MENIFEE, Ark. — The past nine months have been difficult for Terry Coleman, the new mayor of Menifee.
"Hopefully you see the case that this was something that was beyond our control," he said. "So the unfairness in it is very visible."
Last August, Menifee was hit with a ban that resulted from an audit of their 2020 finances. That audit found that nearly $120,000 came from traffic citations, which violated Arkansas Law.
"Looking to capitalize on people coming through here, that's not what we're about," Alderman Derrick Hammond said.
If a city's total revenue for the year is made up of 30% or more from those citations, a city could be subject to a ban on writing speeding tickets for an entire year. That has been the case in Menifee.
"Even though you witnessed people speeding, even though you witnessed people passing a school bus early in the morning, they're not allowed to do anything at that point," Police Chief John Randall explained.
According to city officials, about $46,000 came from unpaid fines and fees from 2013 to 2019, collected in 2020. State law would lump that into their revenue, which pushed them over the 30% threshold— but these leaders didn't like that.
So they worked with their state legislators to change that. House Bills 1621 and 1712 amend the Arkansas Speed Trap Law and change what constitutes revenue.
Before, that $46,000 would count— now, revenue is only made up of fines and costs from speeding tickets and arrests.
It's a small change in language that makes a big difference for cities like Menifee, and they hope something like this doesn't happen again.
"This is home," Hammond said. "If you're not gonna defend anywhere, where are you gonna defend? This is home."
Mayor Coleman explained that they plan to appeal that ban ahead of its expiration in September.