Syracuse officials outline expanded online portal, staffing and collection plans for municipal violations

Leah Whitmer, director and chief administrative law judge for the Municipal Violations Bureau (MVB), told Syracuse City councilors the bureau will roll out a municipal violations self-service portal next month and add kiosks in the office to let residents view ticket evidence, dispute citations and schedule hearings online.

Whitmer said the AIMS web portal will let constituents “view any evidence that the city has” and choose whether to dispute or pay. “Were trying to meet people where they are and provide due process on all of these tickets,” she said. She added that constituents are “entitled to a day in court to come in and be heard.”

The portal and in-office kiosks are intended to speed staff work that is now manual: people must complete paper forms and staff must log and email evidence. Whitmer said the change should reduce staff time spent on data entry and increase frontline constituent service while allowing people to upload evidence, request ex parte (paper-only) reviews or schedule in-person or virtual hearings.

Why it matters: The changes accompany a broader expansion of the bureau's responsibilities and workloads, including adjudicating noncompliant property-code violations from the Department of Codes, health and sanitation "illegal set-out" cart violations from the Department of Public Works (DPW), and hearings tied to automated enforcement programs such as school-bus stop-arm cameras. Whitmer said the city recently had state approval for a…