September 4, 2018
By: Dwayne Page
DeKalb County Circuit Court Clerk Susan Martin began her first day on the job Tuesday.
“I am excited but it is a little overwhelming,” she said.
Martin already has some ideas she would like to implement to make the office more user friendly for the public and her staff.
“One of the things I am really interested in is having a website for our office because it offers so many advantages. For example jury panels could look on there to see when they are needed for court. Also if someone had a ticket they could pull up the website and find their court date or check dockets coming out to see if they had a case on there. When it snows you could check and see if the courthouse is open that day. I would also want the website to offer an option for payment online for any type of ticket or fine someone may have,” she said.
Martin said she also wants to be able to send text messages to jurors concerning jury duty.
“I want to get it set up where anybody selected on a jury panel would have the option to receive text messages about when they would need to come in. That would provide more options. They would have a text message from us or they could still call in at the automated number or they could look on the website,” Martin continued.
“I would also like to have a scanner at the desk of each employee that way they could scan in files if somebody needed something pulled up right away. Instead of us having to go through files on three floors of the courthouse looking for something they could pull it up from their desk,” she added.
“I also want to start an in-house collection service so that we could contact anyone who has old debts owed for fines and court costs and maybe work out some kind of payment arrangement to help them get that reconciled,” Martin said.