Bland clerk says municipal court catching up

By Roxie Murphy, Staff Writer
Posted 2/19/20

Bland City Clerk Carrie Krupp told the board of aldermen on Feb. 10 that the Bland Municipal Court was finally getting caught up.

“We were backed up for a long time; but we are good on …

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Bland clerk says municipal court catching up

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Bland City Clerk Carrie Krupp told the board of aldermen on Feb. 10 that the Bland Municipal Court was finally getting caught up.

“We were backed up for a long time; but we are good on court,” Krupp said. “We had to get in order for January so we didn’t look like idiots in front of the judge and the prosecutor. Then we had to get all the new cases that Josh (Smith, former patrolman serving for Bland) wrote tickets for because court is coming up on Feb. 24.”

Bland has been holding court quarterly. Alderman Sherry Spradling asked why they were holding court in Jan and February.

“Because we missed November/December, January was a make-up and February will be our first court for the year,” Krupp said.

The municipal court has seven new tickets for speeding and the prosecuting attorney said they all looked like really good tickets, Krupp said.

The January court agenda is not correct, but Krupp said she needed to get the agenda posted.

“We had zero new cases, two dismissed/nolles —,” Krupp began.

Spradling asked why two cases against “the business licenses” (Bruce and Jan Sassmann) were dismissed.

“If the prosecutor dismissed them, what about this year?” Spradling asked.

“The prosecutor nolled them because they shouldn’t have ever been in court in the first place,” Krupp explained. “Which means if they nolle them, they are non-existent.”

Spradling asked if that means they don’t have to have a business license.

“He (the business owner) will still have to have a license this year,” Krupp said. “The prosecutor said it was dismissed, he didn’t go into detail.”

The judge wasn’t sure if they were going to have a trial, and the prosecutor said it was dismissed.

“Is it dismissed on our part? Or — I don’t care how good the man does for the city, I don’t care —,” Spradling began.

“The way I see it, if someone from the city would have worked with him a little bit, his checks was there,” said Mayor Lee Medlock.

Spradling said the Sassmanns were just as wrong as whoever was taking care of it, and if they were running a business, they needed a business license.

“We just lost out of ‘em (the checks for the business licenses) because we couldn’t hold them that long,” Spradling said.

Aldermen agreed they would like to know what happened from the prosecutor so they would have a better understanding of how to proceed in the future.