Less than three years after Santa Maria’s red light photo enforcement program began, the cameras and strobe lights are gone from the intersections where they once perched. All that remains are the poles to which they were attached—for now.
On Feb. 22, as workers removed video and photo equipment from two intersections, the city was already poring over a new proposal from a Maryland company to reintroduce the program.
The initial camera vendor, American Traffic Solutions, had promised the city in November the cameras would come down within 30 days, but due to disagreements over responsibility for the system’s removal, the cameras remained up, but not operating.
Some residents were none too happy about the delay. On Feb. 14, Santa Maria was one of 10 cities—including Chicago, Phoenix, and Austin—to take part in a nationwide Ladies of Liberty Alliance protest against the cameras.
Group members Amber Danelle and Zaira Dynia, co-hosts of a two-hour weekly Internet show called Truth A-to-Z, led the protest.
“They’re technically not working right now,” Danelle said of the cameras that day. “But we want people to be aware that they’re still up, that it could become an issue, and if a new company takes it, then we’re still going to go to City Hall and talk to these people and say we don’t want this.”
Though the protest was modest, it did draw the attention of passing motorists. Some drivers honked and raised fists; others flipped the bird.
Danelle, who received a citation of her own, readily admitted to running the red light and paying her fine. However, she thinks the cameras do more harm than good and only serve to get the public accustomed to being watched and recorded.
“The city really doesn’t make that much money from it, so it’s just ridiculous to have these up,” she said. “It’s Orwellian. It’s disgusting.”
Fellow protestor Dynia said the cameras intimidated her, but not just out of fear of getting a ticket.
“We shouldn’t be charged with a crime without the due process required,” she said. “Even with a ticket, you need the officer there to catch you doing it.
“This intersection just freaks me out,” she added, “and we don’t need anything like this.”
Putting the brakes on photo enforcement
The City Council decided red light cameras were necessary in Santa Maria in November 2006, when members approved a three-year contract with Rhode Island-based Nestor Traffic Systems to install and operate them.
The following May, when the company set up cameras at the intersection of Betteravia and Miller roads, the city joined more than 400 communities in the country with the systems. According to the city, the program was the first of its kind in Santa Barbara County.
The vendor provided all the poles, wiring, and equipment for the system at no charge to the city, and police began issuing citations the following month.
In 2008, the company installed a second camera system at Stowell and Miller roads, including a right-turn camera. The two systems videotaped traffic and took still photos in two directions at each junction when cars passed through the intersections after a red light.
According to Santa Maria Police Department Cpl. Jesse Silva, police issued 2,249 red light citations over the course of the red light camera program. Of those, 1,307 came from the Stowell and Miller intersection.
Fines for the infraction were set at $406 and paid to Santa Barbara County Superior Court. Proceeds were split between the courts, Nestor, and the city.
The system was in place until September 2009, when Nestor went bankrupt and Arizona–based vendor ATS purchased the company out of receivership for $7 million.
City officials thought the company would continue the camera program. Instead, ATS terminated the contract on Nov. 24.
In an e-mail, Kate Coulson, a spokeswoman for ATS, said the city was just one of many former Nestor clients to be dropped as part of the receivership process.
“All of Nestor’s contracts were carefully evaluated and, using a range of criteria, ATS determined that Santa Maria’s contract (among others) was not a good fit for our business going forward,” Coulson wrote.
Santa Maria’s Principal Civil Engineer David Beas said the city thought ATS intended to continue the contract and was surprised by the decision.
“They determined it wasn’t economically feasible for them to continue,” he explained. “It was unfortunate, because we didn’t really get a chance to talk about it, but if that’s what they wanted to do, that’s fine. We weren’t going to stand in their way.”
Money and safety
While the cameras might not have been the profit generator the vendors had hoped they would be, officials said the city didn’t receive any financial gain from their use.
In fact, average monthly revenues ran less than half of the $18,000 Nestor charged in rent per month for the four camera systems—$4,460 for the first camera and $4,170 for each additional camera.
“Our primary concern was to eliminate red light violations and reduce the severity of accidents that occur when you have those red light violations,” Beas said. “Safety was the paramount reason for the installation of the cameras.”
