Council to vote on bringing back speed cameras
After committees’ mixed reaction, decision uncertain
The Santa Fe City Council is scheduled to decide Wednesday night whether to bring back unmanned, specially equipped vehicles to photograph speeding drivers and then issue tickets through an automated system.
The measure is co-sponsored by four councilors who say city streets have seen an uptick in reckless driving since Santa Fe let the program lapse four years ago.
The resolution would direct City Manager Brian Snyder to restart the Santa Fe Traffic Operations Program, or STOP, in which the so-called speed vans autonomously monitor stretches of roadway. Estimated revenue from ticketed traffic violations would total $400,000 in the current fiscal year, which ends in June, according to a financial analysis.
Also to be considered is legislation that would amend the existing STOP ordinance in the city code to reduce the fine for firsttime violators to $50 from $100 and modify how fines for subsequent violations would be levied.
Another amendment removes the references to red-light cameras from the STOP ordinance, originally adopted in 2008. The intersection cameras, though approved by the City Council that year, were never installed.
The Santa Fe speed-monitoring program ended in 2013 when the city allowed its contract with Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems to lapse. That year, the company became embroiled in a bribery scheme in other states that culminated in multimillion-dollar settlements and jail time for its chief executive.
City councilors have said there was no wrongdoing involved in local dealings with the company. It’s unclear whether Redflex would submit a bid to contract with the city again, should the program pass muster with the council.
Since the STOP program ended, Santa Fe police have seen a 42 percent increase in traffic complaints and requests for monitoring, and total crashes across the city have increased each year since 2014, according to the draft resolution co-sponsored by Councilors Mike Harris, Peter Ives, Signe Lindell and Ron Trujillo, who is running for mayor.
The unmanned equipment, which could only be situated on city-owned streets, promotes heightened awareness behind the wheel and also frees up law enforcement officers to deal with other matters, the resolution states.
But the speed vans were little loved by some. In 2012, a man opened fire on one of the specially marked SUVs parked on Bishops Lodge Road.
The proposal’s path to the full council was not entirely smooth. The Finance Committee approved the proposal 3-1 in June, assuring it would advance to the full council, but that was after the Public Works Committee voted 3-0 against it in May. The advisory Public Safety Committee also raised concerns with reviving the program before ultimately recommending approval.
City spokesman Matt Ross, referring to the divergent committee votes, said the council’s decision Wednesday is not a foregone conclusion.
“It certainly makes the debate a little more interesting,” he said, adding he was not sure of Mayor Javier Gonzales’ thinking about the measure.
The vote comes as some residents complain they recently started receiving bills for years-old speeding tickets from the Redflex era. One, retired professor Phillis Ideal, said she received past-due notices from a collection agency over the weekend instructing her to pay $125 each for three separate speeding infractions she was told she had committed in 2013.
But Ideal, who described herself as “a fanatic bill-payer,” said she never received any original notice of having violated speed limits even once in 2013.
“I would pay my bills if I knew what they were, but I never received anything,” she said. “I never got anything that said, ‘You got a ticket, you owe this.’ I haven’t changed my address, and I know things get lost, but three?”
Redflex was responsible for issuing notices under the since-ended contract, city spokesman Ross said Tuesday. He added the city is finalizing details for a process by which recipients of past-due notices could contest the speeding tickets.
The sudden arrival of those bills has no connection to the proposal to revive the unmanned speed-enforcement program, Ross said. The city’s efforts to recoup millions in past-due funds — parking tickets, speeding tickets, utility bills and other fines — has simply coincided with the speed van proposal advancing through city committees, he said.
A message left for a Redflex communications representative asking about the yearsold tickets and whether the company would be interested in submitting a bid should the program move forward again was not returned Tuesday.
The chief executive of Redflex resigned in 2013 in what was described as one of the biggest bribery scandals in the history of Chicago by the Chicago Tribune, which in 2012 exposed the company’s scheme to secure millions in city contracts.
The company agreed to pay the city of Chicago $20 million earlier this year to settle a suit, and the former chief executive was sentenced to 30 months in prison for that scheme as well as 14 months for a similar scheme in Ohio.
Since the Santa Fe Traffic Operations Program, or STOP, ended, city police have seen a 42 percent increase in traffic complaints and requests for monitoring, and crashes across the city have increased each year since 2014, according to the draft resolution.