Council questions residency and qualifications for automated-ticket hearing officers

At a Jan. 5 questions-to-directors workshop, Councilwoman Jeanette Blackwell asked the city attorney about two items tied to automated traffic enforcement: whether citation hearing officers must be attorneys and whether they must live in Middletown.

Attorney Smith said the city charter’s residency requirement applies to boards and commissions but not to the statutory hearing officers the city proposes to appoint. "They're statutory officers, so there's no residency or electorate requirement for these positions," he said.

Smith told the council the city solicited candidates through the Middlesex County Bar Association and heard from several applicants; of the four hearing officers proposed by resolution, he said, one is a Middletown resident and all four "happen to be" attorneys. "They do not need to be attorneys for sure, but they do happen to be, and I think that helps," Smith said, adding that having litigators with daily familiarity with rules of evidence and procedure would help the city build a defensible record if decisions are challenged in superior court.

The attorney said the proposed hearing officers' terms would be two years and that the appointments are mayoral. He contrasted the status of these positions with seats on boards and commissions, which the charter requires to be electors of the city.

Council members pressed for clarity on residency and term limits; Attorney Smith confirmed the appointments are by resolution and that the two-year terms are intended to stand alone. No formal vote on the appointments was recorded during the workshop.

Why it matters: hearing officers adjudicate citations arising from automated enforcement programs; questions about residency, qualifications and selection affect legal defensibility and public transparency. The council did not adopt appointments during the workshop and may take further action when the resolution appears on a future docket.