Red-light redo: Drive restarts to stop radar
The signatures, more than 500 of them, were collected and submitted to the Sheridan city clerk.
The first local ballot measure in Colorado against red-light cameras and photo radar vans appeared headed for a special election.
Until it didn’t. Backers of the measure had pulled apart the signature petition booklets to make copies and stapled them back together before handing them over to the city for verification last month.
That’s a no-no under state election law, said Paul Houston, a Denver resident who is heading up a frontal assault on what he calls “mechanized, robotic law enforcement” in Sheridan, an adjacent city of 5,900 residents.
“We did not read the Colorado revised statutes deeply enough,” he said.
So now Houston and his supporters are starting over. A new signature-collection effort kicked off this month.
“It just made us more determined to get the job done,” he said.
Houston said he has to collect 452 valid signatures from Sheridan residents to get the anti-photo radar and red-light camera ban on the ballot. He’s confident he’ll get at least the same 515 signatures he got on the first go-around.
“We’ll pretty much go back to the same people who already signed it,” he said. “We’re re-creating our walking list, so we’re just hitting our supporters.” A red-light camera at West Hampden Avenue and River Point Parkway in Sheridan.
He hopes to have the necessary signatures collected by the end of January, in time for a possible spring election.
Houston’s distaste for the cameras and radar is rooted not only in his opposition to their Big Brother feel but to the fact that the city has netted nearly $1.9 million — out of nearly $3.7 million in total collections from the programs — over the past five years.
“It’s a money grab and it’s wildly unpopular,” Houston said. “And it doesn’t work.”
But Devin Granbery, city manager for Sheridan, said the cameras and radar do slow people down. Just knowing they are there helps curb lead-footed behavior, he said.
The city doesn’t deploy its van where it could make the most money but rather near schools and parks, where it has the greatest potential effect on safety, Granbery said.
Some residents actually have asked that the van be placed in their neighborhoods.
“They know when it’s there and appreciate when it’s there,” Granbery said.
Police Chief Mark Campbell said initial studies have shown that motorists’ overall speed drops by 8 to 9 mph when the van is out and signs are up announcing its presence. He noted that one of the most vocal supporters of the photo radar van is the school district.
“As far as a safety program, we like it,” Campbell said.
But suspicions have been cast at automated law enforcement techniques from different corners of Colorado for years. Last year, the legislature passed two bills to outlaw photo radar and red-light cameras, or require voter approval of the systems. The measures were vetoed by Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Mike Krause, director of the local Colorado project with the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, is helping Houston navigate some of the legal waters of citizen-initiated campaigns.
He’d like to see if Sheridan can be an example for other cities.
“We like to see the citizens taking advantage of our referendum and initiative process to take back control over their local governments,” Krause said. “Profit motive has done amazing things for mankind — but using profit motive for the collection of fines and fees is a recipe for predatory government.”