In several nationwide studies, red light cameras have been shown to reduce the number of collisions in cities where they’re implemented.
According to the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running, an Orange County government report released in 2005 revealed a year after red light camera installation, accidents dropped 47 percent in Garden Grove, 28 percent in Costa Mesa, 16 percent in Santa Ana, 12 percent in San Juan Capistrano, and 6 percent in Fullerton. Another 2002 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reported Oxnard saw a 29 percent reduction in injury crashes citywide in the years after installing cameras there in 1997.
While official statistics on the number of collisions in Santa Maria is unavailable for recent years, city officials credited the cameras with improving driver safety, reducing traffic collisions, and lessening the severity of crashes.
SMPD Lt. Rico Flores, head of the department’s traffic division, oversaw the city’s program during its operation.
“I think it was working,” Flores said. “People were more aware of the lights and the cameras and being caught, which caused a little fear in them. They tended to slow down or tended to not make that last-minute run to try to make the yellow light.”
Flores said violations steadily decreased over time as drivers became more aware of the cameras, and police had hoped to bring in more.
“We wanted to put them in intersections that the city owned completely,” Flores said. “We would have loved to have had them on Broadway, but that was Caltrans property, so that was a long process in the filing of permits to be able to place cameras on that piece of roadway.”
Principal Civil Engineer Beas said Nestor evaluated several more intersections and proposed cameras along Broadway as well, but Caltrans denied the proposal.
“Caltrans was under the impression that we were going to tag everybody,” Beas said. “They weren’t excited about the red light cameras, and in addition to the right-turn enforcement, they thought that the city would enforce every single violation. That was not the intent.”
Running the system
The company, the police, and the courts shared enforcement of the violations. In exchange for its monthly rental fees, Nestor was charged with maintaining the cameras and tagging violators.
When cameras recorded a violation, Nestor would run license plate numbers and gather data on the offenders. Then it would forward the information to police, who analyzed the photos to determine if a violation occurred and if there was enough evidence to prosecute. If there was, the police would submit the violation to the court. Offenders received their citations from the court and a copy of the photos from Nestor.
Assistant City Attorney Phil Sinco said that while the system wasn’t perfect, the photos provided more than sufficient evidence to prove red light infractions occurred.
“The software was pretty good,” he said. “It was always possible for the person to say, ‘It wasn’t me’ or ‘it was a friend I loaned the car to,’ but often the picture was good enough to tell that it was that person driving the car.”
If an offender disputed a ticket, police would bring a laptop computer to the court and show the judge a video of the violation. Since ATS repossessed the laptop and other equipment permitting the city to prove the violations in court, the city had no choice but to dismiss all pending violations.
The city notified the courts in December it intended to dismiss all citations issued prior to Oct. 31 that were still pending as of Nov. 20. More than 120 citations fell into that category.
Santa Maria Police Chief Danny Macagni notified Santa Barbara County Superior Court of the city’s intentions in a letter to the court’s traffic supervisor dated Dec. 3.
“Due to the bankruptcy of the Nestor Corporation and the removal of their video equipment, effective immediately, I request that all Red Light Camera Citations be dismissed in the interest of justice,” Macagni wrote.
Macagni supported photo enforcement from the start and called their removal “unfortunate.”
“It was a successful program while it was here,” he said. “It really reduced the number of violations at those intersections, and when there was an accident, it was all caught on tape, which helped us successfully prosecute the violator.
“It’s only a positive thing for the police and this community,” he added. “The more people who are abiding safely by the traffic laws, the safer we’ll all be motoring in this town.”
Challenges to the cameras
In recent months, lawsuits have been brought against cities across Florida, Arizona, Washington, and Missouri, challenging the constitutionality of red light photo enforcement.
People have also raised disputes throughout California regarding the legality of “pay-per-ticket” stipulations in contracts between governments and camera operators.
In 2004, state senators passed a law to prevent vendors from being tempted to manipulate the cameras to increase the number of citations and glean higher profits. The state’s Vehicle Code now includes a provision stating contracts between governments and camera manufacturers’ suppliers “may not include a provision for payment of compensation to the manufacturer or supplier based on the number of citations generated, or as a percentage of the revenue generated, as a result of use of the equipment.”
