Lee’s Summit court needs help, consultant says — ‘Our court is drowning’

Lee’s Summit’s beleaguered municipal court system needs a series of improvements, including more court dates, additional staff and help to dig out of a backlog of work, a city consultant said.

The city hired Raftelis, a local government consulting firm, to review the court’s operations last year, and the group presented its findings at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, backing up concerns raised by the city’s municipal court judges last year.

Currently, the court has two days each week in which judges hear cases, and Raftelis recommended the city double that availability to four days a week, pointing to growing case numbers in recent years. Raftelis reported that under one measure, Lee’s Summit had the caseload for 5.4 court days per week.

The city’s two judges unloaded on city officials at the Tuesday meeting, noting they had requested help months ago. They pointed to hourslong lines and heavy caseloads at the court, including one recent day in which they both slogged through cases for 720 defendants.

“Our court is drowning, and we need to figure this out now,” said Judge Venessa Maxwell-Lopez. “We can’t wait another two years because we are underwater now.”

Maxwell-Lopez is married to Mayor Beto Lopez, who recused himself from the discussion about the court Tuesday.

Judge Dana Altieri said court crowds regularly surpass fire code limits. She hailed the court’s current staff but said they were overworked.

“We hear about fire and police constantly; they’re great, but what they do rolls downhill to us,” she said. “We have absolutely no resources. Something needs to be done.”

Consultant recommendations

Along with the two added court dates for the judges, Raftelis also recommended moving a part-time clerk to full-time. The consultant also recommended the city shift one of the city’s three probation officers into a management role and add a clerk to that department to help with administrative work.

Raftelis highlighted the November caseload for one probation officer who had a total of 753 cases under their supervision.

Brett Morris, one of the city’s probation officers, told City Council members that he has been late to or missed many family functions and has worked at home to keep up with his cases.

“It’s not uncommon that most weeks I work 50-plus hours, not because I want to, but because I have to in order to maintain my caseload,” he said.

Among the other improvements recommended by the consultant were assigning someone in city management to be a formal liaison to the court, bringing on some temporary help, creating a court policy manual and setting judicial standards for what cases are assigned to probation.

At one point during Tuesday’s meeting, City Manager Mark Dunning noted that the city’s budget, which went into effect July 1, included funding for two additional positions in the court. Maxwell-Lopez said she and Altieri were surprised by that information.

“We didn’t know that, nobody had communicated it with us,” Maxwell-Lopez said.

Council reaction

Council member Nyauna Cravens said she was embarrassed by the state of the court.

“If we expect our citizens to uphold their end of the law, we have to provide a space for them,” she said. “We have to uphold our responsibility, too.”

Council member Melanie Adkins said she wanted to see a monthly report on progress in fixing the court.

“There’s lots of other departments in the city that have been improved over the last few years,” she said. “I know that the city has so much to do and Lee’s Summit has a lot of pride, so many pieces of the government have been improved over the years.

“I think this is the next department in line to be renovated. It’s right in front of us. Hopefully there’s no barriers that keep us from implementing it quickly.”

Nathan Pilling

The Kansas City Star

Nathan Pilling is a breaking news reporter for The Kansas City Star. He previously worked in newsrooms in Washington state and Ohio and grew up in eastern Iowa.