Public Safety Committee backs speed camera proposal

Two more panels to review Verra Mobility contract before City Council votes on matter

Speed-monitoring cameras are one step closer to making their way back onto Santa Fe streets.

The city’s Public Safety Committee voted Tuesday to endorse a contract presented by the Santa Fe Police Department for an Arizona-based company to operate unmanned speed-monitoring vehicles, as well as smaller portable devices that look like mailboxes, that would ticket drivers if they speed on city roadways.

The department must now seek an endorsement for the contract with Verra Mobility Solutions from the city’s Public Works and Finance committees before it can go to City Council for a final vote, police Chief Andrew Padilla said.

Both Padilla and Deputy Chief Ben Valdez said during Tuesday’s committee meeting that the program is meant to improve the safety of Santa Fe roadways, not generate revenue.

“We’re not going to pull any punches on anybody. We’re going to let them know via our social media, ‘Here is where the device will be at,’ ” Valdez said. “We are hoping people will follow that, heed our advice and watch their speed limit. Again, what we’re trying to do is change the driving behavior of people that operate vehicles on our roads.”

Valdez said police know they can influence driving behavior through traffic blitzes, which is when certain roadways are saturated with officers, but it is not possible to maintain that level of enforcement at all times. These cameras can have the same effect while freeing up officers to do other things, he said.

The location of the cameras would be decided based on a number of factors, Padilla said. Police would deploy them in areas where they know there are a lot of crashes, as well as in school and construction zones.

Padilla said that if someone from the community called in complaining of speeding in their neighborhood, for example, they could use a lidar device or radar detector to monitor the area to determine if there is a speeding

problem. Then, if necessary, they could place one of the unmanned vehicles or portable devices in that area.

The devices could not be used on any of the 13 state roads that cut across the city, Padilla said. That includes major thoroughfares like Cerrillos Road, St. Francis Drive, Airport Road and Rodeo Road, all of which are on the department’s list of top 20 crash locations in 2018 and 2019.

By placing speed cameras on city roads, officers would be able to spend their time patrolling state roads, Valdez said.

Padilla said the plan would be to have one unmanned vehicle, as well as two of the portable devices, on both the south and north sides of the city at any given time.

If approved, this would be the city’s second iteration of the Santa Fe Traffic Operations Program. The first program ran from 2009-13 with a company named Redflex, but it ended after the company’s CEO was indicted on charges of bribery and other crimes.

According to a fiscal impact report written by Valdez, there was an average of 2,350 crashes per year while the previous program was in operation. That number rose to an average of 3,048 crashes per year from 2014-18.

“There was a lower rate of crashes when we had those devices operational,” Valdez said. “Once we ended that program, we saw there was an increase of motor vehicle crashes that happened. We can’t directly tie that or say it’s directly correlated to the removal of the STOP program. There could be other factors at play, but to see that much of an increase soon after the program came to an end, you know, there is a lot to say about that.”

Padilla said the program would start 60 to 90 days after receiving the City Council’s approval and could be running by spring.

The committee also endorsed a change to the city’s STOP amendment, which would cap fines at $100 for speeding more than 5 mph in a school or construction zone and at $50 for speeding more than 10 mph on all other city roads.

Committee member and District 3 City Councilor Christopher Rivera said capping the fines is important for people in his district because many of them live paycheck to paycheck.

Valdez said people also would have the option of requesting to do community service to make right on a violation.

Under the contract, Verra Mobility Solutions would get 40 percent of any money collected, while the state would get 50 percent, Valdez said. The remaining 10 percent would go back into the program to make it self-sustaining by paying for equipment or paying for advertising campaigns.

According to Valdez’s fiscal impact report, if the number of tickets issued remained constant, the revenue from the program could be approximately $642,940 a year. With the caps on fines, the revenue would decrease by about $214,812. That should not impact the ability for the program to pay for itself, he said.