The Montezuma County commissioners are considering adopting the Model Traffic Code for Colorado Municipalities, an action that would make traffic fines consistent throughout the county and allow the revenues collected to remain in the local jurisdiction.

Sheriff Joey Chavez told the commissioners Monday that the chance to generate funds will not alter the way his department does business.

"Traffic is not our priority and it will not be," Chavez said. "It’s just that I can’t see Montezuma County sending all the revenue to the State of Colorado.

"I feel if it’s generated here, it should be left here."

Commission Chairman Gene Story, however, expressed concern that a different sheriff might someday be overzealous in handing out traffic tickets in order to generate revenues.

"This ordinance can be repealed?" he asked commission attorney Bob Slough, who said it could be.

"All of this stuff that’s being adopted is already law," Slough said. "This is just changing it to where the money will flow to the county."

The revenue should amount to $35,000 to $60,000 a year, according to Chavez.

He and District Attorney Mike Green said there will be an increase over time in the number of traffic citations issued, but for reasons other than revenue.

Growth alone accounts for some increase in traffic violations, they said.

Also, the state has given the county money to enforce seat-belt laws, Chavez said, and Montezuma County is one of the worst areas of the state in terms of seat-belt use.

Green said he is seeing "a high number of people thrown out of cars" and that the county has disproportionate numbers of Native Americans, farmers, ranchers and teens, all of whom he said are more likely than other driver groups not to wear seat belts.

A new state law has given law officers the authority to stop drivers just for not wearing seat belts. In the past that was considered a secondary offense and not justification for stopping a vehicle.

In addition to enforcing seat-belt laws, the sheriff’s office will be issuing more tickets for speeding, Green said.

"We’re having some serious speeding problems," he said. "We’ve got kids coming down roads at 30 miles per hour over the limit.

"We’re seeing a lot more stupid stuff. These guys are going to have to start writing more tickets" for speeding, careless driving, and similar violations, Green said.

"We support that," Story said. "But if we all of a sudden see double the number of county speeding tickets being issued, we’ll have a problem."

Green said he understood Story’s concerns about possible "speed traps" and similar abuses, but that it makes sense for the ticket revenues to remain in the local area.

"These guys see all the money going to the state," Green said. "Then, at budget time last year, we were strapped.

"This is some money that, if you earmark it for law enforcement, at least it keeps that same amount of money we’re generating anyway in the county. Why send it to Denver?"

The Model Traffic Code is already in place in Cortez, Mancos, and Dolores, according to Green. Essentially it would standardize penalties, fines and surcharges so that a traffic violator would face the same penalties whether he were ticketed by the sheriff’s office or the Colorado State Patrol.

The commissioners agreed to amend the code, however, to provide a larger maximum fine for offenders, raising it from $100 to $1,000. Thus, anyone convicted of any provision in the code may be fined anywhere from $15 to $1,000, plus a $10 surcharge.

The $1,000 provision "would just allow the judge some flexibility" in cases of extreme traffic violations, Green said. The fine would be up to the judge, not the ticketing officer.

Fines and penalties will go into the county’s general fund, while surcharges are transmitted to the court administrator for the local victims’ compensation fund, which pays for funerals, medical bills and other expenses for crime victims.

Slough emphasized that adopting the traffic code is not changing existing traffic laws, only the penalty provisions and the fact that the revenue will now come to the county.