Kansas City Municipal Court will be closed to most of the public Monday because of a computer outage.
“We wanted to get the word out to let people know that they don’t have to make the trip,” said municipal court public information officer Benita Jones.
Jones said the issue was spotted Saturday morning. Hearings and trials will be continued to later dates, but the court will still hold arraignments for those arrested over the weekend and will have bond review hearings for others in custody. The court’s email is also down.
Dan Heizman, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 42, said in an email that the department does not have access to Telestaff and other IT systems.
Kansas City’s press secretary, Sherae Honeycutt, said Sunday: “Out of an abundance of caution this weekend the City temporarily shut off some access to our network and some systems while we continue to investigate and ensure there are no issues. Users may experience intermittent outages and we appreciate everyone’s patience.”
Jones said the court will do everything it can “to make sure that those people’s needs are addressed….(even) if we have to buy paper and then load that information into the system, or get it to the proper authorities the old fashioned way, just like the smaller courts do.”
Jones warned cases filed before Nov. 6, 2023 will not be able to make payments through the Missouri Casenet system. Bonds can be posted at designated police stations.
An update is expected by Monday evening. It is not yet known what caused the outage.