Napa Documents

Some of Napa's tickets can possibly be ignored.  If your "ticket" does not have the Napa County Superior Court's name and address on it, it is a fake ticket, what I call a "Snitch Ticket."  For more details, see the Snitch Ticket section on the Your Ticket page.

Napa Docs Set # 1
Ticket Counts

Total Violations, Notices Printed [3]

Napa Docs Set # 2
"Late Time" Graphs

  The City provided bar graphs of Late Times, etcetera, for all of its cameras, for May 2009 and April 2010.
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.)



The picture above is an example from another city.

Graphs, May 2009
Graphs, April 2010, and RedFlex-generated Ticket Counts, Apr. 2009 to Apr. 2010
Graphs, April - June 2010
New-style table of Late Times, and RedFlex-generated Ticket Counts, Jan. to Mar. 2011
Graphs, Feb. 2010 to Oct. 2011
Graphs, Sept. 2011, 1212
Graphs, Sept. 2011, BRTR
Graphs, Sept. 2011, JEFI
Graphs, Sept. 2011, SOIM
Graphs, all cameras, Sept. 2012

 
Bar graphs are available for more than fifty other cities - see the list in the expanded version of Defect # 9.

Napa Docs Set # 3
The Contract 
The Price!
The Appeal
The 500 Dismissals
The Price!!!

2008 Draft Contract, with Staff Report
2008 Contract, Signed

The 2008 contract included a "cost neutrality" clause, whereby the city did not have to pay RedFlex the full rent if the fines were insufficient to cover the cost.  See Subsection B. of Defect # 10.

The 2008 contract penalized the City if it chose not to enforce right-hand turn violations.

The contract also says:  Definitions.  "Warning Period" means the period of thirty (30) days after the Installation Date of each intersection approach.  (Emphasis added.)  See Defect # 6.

Per an article in the Napa Valley Register, on May 26, 2011 the Appellate Division of the Napa County Superior Court found Napa's cost neutrality clause to be illegal.

At its June 21, 2011 meeting, the city council voted 4 - 1 (Techel: nay) to amend the contract to remove cost neutrality (and the requirement for right turn enforcement), and to extend the term to Jun. 2012.  The staff report for the June 21 meeting is available here.  The amendment was signed on Jul. 21.  In a July 25, 2011 Register article, the City disclosed that it would resume issuing tickets on approx. Aug. 1.
 
The City filed a Petition for Re-hearing of the appeal decision (under Rule of Court 8.889), and re-hearing was granted. The court suspended all action on current red light camera tickets, until Sept. 12.  On Aug. 12, 2011 the judge again found the contract to be illegal, but also ruled that the illegality would not negate RedFlex' evidence so long as the prosecution proves that the evidence has not been altered.  The documents in this appeal case are available here.

Per an Oct. 8, 2011 Register article, the City was dismissing 500 of the tickets issued under the old contract.  (See the earlier Grand Jury recommendation, in Set # 4, below.)  The Register said that Capt. Jeff Troendly said that paid tickets in closed cases will not be refunded.  (Note:  There may be a way to re-open a case that was closed/completed less than six months ago.  See FAQ # 26.)
The quantity of tickets to be dismissed seems low to me, because 500 tickets would represent just over one month's worth of tickets, or about 4% of all tickets issued, and it is unusual for a court to have a 96% payment rate.
See the South San Francisco page for an example of a large refund.

Reviewing the Contract Price: Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

While the July 2011 amendment contains a good feature - it allows the City to cancel the contract with only 10 days notice - the City failed to negotiate the price, leaving the monthly rent for each of the cameras at $6000.
Had the council negotiated a $2225 rent like that in the 2009 contract of the City of Solana Beach, it could have saved $181,200.
Or, had the council negotiated a $2500 rent like that in the 2009 contract of the City of Davis, it could have saved $168,000.
During the same meeting, the council voted to cut their own council salaries, by about $3930.
Late 2011 invoices show that Napa is paying for four cameras.

Renewing in 2012:  More Money Wasted

In June 2012 the police chief signed a one-year contract extension.  A July 6, 2012 Napa Valley Register article revealed that while he got the rent reduced to $1500 on one camera, he agreed to continue paying $5670 and $6000 on the other three.  Compared to a reasonable target rent of $3000, Napa will pay $86,040 too much, enough to pay for a police officer for a year. 

FAQ # 17 has many more examples of what other California cities pay for their cameras.

Please note that there could be a contract or amendment later than the ones listed above.

Napa Docs Set # 4
March 2011:  Grand Jury Recommends 1000 Refunds at 29/121
City's Response:  No

On May 13, 2010 CalTrans lengthened the yellow at the Hwy. 29/121 intersection, from 3.2 seconds, up to 3.8.

Correspondence between City and CalTrans

Despite the longer yellow, a record 940 right turn tickets were issued there that month. 
In Mar. 2011 the Napa County Grand Jury issued a report recommending, among other things, 1000 refunds at 29/121.
Over the weekend of Mar. 26 and 27, 2011 the Napa Valley Register published an article and an editorial about the Grand Jury report.

In its June 2011 response to the Mar. 2011 Grand Jury report, the City revealed that in Oct. 2010, and then again in Dec. 2010, it had effectively lengthened the yellow for rolling rights at Hwy 29/Hwy121.  The June 2011 response said:

"In October 2010 and later in December, 2010, the City began issuing citations
to right turn violators only if the light had been yellow for 5.0 (October) and 5.4 (December) seconds
 prior to the violation."

In that same response, it said it would not make the refunds recommended by the Grand Jury.

Overall, the City rejected 6-1/2 of the 8 recommendations made by the Grand Jury.

