SNAFU IN COOPERSTOWN

Apparent Computer Glitch Mails

‘Hundreds’ Of Void Parking Fines

COOPERSTOWN – Due to an apparent glitch by Complus Data Innovations, the village’s parking-ticket processor, “hundreds” of old citations – many to people who already paid their fines – have been showing up in the mail.

“They ’fessed up,” said Mayor Jeff Katz of the White-Plains-based vendor.  “But we’re kind of dealing with it.”

Otsego Town Court – it absorbed the Village Court three years ago – is bearing the brunt of the complaints, Katz said.    Complus Data has been the village’s vendor for only the past three years – its contract runs out next week – but people are being dunned for tickets going back to 2008.

The mayor’s inclination, he said, is to ignore them – “those letters shouldn’t have gone out; so let’s pretend they didn’t go out,” Katz said.  But it might be prudent to check to the town court for more authoritative advice, he said.

When he was new on the job, Chief Mike Covert proposed the Complus Data option to replace paper tickets, and the Village Board was quite satisfied with the result, Katz said.  One year, the trustees budgeted $100,000 in parking fines – and $175,000 came in due to the new vendors’ efforts.

“Overall we did well,” he said.  “The next service is going to provide a lot of the same functionality, but at a lesser cost for us.”  The new vendor is SEI, the mayor said.