The Associated Press
COBURG, Ore. (AP) - Two former city employees plan to file a racketeering lawsuit charging that the city of Coburg and its former police chief created a traffic ticket quota system that charged huge speeding fines on Interstate 5, according to a published report.
Former police Lt. Patrick D. Smith and former city recorder Peggy de Montmorency charge that the system under just-departed Police Chief Mike Hudson generated “unnecessary and grossly disproportionate traffic fines,” The Oregonian reported Wednesday.
The paper said the two former officials also allege that Hudson, who resigned last week, appropriated police property, including a shotgun and a computer, for his personal use.
The charges are contained in a tort claim notice, a legal announcement of an intent to sue, that was filed on behalf of Smith and de Montmorency.
Hudson said the allegations are without merit and that a city investigation had cleared him months ago of misappropriating public property.
Jamon Kent, the acting city administrator, told The Oregonian that he had not yet read the accusations and was unprepared to comment.
Coburg, which is just off the freeway about five miles north of Eugene, has been criticized in recent years for its speed enforcement program.
But Hudson and other members of the department said motorists caught driving at 80 mph or greater were ticketed with no regard for raising revenue.
Former Coburg Police Lt. Grover Hubbard, who had been Hudson’s top assistant, told The Oregonian that Smith was not a credible accuser because he had been forced to resign.
But Jeffrey Boiler, Smith’s attorney, said Wednesday that his client “did not resign under threat” and that his client “did not have any allegations made against him. If they exist, I don’t know where they are.”
Instead, Boiler said Smith resigned because “everyone agreed that small-town politics made it difficult for him to stay.”
The city fired de Montmorency in October over allegations of poor performance, but Boiler said she was forced out because she was an ally of Smith’s.
Much of the city’s revenue from traffic citations dried up last Jan. 1, when a new law prevented such towns as Coburg from writing citations outside city limits and filing them into municipal court, where cities earn greater revenue from fines.
But in November, the city annexed a portion of I-5, allowing Coburg to again write citations on the freeway into the city court.