EDITORIAL: Is Nicholson court prelude to a NPD?

But it appears as though the creation of a city court may be a backdoor way to eventually creating a Nicholson police department.

That’d be a mistake. Small town police departments are often much more expensive than community leaders think they will be.

It’s a mistake that’s been made over and over in Northeast Georgia as small town leaders think they need a police department and believe fine revenues will pay the cost of a department.

It won’t.

The result for many small towns is a financial mess. Police departments never pay their own way through fines. When they try to do so from political pressure, the departments become nothing but small town traffic traps.

That, in turn, creates a negative image for the entire community. Jackson County has several examples of small towns with police departments that have a history of abusing motorists for revenue. Leaders in Pendergrass, Arcade and Braselton have all run their police departments with an eye on revenue. The result is that all three towns have gotten bad reputations across the state.

To their credit, all three of these towns are now taking a more moderate approach to traffic enforcement. But it seems the lessons they learned aren’t being heeded. Maysville has become a traffic trap. Although it’s not on one of the county’s major highways, the community’s reputation is being hurt by overly aggressive traffic enforcement that has little impact on public safety.

Nicholson has not created a city police department, but it has been discussed in the past and the new city court raises the question again.

Police departments should only exist for public safety, not for generating revenue for small town city halls.
Let’s hope Nicholson leaders understand the difference.