Letter apologizing to Springville justice

Editor:
I want to thank Kelly O’Neal Adams for pointing out my mistake of not identifying correctly the Concord Town Court, located in Springville, and not the Springville Village Court, also located in Springville, as the court in which I was referring to, in a previous article to the Journal.

Ms. Adams called me to express her concern and embarrassment at being questioned in reference to these proceedings because, as a newly-appointed elected official in Springville, she did not want her constituents or employer to think that this situation had occurred in her court, which I can understand.

However, I must say, as I told Ms. Adams during our conversation, that I was disappointed that she had only called me to ask me to write back to the Journal to clarify which court it was, as opposed to calling me (or anyone from the town of Concord Court, for that matter) to express any sort of apology for the outcome of letting someone shoplift from my store and not imposing any sort of penalty on them for it.

During our conversation, Ms. Adams had expressed to me that due to the overwhelming amount of cases she sees in Springville, the paperwork, limited staff and resources, along with the inability of courts to follow-up on collecting monies or imposing community service on people that may be derelict or destitute, that it is almost impossible to hold these people accountable.

While I feel Ms. Adams’ pain and understand her situation completely, I don’t feel this excuse is acceptable to let people commit a crime in our community, waste taxpayers’ dollars and not impose any kind of penalty.

As a resident of Springville, or, should I say, the town of Concord, we elect officials to carry out a job and we entrust them to make sure we are protected and that people who break the law are required to be held responsible for their actions, regardless of staffing or resources or whether they are destitute or not, which, in my case, this person was not a derelict or destitute.

My mother always told me if you don’t take care of little problems when they happen, then they only grow into larger problems. In the criminal justice system, we call those repeat offenders.

Again, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify this further and amend my mistake.

Karen O’Hara
Springville