1/6/2008

By Joseph Ryan | Daily Herald Staff [Chicago]

Tollway hearing officer Carrie Washington, with graying black hair and a purple business shirt, sits on a black leather chair on her slightly-elevated bench.

To her right, two tollway employees sit staring at a flat-panel computer screen.

On this weekday morning, Washington tries to establish that she is an impartial judge -- both to the toll employees sitting next to her and the accused toll violators who sit facing her on backless benches.

Washington lists the grounds for appeal and says the tollway officials must prove the accused "more likely than not" didn't pay the tolls.

Then she informs the alleged violators that she is an attorney and "not an employee of the tollway."

That isn't exactly true.

Washington is paid $50 an hour through a contract with the tollway and receives administrative hearing training from tollway officials as well.

The conflict is just one problem critics have long had with the tollway authority's appeal process.

While tollway officials call the hearing room a "courtroom," critics call it a "kangaroo court," where drivers who accidentally missed tolls or even innocent drivers don't have a shot at an objective ruling.

"The average driver of the tollway is not aware of these ins and outs of the law," said Terry Pastika, an attorney and director of the Elmhurst-based Citizen Advocacy Center. "It is a David and Goliath scenario."

For one, it is dishonest that hearing officers are paid by the tollway but tell accused toll violators that they are not tollway employees, she said.

"I think they should be under an obligation to say they are receiving compensation from the tollway," Pastika said.

Tollway spokeswoman Joelle McGinnis said the hearing officers are technically not employees because they do not receive benefits from the tollway. She also said they are directed to maintain their objectivity regardless of where their paycheck comes from.

But such disclosures are only symptomatic of a bigger issue for critics. The judges are not allowed to consider any issues the tollway doesn't let them, such as whether the notice was ever received by the alleged offender, whether someone else was driving the car or whether the tollway's equipment could be malfunctioning.

In fact, despite all the documented problems tollway officials have had with their computers -- they didn't send out violations for 13 months and can't even tell how many violators there are -- the system is assumed to be working in perfect order when it comes to the hearings.

There is one thing that both the critics and the tollway agree on: The hearing is not a court and not subject to the exact same rules of fair trial.

The tollway authority's hearing system was designed by Matt Beaudet, now head of the tollway's I-PASS and violation enforcement system. Beaudet transplanted the system from Chicago's parking ticket hearing process, which he helped to create in the early 1990s.

Almost on an annual basis, Chicago aldermen have had a field day ripping the parking ticket hearings as unfair for motorists and nothing more than a means of bringing in revenue for Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Aldermen have called for reform for years, but concrete action hasn't been taken.

Beaudet defended the hearing system as the best way to prevent the courts from getting clogged up with toll violation appeals. He also said Cook County court judges were routinely throwing out parking tickets on appeal because they didn't want to take the time or money to deal with them.

"The court systems are overcrowded," he said. "No one wants to hire a prosecutor to take these things on and, therefore, there would be no incentive for (people to pay the tolls)."

As for the limited reasons for dismissal -- which amount to having to prove the tollway cited the wrong person -- Beaudet said they provide just enough wiggle room to dismiss penalties when people are truly innocent.

"We are not here to adjudicate whether we feel sorry for someone or not," Beaudet said.

Moreover, the courts have routinely upheld challenges to the administrative hearings, in part because the accused always has the option to appeal the decision to the circuit court. The appeal can cost hundreds of dollars and is nonrefundable.

"The court retains the ability to affirm, modify or reverse the hearing officers' determinations," reads a 1999 state appellate court ruling that dismissed a suit against Chicago's parking ticket hearings. "As such, the ultimate power to determine … remains within the judicial branch of government."

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