On Oct. 6, 2004 RedFlex announced that Gardena had awarded it a contract for up to ten cameras, for $6070 per camera per month ( = up to $728,400 per year ), for a term of five to nine years.

The first contract, signed Sept. 28, 2004, included an illegal "cost neutrality" clause, whereby the City would not have had to pay RedFlex the full rent if the City had not received enough fine revenue to cover the cost.  (Other cities have similar clauses.  See Defect # 10 - B.)

2007:  Termination Letters and Price Concession

In Feb. 2007 - midway through the five-year term of the contract - the City sent RedFlex a notice of termination (see link below).  In March the City agreed to withdraw the notice for six months.

In Aug. 2007 police department staff submitted a study critical of the program.  It concluded:

The program is at best, but not very likely, generating enough revenue to be self-sustaining.  The costs of this program in staffing and additional responsibilities for the traffic bureau are not beneficial or helpful in achieving our department's goal in traffic safety.  Most importantly, the program does not appear to be proving a safety benefit to the community.  I therefore concur with the conclusion from the previous study that Redflex program be terminated.

In Sep. 2007 the City re-issued the notice of termination.

In Oct. 2007 the City was granted a price reduction to $3500 per camera, and withdrew the notice of termination.

Documents re: 2007 Termination Notices

The New Contract

In early 2010 the City signed a new contract, without a cost neutrality clause. Instead, the new contract contains the following clause:

The staff report given to the city council on Feb. 9, 2010 contained the following statement by Police Chief Edward Medrano:

Our research in Gardena has revealed there is no significant traffic safety impact as a result of the use of the red light cameras. At almost every intersection where we have cameras, collisions have remained the same, decreased very slightly, or increased depending on the intersection you examine. When combining the statistics of all the intersections, the overall consensus is that there is not a noticeable safety enhancement to the public.

On the Summary page for the staff report, the city manager wrote:

"While there appears to be no statistical evidence of a traffic safety impact, under the renegotiated terms and proposed terms of the agreement, the City is covering the maintenance costs, as well as City Staff costs for the current ten (10) approaches. 

"Therefore, it is recommended that the City Council approve the renewal and authorize the City Manager to execute the agreement."

The city council approved the new contract, 5 - 0.

On Dec. 13, 2011 the city council received a staff report, and voted 5 - 0 to terminate the program, effective that same day.

Gardena Docs Set # 3
"Late Time" Graphs

Gardena provided bar graphs of Late Times, etcetera, for all of its cameras.
These graphs track violations recorded, not tickets issued.
Where there is a large number of long Late Time violations in a curb lane, it is believed to indicate heavy ticketing on right turns.
(The curb lane will be the lane with the highest lane number.)