DAVENPORT, Iowa. (KWQC) — Davenport is owed $5.8 million in unpaid red light and speed camera tickets. The city told TV-6 Investigates it doesn’t expect to collect hardly any of that money. TV-6 received the list of the top 12 scofflaws through Iowa’s Open Records Law, and started knocking on doors.
We spent a couple days trying to find people who owe Davenport a lot of money.
“We’re looking for a Meechiko McNeal?” I asked at the first door we knocked on.
“Ain’t no one that lives her by that name,” said the person who answered.
What we found are a lot of bad addresses. This house has been unfit to live in for over a year. We were looking for Meechiko McNeal. City records say she has 75 outstanding tickets and owes $6,770.
“I’m looking for Meechiko McNeal, wrong address, alright then,” said the neighbor at the next home we checked.
We never found her, or Charkita Arter, the city’s top scofflaw.
“I’m looking for Charkita Arter,” at the next address we checked.
“I’ve lived here for over a year and I get her mail,” said this neighbor but she said she had never met Arter.
City records show Arter has 105 outstanding tickets and owes Davenport $9,580.
“I’ve had some of her mail come here, but I don’t know who she is,” said another neighbor answering another door we knocked on.
The few people we did find.
“My mom wants to know what this is about?” asked one person who answered this door.
“I’m working on a story about red light camera tickets, the city says she owes $6,000 dollars.”
They didn’t want to talk.
“My mom doesn’t want to talk about it,” said the person.
“Can she come down and tell me herself?” I asked.
“No she doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“Can she tell me if she’s paying any of it?” I asked.
“You’ve got to go away, go away,” shouted another person inside the house.
We found Juanice Lagrone at her home, she talked to me, but didn’t want to go on camera. City records show she owes $3,600 on 40 tickets. Lagrone says the state garnished her entire state daycare income. Lagrone agreed to a payment plan with the city to keep some income flowing. She’s paying now, and she says, she hasn’t gotten a red light ticket in years.
Davenport Finance Director Brandon Wright said, “When we want to collect a debt that’s in the state of Iowa, the state of Iowa affords us a few more opportuntiies to collect on that debt.”
Wright said the state program is very helpful for collecting in state debts. 64 percent of these red light and speed camera tickets were issued to Iowa residents. Any Iowa resident reported to the state offset program who receives a state tax refund, or wins the lottery, or gets any kind of state payment can have it garnished to pay off a government debt. Wright said it’s really the only leverage the city can apply for uncollected fines.
“It’s not like the electrical company where you can turn off the power,” said Wright.
He also said a lot of this debt will probably never get collected. Davenport is trying to collect on 63,832 tickets. 49,000 are over a year old.
“Anytime you have aging debt, that debt is going to be over a year old, the chances of collecting that debt just goes down over time,” said Wright.
So why don’t people pay, why have they racked up so many tickets? Like most of the people on our list, that answer eluded us.
Davenport’s debt collector has collected 18 percent of those red light and speed camera tickets. The state debt program collected $47.2 million last year across the state.