LAGUNA VISTA — Have unpaid tickets you’ve been ignoring?
You might want to take care of that soon.
The town of Laguna Vista mailed out more than 660 courtesy notices last week to people with outstanding warrants and unpaid fines.
The warrant roundup is an annual effort to collect on fines owed to the city.
According to city manager Rolando Vela, the amount owed to the town is $1.62 million.
“The town benefits by this warrant roundup effort by collecting debt that is owed to it by these defendants due to these outstanding warrants,” Vela said.
Laguna Vista’s delinquent attorneys Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLC, began proceedings to collect on those fines.
People who received notice are urged to take immediate action or risk being arrested.
“We urge those with unpaid tickets from Laguna Vista to take care of them immediately to avoid the embarrassment of being arrested,” Vela said. “It is not fair to law abiding citizens that take care of their citations while others merely ignore them.”
Those with unpaid tickets in Laguna Vista that have received a Class C warrant for traffic, zoning, animal or noise issues or a code violation ticket may receive a notice from the town’s attorneys or be visited by local law enforcement.
Vela said the town is also working with other municipalities to include the warrants in their
systems to alert the town if residents are stopped for traffic violations outside the city.
Defendants have 45 days from the date they received the notice to pay up or make arrangements before possibly being arrested and having their fines increased by 30 percent.
Traffic citations will have been reported to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Past the date of the issued warrant, the warrant will be forwarded to the collection agency.
If defendants do not wish to contest the charges, warrants will not be removed from their record until the amount has been paid in full or arrangements have been made.
