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Council split on updating liability-coverage ordinance; tie vote leaves state-level enforcement intact
Summary
After extended debate about whether Rollins municipal code should be amended to allow municipal-court prosecution of uninsured drivers and include non-owner drivers, the council deadlocked 3-3 on June 3 and the ordinance failed; council discussed conflicts between municipal jurisdiction and state statute enforcement.
Councilors debated an ordinance amendment intended to expand Rollins municipal code to allow municipal-court citation and prosecution for failure to maintain liability coverage, including citations for non-owner drivers. Council members discussed a perceived enforcement gap between the municipal ordinance and state statute; city staff and the city attorney said the state statute (cited in the meeting as 31 4 103) already provides authority but that prosecuting in municipal court requires a local ordinance.
The city prosecutor and city attorney explained that without an ordinance that mirrors the state law, officers must send those cases to circuit court under state law; that could impose additional burdens on officers and defendants and send fine revenue outside municipal court. "It is a very, very, very common citation," the municipal prosecutor said, and argued that municipal jurisdiction reduces the burden of sending cases to circuit court.
The council debated policy and enforcement tradeoffs, including whether adopting the ordinance was primarily intended to retain fine revenue at the municipal level. After discussion and several council questions, the vote was a 3-3 tie and the motion failed. The three council members voting in favor were recorded as Council members Elliott, Lumen and Selah; the three opposing votes came from Vice Mayor Garner, Councilman Patterson and Councilman Stenger.
