the Justice Court, which Charter heads. The report, posted on the sheriff's department website, advised the department to "take a hard look at this practice with the goal of eliminating it." "The events over the last several years around Ferguson, Missouri, and the numerous small jurisdictions in Saint Louis County resulted in the discovery of police agencies that existed almost exclusively to fund themselves through traffic citations and fines," the report says. "Justice was not well served by those practices." Sheriff's Capt. Nathan Sickler, who heads operations at the sheriff's office, agrees with the Police Foundation report, but said Charter is "oversimplifying the problem." Sickler said Falls has been transparent about placing the traffic team on hiatus in November 2015 while the department faced staffing shortages caused by a statewide wave of retirements in law enforcement. At one point in 2015, the staff was down to 13 patrol deputies with six of them being the traffic team. "Your traffic team shouldn't be half the size of your patrol division," Sickler said. Sickler said calls for service have risen while staffing has not, reducing the time they have for "proactive policing," such as traffic stings. Deputies spend more of their time responding to "hot calls" that include child abuse, thefts in progress and domestic violence. Sickler said failing to respond to those calls while writing traffic tickets is "just not a good message to send to the public." "There was not a way to do both," Sickler said. "We had to pick." Sickler points to changes in law enforcement that have lengthened the time deputies spend writing reports, such as the adoption of body cameras. While the cameras improve transparency, reviewing footage may double the deputy's time writing a report. Sickler said underscoring the need for sheriff's deputies to respond to hot calls is reduced aid from Oregon State Police, which can't simultaneously fill in for the understaffed Josephine County Sheriff's Department and enforce Jackson County's Interstate 5 traffic. “OSP is spending more time on criminal problems in Josephine County,” Sickler said. Sickler said Charter is overlooking statewide and national trends that show rises in fatal crashes. ODOT's statewide death toll through Dec. 11 is 464, a 12.3 percent increase over 2015. Nationally, 17,775 people died in crashes between January and June of this year, according to the most recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, a 10.4 percent increase over the same period last year, and the seventh consecutive quarterly increase. The NHTSA attributed 2015's increase, 7.2 percent over the year prior, to economic conditions that cause the overall number of miles driven to increase, such as higher employment numbers — meaning more commuters — and lower fuel prices. "When the economy has a downturn, fatalities generally decrease, and during times of economic recovery, fatalities tend to increase," the report says. Nationally, the number of miles traveled in vehicles rose 3.3 percent in January through June of this year over the same period last year. Sickler said about a third of this year's fatal crashes, 13 of the 32, were on roads monitored by the sheriff's department. Many were due to factors beyond the department's control, such as weather conditions, poor lighting or impaired pedestrians who entered the roadway. "It's tough to police those things," Sickler said. The drop in ticket revenue has impacted the Justice Court's revenue. It's expected to drop from $1.73 million last fiscal year to $1.27 million this year. Expenses were $590,065 last year and expected to be $554,271 this year. Jackson County's Justice Court budget shows that between 2014-15 and 2015-16, revenue from traffic tickets written by municipal police departments dropped 9 percent to $137,080, while that same year the sheriff's department's traffic team dropped 28.4 percent to $736,123. “The court has always paid for itself,” Charter said. “It’s not about the revenue, we’re part of a public safety net for the county.” Sickler said that staffing has improved among patrol deputies, and the traffic team will expand from two in 2016 to four starting in January. "The team is coming back," Sickler said. Sickler said the traffic team's return will focus on three areas: distracted driving, impaired driving and aggressive driving. But traffic fines won't be the only tool in the department's multifaceted approach, which will include working with Jackson County Roads to improve problem areas. "Our goal is to make the road safer, not to write a ticket," Sickler said. — Reach reporter Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MTCrimeBeat.