At tonight's (3/9) city council meeting, I put forward a proposal that the city adopt a policy regarding automated law enforcement mechanisms like red light cameras.

Mayor and Council members,

Thank you for listening to those you represent.

You all know, by now, how much I dislike our current red light cameras. One of the major problems with these cameras is that they provide faulty evidence which breaks due process.

Currently, photographic evidence of red light violations are used as justification to issue citations. Unfortunately, no photograph is ever taken of the driver breaking the law. Therefore citations are sent to the registered owner of the vehicle involved, not the person that ran the red light. What's even worse is that the owner is then responsible for proving his innocence to avoid the $75 fine, instead of the city proving his guilt.

No other moving vehicle violation is handled this way. Speeders are pulled over and the driver is ticketed. In collision cases, the drivers of the vehicles are questioned for wrong-doing. And in all instances, the vehicle owner is assumed innocent of the driver's crime.

Therefore, I propose a policy for traffic cameras be adopted by the city that forces moving violation citations to be issued only to properly identified drivers. The wording of the policy must be chosen carefully, but consistent with witnessed infractions.

This policy wouldn't affect current practices where police are at the scene of an incident. This would only affect automated law enforcement systems. Specifically, it would prevent photographs from cameras that fail to capture and identify drivers from being used as evidence to issue citations to innocent vehicle owners.

I believe this policy can go into effect immediately, without having to remove the current cameras being operated by RedFlex. Every RedFlex citation must be approved by League City police. If police were instructed to have driver identification before approving citations, no terms of the RedFlex contract would be broken. The contract also has a cost neutrality clause that says the city isn't liable for shortfalls in citation income with respect to the $5000 per camera per month fixed fee. This policy would not cost anything to the city and would help preserve the citizens' due process rights.

Please notice, this policy would not prevent the use of automated law enforcement camera systems. It would only prevent the kind that abuses due process.

As a side note, this kind of policy is what I would have expected to come out of the State-required citizen advisory committee, where the citizens of the city had some input in protecting their rights. But, since that committee was improperly staffed, we the citizens never had the chance to interject our needs.

Please consider having an open discussion about this proposal, and if an agreement can be made, adopt the policy quickly.

Thank you for your time.

I have not received any feedback from council on my idea, but I certainly hope they take it as a serious proposal.

Also of note: League City tosses 1,700 red light tickets

The following is an email I sent to TxDOT in response to a letter they sent to me in response to a question I posed to the Governor.

Mr. Cotton,

I recently sent an email to Governor Perry asking him to look into a matter related to red light cameras in my city. He forwarded it to TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz, who asked Deputy Executive Director Steven Simmons to respond to me. Mr. Simmons suggested that I contact you by email if I had any further questions.

In Mr. Simmons' letter dated January 25, 2010, he states “The agreement between our agency and League City includes the installation of cameras at all three approaches to the FM 518 and I-45 intersection to improve traffic safety. The city's traffic engineering study indicates there have been crashes in all directions at this intersection.”

However, in a letter from the Director of Transportation Operations at TxDOT, Stuart C. Corder, to League City's City Engineer, Jack Murphy, dated September 15, 2009, the following intersections and approaches are listed: “We have reviewed the plans and Agreement for the City of League City locations of the photo enforcement cameras and find them acceptable for construction. All work shall follow State standards on installing the proposed photo enforcement equipment for: FM 518 at SH 3 Eastbound and Westbound, IH 45 at FM 518 Eastbound and Westbound, and FM 518 at FM 2094 Southbound and Eastbound.” To see this letter, follow this link: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6slG3rsxfnoOTI0ZThmYzMtNzExZS00NjM4LTgwNmUtMjI4OGQ0ZmQ4NjQ3&hl=en

It is unclear to me how this letter from Mr. Corder shows that TxDOT approved of photo enforcement equipment installed at the Southbound approach to IH 45 at FM 518.

Please provide a dated and signed copy of the agreement showing approval for photo enforcement of the Southbound approach to IH 45 and FM 518.

Additionally, provide justification for approving the installation of photo enforcement equipment at FM 518 at FM 2094, an intersection that had zero accidents caused by red light running in the past 18 months, as evidenced by the required traffic engineering study. The relevant portions of the traffic engineering study can also found at the link above (pp 4-8, pg 7 in particular).

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your cooperation.

Dustin Gooding

cc:
Steven Simmons, Deputy Executive Director, TxDOT
Toni Randall, Mayor of League City

I'll let you know what I find out. Either way, someone appears to be hiding something. Either the City didn't provide all the information I asked for in a request for public information or TxDOT is lying through their teeth about the approvals they made.

