The bureau will remain a mostly

back-office operation.
By Scott Taylor
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – The bureau that handles traffic violations for the entire state should take over new space in the old Park and Ash street courthouse next month.

Violations Bureau Manager Sandy Carroll said the department has called the basement below the 8th District Court home since the beginning. Now, with the court moved into its new digs in the old Frye Block Music Hall on Lisbon Street, there’s room upstairs.

Caroll and her staff are looking forward to having windows, she said. “Daylight, that’s one of the biggest things we’re looking forward to – and not being cramped,” she said. “It makes it pretty hard to do your job when you’re bumping into everyone.”

Lewiston has been the home of traffic violations processing since the department was formed by the state Legislature in 1992. Carroll said the bureau handles about 140,000 violations each year from around the state.

The bureau will remain a mostly back-office operation. There will be one public window off of the main entrance for people who want to pay their traffic fines in person. The rest of the building will be devoted to handling incoming fines, scheduling court dates around the state and keeping records.

“We’re more of an operations center for the state,” Carroll said. “We have 14 people here handling all the data entry, docketing for the courts and all the paperwork that comes back.”

Most of the job has been turning the old courthouse, with its two courtrooms and handful of meeting spaces, into a full-fledged operations center. Lewiston City Engineer Mike Paradis said all of the renovations will cost less than $300,000. That includes all of the interior work as well as replacing the roof and installing a new heating and air conditioning system.

The city owns the building and rents it to the state. Paradis said the work will be done by Dec. 24 by the latest, but the contractor estimates work will finish by the second week of December.

staylor@sunjournal.com