Photo-Enforced Stop Signs Legality To Be Examined By SUE PASCOE Staff Writer - Palisadian-Post, Pacific Palidades, California April 24, 2008             Assemblywoman Julia Brownley and Senator Sheila Kuehl have requested that Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston give the State Attorney General the documents from the Pacific Palisades Community Council regarding the legality of the photo-enforced stop signs placed in several parks, including Temescal Gateway Park.             Public outcry about the cameras started last July, when motorists received $100 fines for failing to come to a complete stop at signs in the park. Some residents felt that they had been ticketed unfairly: that the installation was faulty. Others objected to the photo that showed a car, but not the driver’s face, yet others objected that it wasn’t legal that Redflex, the company that installed the cameras, received a percentage of the fine. Still others felt that the appeal system was unfair.                          In response to residents’ complaints, the Pacific Palisades Community Council sent a letter and documents dated April 8 to Assemblymember Julia Brownley and Senator Sheila Kuehl asking them to request that the State Attorney General’s office provide a formal opinion on the legality of the installation and use of photo enforcement.             Edmiston beat the Council to the punch by asking for an informal opinion from the Attorney General’s officer sooner, which was then made public on April 7. In that informal opinion the State Attorney’s office agreed with Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority’s (MRCA) law firm Richards/Watson/Gershon (RWG)’s conclusion concerning traffic control as practiced through video cameras.             In writing the informal opinion, the Attorney General’s office wrote, “MRCA, as a joint exercise of powers agency, could adopt a traffic control ordinance pursuant to Government Code section 53069.4. That section authorizes local agencies to adopt ordinances and to make the violation of those ordinances subject to an administrative fine or penalty.”             “He [Edmiston] got that opinion mainly by spoonfeeding RWG a limited and misleading set of facts,” Community Council Member Jack Allen wrote in an e-mail to the Post. “What Edmiston is attempting is an end run around the Community Council request and preempting the Community Council effort to get a formal opinion from the Attorney General regarding the legality.”             Allen pointed out that even though the Attorney General’s office supplied an informal opinion about the stop-sign video cameras, the Community Council is requesting a formal opinion.             In an e-mail to the Palisadian-Post, Supervising Deputy Attorney General John Saurenman explained, “Formal opinions and informal advice letters are very different animals. An informal advice letter is just that--an informal letter providing advice to a client.              “A formal opinion addresses more weighty issues and is given a great deal more weight.  As an example, when an appellate court is ruling on an issue, the hierarchy of precedent it uses is basically Supreme Court decisions, followed by appellate court decisions, and then formal Attorney General opinions.  So we very carefully consider which requests for opinions to grant and then very carefully prepare these opinions.”              The informal opinion given to the MRCA by the Attorney General’s office was based on a seven-page document from the RWG law firm, which wrote that they received their information from documents supplied by the MRCA, and through conversations with Edmiston, Laurie Collins and Chief Ranger Walt Young.                         RWG wrote, “We have performed no independent verification of the status of these roads or paths. If our understanding of the facts is inaccurate in any way, or if the facts change, please let us know immediately as that could affect our opinion.”             In an April 22 letter to Edmiston, Brownley requested that “Accordingly, both as the Assemblymember representing Pacific Palisades and as a legislative participant on the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board, I am requesting that you reopen the question and instruct the attorneys to fully consider the evidence and legal briefs submitted by the Pacific Palisades Community Council.”             “MRCA is going to ask the Attorney General to look at the documents [from PPCC] and if there is new information, to consider it in their opinion,” Laurie Newman from Senator Kuehl’s office told the Post on Tuesday. Article copy courtesy of the Palisadian-Post. To subscribe or advertise, call (310) 454-1321.