The secret to municipal courts' success?

For Houstonist, the municipal courthouse at 1400 Lubbock is pretty close to our vision of hell. But does it have to be? No, court officials say — and the way to improve things could be as easy as leaving arraignment dates off tickets for parking, traffic and other minor violations. Seriously.

Now, the arraignment date is printed prominently on tickets, which officials say may make people think that showing up at the courthouse is the only way to take care of their fines. But if tickets carried deadlines by which accused violators must pay fines, set trials or make other arrangements, foot traffic at the courthouse could be cut by as much as 40 percent, former court director and chief clerk Richard Lewis told the Chronicle. "It's going to reduce a lot of the foot traffic within the court, as well as easing up some of the congestion with our dockets," Sahira Abdool, the current court director, said. (And yes, it's already possible to take care of a ticket without going to the courthouse, but officials think that fact is overshadowed by the arraignment date.)

One thing that seems clear if the new plan is adopted: There need to be more options for people to take care of tickets online. Right now, the only thing that can be done at the courts' website (a href="www.houstontx.gov/courts">www.houstontx.gov/courts) is paying a fine, but Presiding Judge Berta Majia said she hopes to expand online options so that deferred dispositions and driver safety courses could be requested. Good move. Another potential problem, as Mejia notes, is that scrapping scheduled arraignments would likely mean the courthouse would be really busy at some times and not so busy at others — most people, she said, would probably visit the building before or after work or during lunch. "We use the arraignment as a way of handling the volume," Mejia said. Third likely issue: If more people paid their fines or made other arrangements in advance, would the courthouse staff be able to handle it? "It helps the customer get finished faster, but it kind of depends on your staffing," Rebecca Stark, the director of Austin's municipal courts — which use a system like the one Houston is considering — said. "You've got to be set up to handle that."

If the new system is approved, it won't go into effect until at least next summer because the municipal courthouse is scheduled for renovation this fall and officials are still trying to work out the flawed computer system installed last year.