Napa Docs Set # 5
Encroachment Permits

Some of the City's cameras are located on CalTrans right-of-ways, so are operated under an encroachment permit obtained from CalTrans.  HighwayRobbery.net obtained these documents from CalTrans, via a public records request.

Permit Application (not available yet)
Correspondence (not available yet)
Issued Permit, Nov. 2009

Some other cities operate cameras under encroachment permits.  For more information about those cities and about CalTrans' criteria for the issuance of an encroachment permit, see the CalTrans section on the Links page.

Napa Docs Set # 6
"Statistics" Presented to City Council

On Feb. 15, 2011 the police department made a presentation to the City Council, updating them on the red light camera program.  The  staff report claimed:

"The cameras are serving the intended purpose of reducing collisions."

The presentation also included several police-produced tables with headings suggesting that there was a reduction in accidents attributable to the installation of the cameras.

An examination of the those tables (below) shows that the police's own statistics do not support their claims.
 

Police-produced attachment to Feb. 15, 2011 report to Napa city council.

Comment by highwayrobbery.net:  Examination of Attachment 3 reveals that if you compare 2010 to 2008 (2008 being the last full year before cameras were installed and 2010 being the only full year with cameras), collisions went up at three of the four intersections having cameras, and injuries went up at two and down at two.  Attachment 3 does show a big drop in collisions at three of the four intersections, but it occurred in 2008, before cameras were installed, so cannot be attributed to the cameras.

Police-produced attachment to Feb. 15, 2011 report to Napa city council.

Comment by highwayrobbery.net:  Attachment 4, which covers the other intersections originally considered for cameras, shows that the big drop is between 2007 and 2008, before cameras were installed, just like Attachment 3 shows for the intersections where cameras were eventually installed.

Police-produced attachment to Feb. 15, 2011 report to Napa city council.

Comment by highwayrobbery.net:  Attachment 5 is interesting but tells us nothing about safety, as the quantity of violations is under direct control of City staff and/or the camera company.  With a few keystrokes they can change the length of the yellow light (for straight through movements) or, for right turns, lower the Threshold (or "trigger") Speed.  From a peer-reviewed academic study:

"Another type of research flaw in some RLC studies is the use of a process measure, such as violations or traffic citations, instead of an actual safety outcome, e.g., crashes or injuries.  Unlike crashes, citations are 'endogenous,' meaning officials responsible for issuing citations directly control the number issued."

Source:  Orban, et al (2011).  An Update on Red Light Camera Research:  The Need for Federal Standards in the Interest of Public Safety.  Florida Public Health Review, 8, 1-9.

And It Gets Worse!

In June 2011, the police department prepared two tables for the city council meeting of June 21.  One of the new tables was an attachment to Agenda Item 28A, the City's (required) response to March's Grand Jury report.  The other new table was an attachment to Agenda Item 28B, a City staff report recommending that the program be continued.  Two new columns have been added to the big Ticket Count table (Docs Set # 1, above on this web page), in order to display figures from the City's new tables alongside figures from the RedFlex-generated tables we obtained in 2010. 
The reports accompanying the City's new tables do not explain why the figures for total right turn violations ("RTOR Violations") in April, May and June 2010 (from the table attached to Agenda Item 28B) exceed the figures for all violations obtained from the RedFlex-generated table covering those months. 
Nor do we know why the 28B RTOR Violations do not agree with the RTOR Violations shown in Agenda Item 28A.
Nor do we know why the 28B total for the number of citations issued at 29/121 during first quarter 2011 (377), is 20% less than the number reported in the RedFlex-generated table (474) covering that quarter.

 All of the tables are available at the links in the footnotes of Docs Set # 1, above.

Napa Docs Set # 7
Napa:  The (Cold & Dark) Heart of the Wine Country
Visitors:  Watch Out!

On Feb. 15, 2011 the Napa Valley Register printed a letter from a lady from Oklahoma, who complained about getting a ticket for a rolling right while she and her husband were in Napa celebrating his retirement.  She wrote:
"Our memory... of your beautiful valley has been tainted by the cold-heartedness of the situation."

The cold-heartedness doesn't seems to be confined to the camera robots and the Napa police.  Consider some of the responses her letter prompted:
 Bauhausfan commented:  "I am just fine with you not being back... all of us will feel OK with that also."
Alucawanza commented:  "Cry me a river."
DowntownNapan commented:  "Adios, and don't let the door hit you too hard or your way out of Napa."

On Dec. 13, 2011 the Register had a letter from a tourist from Las Vegas, who had brought a party of twenty people to Napa.  He noted:
"I spent $5000 the three days I was in Napa.  Because of this unreasonable fine, I will never return to your city."

Consider some of the responses from the locals:
KiddoYoung commented:  "Please, cry me a river."
Tsgets commented:  "And since you asked, I don't care if you return or not."

On Mar. 19, 2013 a Register article disclosed that as much as 76% of the City's tickets go to visitors, and that at the one intersection where the minority of tickets go to visitors, injury collisions increased 50% over five years.

Napa Docs Set # 8
Soscol/Imola Keeping Program in the Black?
Councilmember's Challenge

A Nov. 13, 2011 Register article about the financial condition of Napa's red light camera program noted the big Fall 2011 increase in ticketing at Soscol/Imola, and that Lt. Troendly suggested it was a seasonal variation. 
(The data in the Ticket Counts table above shows no similar increase the previous Fall.)

The article also said:

 "[Councilmember] Van Gorder said if anyone who received a ticket can show him a video proving they were not hazardously running through an intersection and received a ticket for slowly rolling on a right turn, he will bring the matter before the council and vote to end the program."

Napa Docs Set # 9
More Coming

There may be some more Napa information posted in the next few weeks.  Mark your calendar to remind you to come back here and look!

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