I got a response from Jim Cotton:

Mr. Gooding,
Thank you for your message. Stuart Corder, our Houston District Director of Transportation Operations, will be forwarding you the agreement between TxDOT and League City. You should have this shortly. Mr. Corder has confirmed in our conversation that the agreement does include the southbound approach to I-45 at FM 518.

You also ask for our justification for approving the installation of photo enforcement equipment at FM 518 at FM 2094. Please note that we do not have regulatory control over the placement of red light cameras by local governments. Although we review proposed installations on our right-of-way, we do not have the authority to approve or deny red light camera installations based on merit. We do ensure that any equipment that is placed on a portion of the state highway system is adequate from a safety and engineering perspective.

I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to contact me by phone or e-mail if you would like to discuss this issue in greater detail.

Sincerely,

Jim Cotton
TxDOT, Traffic Operations
jcotton@dot.state.tx.us
(512) 416-3104

I await the document from Mr. Corder.

I also find it interesting that TxDOT claims they don't judge whether a camera has any merit at a given intersection, only that the installation of them are done correctly. I suppose that means that the city is the sole judge of merit for these cameras. If the city says “TxDOT approved”, in relation to the cameras, they aren't talking about merit… just engineering.

Mr. Corder replied with the document. It is a copy of the Amendment to the Municipal Maintenance Agreement between the City and TxDOT. It can be found here: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6slG3rsxfnoMTBmOGY4ZWEtMTA0Ni00MjYyLTg4MDUtZWJiZGFiZWFmMWM1&hl=en. Notice, it approves of all camera installations mentioned in “Exhibit A”. Exhibit A is the same as the attachment found on the document the city gave to me: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6slG3rsxfnoOTI0ZThmYzMtNzExZS00NjM4LTgwNmUtMjI4OGQ0ZmQ4NjQ3&hl=en.

Look carefully now at the city document. It's actually the cover letter used by Mr. Corder to send the Amendment and Exhibit A to the city (“Attached, is an executed copy of the Amendment…”). However, the city document doesn't include that Amendment. I had to get that from TxDOT.

What's concerning to me is that the cover letter and the Amendment don't match. The Amendment approves installations at all locations listed in Exhibit A, but the cover letter clearly calls out specific intersections (notably excluding southbound IH45 @ FM518).

So which is right? Why are they different?

I've asked Mr. Corder to clarify. “The Amendment is the official document.”

The agenda for the second council meeting in January was recently posted and it outlines some new proposals that council will be voting on. Two of these topics I have sufficient feeling about to justify actually typing something out.

1. New Business - C - Moving the City General Election Date: I think this is a fantastic idea. Greater voter turnout is in the best interest of everyone involved, and “election day” is in November for many people. This will however cause election campaigning for local office to happen at the same time as state and federal campaigning… but I think that's fine.
2. Ordinances - C - Noise: I think this is a dangerous ordinance. What's the definition of “unreasonable”? What is the definition of “unnecessary”? How loud is too loud? Whose subjective opinion will we use as the basis for measuring “disturbing” and “excessive” sound? Will it be the same person for every case? Who gets to choose that person? Effective or not, subjectivity must be used very carefully. I believe that, in this case, an objective measure is so easily achievable that subjectivity is not needed. Measuring loudness is easy with readily available equipment. The current decibel limitation is sufficient, just and equitable.

No official word yet on the latest with the red light cameras. One thing I've been told is that the issue regarding the State-mandated citizen advisory committee (which the city failed to correctly create) will be “fixed”. Another thing I've been told is that there is potential for the number of red light cameras in the city to go *down*, rather than up… and soon.

Update on Agenda Items - The council voted unanimously in favor of amending the noise ordinance. Second public reading will occur on February 23. The council voted 5-2 against amending the city's charter to move election day. The city attorney thinks the charter is worded in such a way to allow November elections without changing the charter.

I'm back.

I tried playing with a new site engine (BoltWire), but I didn't quite like it. It has a lot of promise, but it's just not quite there yet. I'll probably give them another shot later. For now, I'm sticking with DokuWiki.

I've been haggling with the city lately, trying to learn all I can about how and why red light cameras were installed. I'm sure I'll post some information about that very soon. Stay tuned, if you're interested.

We went to Jen and Shawn's wedding today. It really was an awesome wedding and it gave me a chance to try my hand at high dynamic range imaging (HDR). Now, granted, all I had was a Canon SD750 (a little point-n-shoot) without a tripod or anything… but I think the results are still pretty dang good for my first try. Check them out below… all I've done is taken bracketed exposures and run them through Photomatix. There's been no post-processing other than that.