RED LIGHT CAMERAS
|
www.highwayrobbery.net
|
If
you haven't already done so, please read the South
San Franicsco section on the Camera Towns page City of
South San Francisco Documents (Closed) Some of South San Francisco's tickets
can possibly be ignored. If your "ticket" does not
have the Superior Court's name and address on it, it is
what I call a "Snitch Ticket." For more details,
see the Snitch Ticket section on the Your Ticket page.
Do you live in the South end of Alameda
County or the North end of Santa Clara County - State
Sen. Ellen Corbett's District? In late 2014 Sen. Corbett will be
termed out. This person Please don't vote for him. Send him back home to his bankruptcy law practice. South
San Francisco Docs Set # 1 Total
Events, Total Citations Issued [4] New 5-22-10,
updated 7-19-15
This table made by highwayrobbery.net, using official reports provided by the City under the California Public Records Act. Official reports, Aug. 2009 - Apr. 2010 Official reports, May 2010 - Aug. 2010 Official reports, Oct. 2010 - Nov. 2012 Official reports, Aug. 2010 - Dec. 2012 Official reports, Dec. 2012 - May 2013 Official reports, June 2013 - Mar. 2014 Official reports, Apr. 2014 - July 2014 [ ] indicates a footnote. [1] Totals are as provided by the City. [2] Annual total, or annual projection, is by highwayrobbery.net. [3] Un-used columns are to allow for later expansion of City's system. [4] Any figures in red type (or, if you are looking at this table in black and white, the upper figure when there are two or more figures in a cell) are what ATS calls Total Events, or all incidents recorded by the cameras, and due to time limitations may have been posted here only for selected months or locations. If there is sufficient public interest, the remaining months will be posted. The figures in black type are what ATS calls Total Citations Issued, and represent the sum of genuine citations issued (those filed with the court) plus any Nominations mailed (not filed with the court, a.k.a. Snitch Tickets). [5] Monthly data was requested on: [6] The camera enforcement is believed to be on traffic on the first-named street, but the direction of enforcement (north, south, east, west, thru, left, right) is not yet available. [7] Includes enforcement of posted "no turn on red" signs. [8] All citations issued Aug. 2009 to Apr. 2010 were reversed or dismissed, and refunded. See Set # 2 below, for more details. [9] The report for this month was generated close to the end of the month, so may be incomplete. South San Francisco Docs Set
# 2 After a Jul. 19, 2006 city council
Study Session (no public hearing), the city signed its
contract with American Traffic Solutions, in Oct.
2006. (A copy of that contract is part of the pdf
for the Apr. 14, 2010 staff report, linked below.)
The City did not start issuing tickets until Aug. 2009,
due to having to obtain CalTrans permits before
installing cameras at state-operated intersections. On Nov. 10, 2009 the City approved an amendment
intended to remove the contract's illegal "cost
neutrality" clause. (See Subsection B. of Defect #
10 for information about cost neutrality.) On Jan. 27, 2010, as a Consent Calendar
item, the city council "re-approved" the 2006 contract,
and possibly the 2009 amendment, too - a copy of it was
included in the staff report provided for the meeting. On Feb. 5, 2010 the City announced that
it would be refunding/dismissing all tickets issued from
the beginning of the program up to Jan. 27, 2010, due
to a "technical error" (like the cities of Baldwin
Park, Capitola, Citrus Heights, Highland,
Victorville and Walnut, South City had
failed to hold the formal public hearing required by CVC
21455.6 before it approved the contract in 2006 - see
the expanded version of Defect # 6). On Mar. 12, 2010 the City
announced that it would refund/dismiss even more tickets
- those issued between Jan. 27 and Mar. 10, 2010.
A reason for the second batch of refunds/dismissals was
suggested in this Feb. 22 KGO-TV
story (an attorney claimed that her post-Jan. 27
ticket was invalid because the City should have issued
warning tickets for the first 30 days after the Jan. 27
"re-approval" of the contract), but the City's motion
papers mentioned only the failure to hold a
public hearing. A estimate of the total number of tickets refunded/dismissed is 8000. On Apr. 14, 2010 the city council held
the public hearing required by CVC 21455.6. The
announced purpose of the public hearing was to determine
if the city wished to continue the camera program, or to
cancel during the one-year trial period provided in the
contract: The staff
report (including contract) prepared
for the Apr. 14, 2010 public hearing contained a
strong recommendation to continue the program. Also
heard during the hearing was that ATS would not be
refunding any of the camera rent it had collected up to
that time. The resolution approved on Apr. 14 said
that the City would issue warning tickets up to May 14.
The Apr. 14 staff report said (page 4)
that 95% of the citations up to that date were for right
turns.
On Apr. 22, 2010 the San Mateo County
Times reported that the City had agreed to pay $250,000
to the Superior Court, "for its troubles involving the
City's legal snafu over red-light cameras." For
8000 refunds/dismissals, that works out to $31.25 per
ticket. The settlement with the Court was
formalized in a ten-page agreement.
Invoices
from Meyers Nave, the firm providing city attorney
services to the City, revealed that the City was billed
$34,473.29 for "Citation Dismissal Action" services
rendered during March and April 2010. Prior to
March there was no separate accounting for time the firm
spent on red light camera issues.
The staff report prepared for the Apr.
14, 2010 meeting said, at page 5, that the program would
continue for fifty months from that date (to June 2014),
which conflicts with the five-year term specified by the
contract. 2014: Contract Not Renewed On Mar. 12, 2014 the city council was
to decide whether to renew the contract for another five
years, or let it expire, but they continued the item to
the meeting of Mar. 26. At that meeting they voted
to let it expire, on Aug. 13. The staff report mentioned, and
paraphrased, some "ATS Statistics" that the City had
received. Highwayrobbery.net requested a copy of
them, and they are here.
Among
other things, the ATS document clarified the staff
report's statement about the percentage of tickets going
to local vehicles. The ATS report gave the figure
as 20% "of all violations issued since the program's
start," while the staff report said, "Vehicles
registered in South San Francisco are receiving
approximately 20% of the citations issued." It
should be noted that it is likely that in the later
years of the program, the percentage of local vehicles
was far less than 20%. (A copy of the original 2006 contract is
part of the pdf for the Apr. 14, 2010 staff report, linked
above.) This list of contracts and
amendments was up-to-date as of Mar. 26, 2014.
South San Francisco Docs Set
# 3 A 2012 NBC story
indicated that the City was losing money on the
cameras. And, that crashes were up, not down. To see how much fine money the Court
sent to the City, go to Docs Set # 4 on the San Mateo
Docs page.
Invoices received in 2013 show that the City paid ATS $5395 for four cameras and $4995 for two.
South San Francisco Docs Set
# 4
South San Francisco Docs Set
# 5
South San Francisco Docs Set
# 6 South San Francisco Docs Set
# 7
--------------------------------- |