To curb expenses incurred for the program, Santa Maria’s contract with Nestor included a “cost-neutrality” clause, meaning the company would only receive the full monthly rent if fines generated by cameras were enough to cover it. Otherwise, Nestor was paid the lesser amount.
A “cost-neutral” clause in the company’s contract with the city of Fullerton was found to be illegal by an Orange County Appeals Court judge in 2008, because it tied rent to camera-generated revenue. As a result of the ruling, the cameras in Fullerton were shut down and have reportedly been removed.
Beas said Nestor offered the city a similar option in their contract, but after conferring with lawyers, the parties settled on stipulations that weren’t based on revenue or the number of tickets issued.
“It doesn’t break that law,” Beas explained. “When we went into this thing, that was a main concern. We said, ‘Hey, we don’t want to get into this contract and a year or two down the road find out we’d have to come back and pay these guys restitution for having an illegal system.’ So, that was a huge thing. They spent a lot of time researching that.”
Defendants challenged their tickets twice in Santa Maria, claiming the “cost-neutral” clause in the city’s contract with Nestor was illegal. One of the tickets was dismissed because the city didn’t send out a citation notice within 10 days of the violation, as required by law.
For the other dispute, Santa Maria attorney Mark Peter Brown argued that the ticket he received in May 2009 should be dismissed because the city’s contract with Nestor “indirectly” tied fees to the amount of the revenue generated by the program and violated state law.
Brown’s argument went to the Santa Barbara County Superior Court in September 2009, but the judge sided with the city. The case is currently on appeal.
“I believe in the laws, but if the laws apply to me, then they apply to the city also,” Brown said. “They weren’t following the law, and somebody needs to bring it to their attention.”
Brown, who compared his fine to a “sin tax,” said the cameras are indicative of the “Big Brother-fication” of society and that he would continue to appeal the decision as far as he could take it.
“They’re going to tax us one way or another. California is in a mess, the city and schools are in a mess. They’re all looking for ways to get money,” he said. “If you go through red lights, they’re going to want to get their pound of flesh. I don’t mind that—as long as they follow the law.”
Not stopping the fight
After the Nestor bankruptcy, with the infrastructure still in place to bring in another provider, the city sent out requests for camera system proposals to five vendors. A company called Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) responded first.
According to Beas, the city’s Public Works Department will evaluate the company’s proposal for cost effectiveness and present its findings to the City Council, likely by mid-March. The council would have to approve any contract with a new vendor.
Beas said the city has asked ACS to evaluate all the city’s intersections to help determine where the cameras should be placed.
“It’s in their best interests to see where the highest traffic volume is and where strategically the best locations are,” he explained. “They’re in it to make money.”
Following the evaluation, Beas explained, police will review the company’s recommendations to see if it’s in the city’s best interest to resume the program, given the current economic climate.
Bringing the cameras back during a recession is one of the fears of Santa Maria resident Mark Morrison, who took part in the Valentine’s Day protest.
“It’s one thing if you screw up and there’s a cop there to catch you, but if there’s not a cop there to catch you, it’s a tax,” Morrison said. “It’s just another way to raise revenue, which we really can’t afford right now.”
Police Chief Macagni said he was “extremely pleased” at the prospect of a new vendor taking over the program and hopes the city moves forward quickly to approve a contract. He compared the cameras to having a constant police presence on city street corners and had words of advice for the program’s detractors: Don’t break the law.
“People don’t want to accept responsibility for their actions and look for every excuse to get out of it,” Macagni said. “Whether it’s done by video or an officer catching you, you violated the law, and you should be held accountable.
“I know there’s this Big Brother concept that everyone’s worried about,” he added. “But the bottom line is if you were abiding by the law, your picture and video wouldn’t be on that camera.”
Protest organizers Dynia and Danelle said they would continue to fight the cameras, relying on Facebook and the Web to spread the word. The two will stage another demonstration against the program in Santa Maria on March 20.
“There’s a lot of people who support the idea,” Dynia said. “They don’t want to see it, and they don’t want to be surveilled. They don’t want to feel like they’re constantly being watched, or they see it as being a baby step to Big Brother. It’s just a matter of reaching those people and getting them to come down at the same time.”
Contact Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 4-11, 2010.