ST. LOUIS • Officials said Wednesday the city will seek a green light to resume using cameras to catch suspected traffic scofflaws at dozens of intersections.
One day after ºüÀêÊÓƵ Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer invalidated the city’s red-light camera ordinance, officials announced plans both to appeal and to seek a court order to allow enforcement until that appeal is decided.
Until then, however, ºüÀêÊÓƵ is barred from issuing new tickets, processing payments or initiating collection actions for pending ones, according to Ohmer’s ruling.
City Counselor Michael Garvin said Wednesday that a June 2013 opinion by the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District “found only one small flaw†with the city’s program, which has since been fixed.
Red-light and speed cameras frequently have been criticized as money grabs cloaked as safety programs. Missouri lawmakers are considering a bill that would ban their use and the collection of such fines.
People are also reading…
ºüÀêÊÓƵ took in more than $4.1 million last year from red-light camera fines, so suspending photo enforcement at all 35 intersections with cameras would be costly. Under its contract with American Traffic Solutions Inc., of Scottsdale, Ariz., the city receives two-thirds of the $100 paid on each ticket.
But Maggie Crane, a spokeswoman for Mayor Francis Slay, said the revenue was still less than 1 percent of the city budget, so the potential loss is “not an issue.â€
Police Chief Sam Dotson said the city had suspended its red-light cameras, but he defended their public safety benefit. He called them “force-multipliers.â€
Red-light cameras “allow me to enforce the traffic laws, keep people safe and get that compliance to the traffic signals,†Dotson said in an interview. “Or I can take officers out of the neighborhoods doing the things that I think we want them to do: arresting people, taking guns off the street, getting stolen cars returned to their owners. Those types of things.â€
Dotson said studies and data showed the presence of the cameras reduced red-light running “significantly,†particularly among those who would be repeat offenders.
“I still believe that red-light cameras are a tool that keeps people safe,†he said.
Dotson said he was concerned that suspending the use of the cameras would result in backsliding among drivers who have corrected their behavior.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ is just the latest municipality to encounter judicial headwinds over its red-light camera law.
The suit upon which Ohmer based this week’s ruling was filed by two ºüÀêÊÓƵ car owners who received red-light-camera tickets in 2012 and 2013. Neither was driving at the time the vehicle was photographed violating the law.
In his order, Ohmer observed that “recent ‘red light’ cases out of the Eastern and Western District Courts of Appeals have strongly trended towards the invalidation of red-light camera ordinances in general.â€
In particular, appeals judges have found that it is unconstitutional and contrary to state law to presume a vehicle’s registered owner was driving a car photographed in an intersection illegally. The ordinances place a legal burden on the vehicle owner to show that someone else was at the wheel.
Ohmer added that the Eastern District had declared, in part, that the city’s ordinance was void for its failure to follow state Supreme Court rules. The city, he said, took the position that only its “notice†element was declared invalid, and continued enforcing the ordinance after the notice was rewritten.
In November, the same court effectively overruled itself in finding constitutional flaws in the city of Ellisville’s red-light camera law. Since then, the same court has ruled that Arnold’s red-light camera law is also improper. Arnold was the first municipality in the state to install the cameras.
Last week, the Arnold City Council took a mixed stance. That city will continue to issue the red-light camera tickets, but will dismiss the fine for car owners who show up in court to contest them.
Garvin said Wednesday that the last word on the red-light camera issue would probably come after one of the cases reaches the Missouri Supreme Court.
In a news release issued by Mayor Francis Slay’s office, the city said it might seek “state legislative clarification.â€
“There is more to come,†Garvin said in an interview. “It is not the final chapter.â€
Plaintiffs’ attorney W. Bevis Schock said he expected the city to appeal.
He explained, “There’s too much money at stake.â€