City of Rochester
News Release
(Wednesday, April 18, 2018) – Mayor Lovely Warren joined
with City Councilmembers Willie Lightfoot, Michael Patterson, Mitch Gruber and
Molly Clifford to celebrate the grand opening of the Rochester Traffic
Violations Agency in Downtown. The new agency will give city residents and
visitors the same flexibility in adjudicating traffic infractions as their
suburban neighbors.
“This is about fairness,” Mayor Warren said. “Now
Rochester’s residents and visitors can more easily contest tickets, work out a
payment plan or plead to a lesser charge – options they didn’t have before. A
traffic ticket is meant to deter bad behavior and enforce the rules of the
road, not to drag already-struggling people further into poverty, yet that was
happening. We fixed a systemic inequity that was failing many of our
residents.”
The new Rochester Traffic Violations Agency represents a
major legislative victory for Mayor Warren, who has sought to identify and
break down systemic barriers that keep residents in the cycle of poverty.
Working with City Court Judge Charles F. Crimi, Jr., Mayor Warren proposed the
idea to the New York State Legislature in 2016. State Sen. Joe Robach and
Assemblyman David Gantt, working alongside members of the Rochester delegation
including Assembly Majority Leader Joe Morelle, Assemblyman Harry Bronson and
Sen. Rich Funke, championed legislation in 2017 that paved the way for the
agency to be created and resources to be shifted from the state to the City.
The Agency will be led by Executive Director Sherry
Walker-Cowart, formerly the president and CEO of the Center for Dispute
Settlement. The presiding judges are Francis Affronti and La Marr Jackson. The
agency opens on Monday, April 23 and the New York State Department of Motor
Vehicles Traffic Violations Bureau in the Reynolds Arcade Building at 16 East
Main Street will permanently close on Friday, April 20. Outstanding tickets not
answered by this date will be transferred to the City Traffic Violations
Agency. In addition, the City’s Bureau of Parking and Municipal Violations has
moved to the new facility and their offices at 42 South Ave. have closed.
For more information visit: www.cityofrochester.gov/rtva/
###
News Media: For more information, contact Press Officer
Jessica Alaimo at 428-7135.