Pineville Provides Court Service For Cities

Three cities in McDonald County have an agreement with Pineville to hold its municipal court proceedings at Pineville's courtroom.

Pineville court administrator Sylvia Deering said the three are Southwest City, Lanagan and Goodman. Southwest City and Lanagan started having their court at Pineville in September 2019, and Goodman started in March 2020, she said. She explained that Southwest City was the first to initiate the arrangement because the city lost its court clerk. The state supreme court had established some new rules, including a rule that court clerks had to be available 30 hours per week, and that became a burden on Southwest City.

The city of Lanagan reached out to Pineville after hearing that Southwest City was reaching an agreement with Pineville to see if Lanagan could reach a similar agreement, Deering said. Finally, the city of Goodman lost its court clerk and decided it could save money by not having to train a new one, and so that city also came to an arrangement with Pineville.

Each city pays a set fee each month for Pineville's services. Pineville city clerk Melissa Ziemianin said Goodman pays $1,475 per month, Lanagan pays $1,350 per month and Southwest City pays $950 per month.

Deering said she has not doubled her workload due to the additional cities' courts. She said in 2020, Pineville had 955 court cases, Southwest City had 110, Goodman had 200 and Lanagan had 277.

The municipal court hears cases like traffic violations and misdemeanor drug and alcohol cases, Deering said.

Erin Willis of Pineville is the judge. She was already the judge for Lanagan and Southwest City, Deering noted. The judge for Goodman at the time was up for re-election and decided to retire and not run again. The prosecutor at the city level is Sherrie Hansen. Deering is the court administrator and Ziemianin is the prosecutor's clerk.

Pineville was having court on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Deering said, but now that the covid-19 pandemic is in play, case volume has dropped significantly, and it is only having court on Tuesdays at 1, 2 and 3 p.m.

Deering said she believes that, when the state supreme court handed down its new rules in 2015, they became a strain on small courts, which contributed to the three cities needing to move their court proceedings to Pineville.