City Court asks for second clerk

Correction: The print version of this story incorrectly stated City Court Judge Virginia Seigel took office in November 2013. She was elected November and took office in January 2014.

Havre City Council Monday discussed the possibility of adding a full- or part-time staff member to the city court office.

City Judge Virginia Seigel gave a report of her work in City Court since she took the office in January.

During her presentation, Seigel asked for permission to take on another employee, an assistant clerk. Seigel said the amount of work being put in by the current two-person team, herself and the clerk of court, is not enough to cover everything that needs to be done, despite the clerk of court taking on extra work.

Seigel said there are boxes of tickets, summonses and other legal documents that have not been processed yet because she and the clerk simply do not have time to process them. The boxes are left over from her predecessor Margaret Hencz’ time as City Court judge.

Seigel likened the situation to a mailman so overwhelmed by the amount of mail he needs to deliver that he buries it.

She added that the court is now generating enough money to warrant the employee, especially when the money from the unprocessed documents start coming in.

The court has not had an increase in staff in over 20 years, Seigel said.

Ward 4 Councilmember Andrew Brekke and Ward 2 Councilmember Brian Barrows spoke of their support of adding an extra employee, but Mayor Tim Solomon expressed concern that since the money generated by the court is actually split 50-50 between the court and the city, the money to supplement the salary of a full-time employee would have to take away from something else to keep true to the city’s budget.

“Is the court crippled?” Seigel said. “Yes, it is.”

She continued to explain that a full-time employee would get the court healthy, and a part-time employee would at least stop the crippling of the court.

The request from Seigel was not a voting item on the agenda, so the council did not agree nor disagree to grant the request. The matter will be looked into further.