Stop STOP!

Last Friday, November 30, 2007, Stop-on-Red filed a new lawsuit against the City's STOP Ordinance. The new Complaint is here. The lawsuit asked the district court to issue a declaratory judgment finding the red-light camera and speed camera ordinance illegal, enjoin the program, and return all the fines collected. The grounds for the relief were as broad as the relief requested:

1. The City lacks jurisdiction over violations of the state and city traffic laws;
2. The private contractor, Redflex, and the City violate the NM Unfair Practices Act by making false threats and collecting fines for pretextual "nuisance" violations;
3. The STOP Ordinance violates City and State traffic codes, turning alleged traffic violations into so-called "nuisance abatement" law;
4. The Ordinance is unconstitutional; and
5. The hearing process and Hearing Officers are biased in favor of the Defendants.

Under the STOP Ordinance, traffic violations are presumed after a picture is taken showing a vehicle speeding, running a red light, or making an improper turn on red. Rather than charging and proving a traffic violation, the City Council had approved a scheme wherein vehicle owners are charged with being "public nuisances." Rather than proving that a vehicle, its owner, and/or its driver had actually created a "nuisance," the City's response to an owner's or driver's challenge (not surprisingly, no actual vehicles, the so-called "instrumentality of a public nuisance" did any challenging) was to revert to showing a traffic violation, not by the owner or driver, but by the vehicle.

This was the second comprehensive legal challenge to the STOP Ordinance. The first was filed by the Branch Law Firm over a year ago. Reportedly, the firm's founder, Turner Branch, had received a notice of violation. By agreement with the City, a class action was certified, but in recent months the lawsuit remained stalled. The court docket for the case, Branch, et al., vs. City of Albuquerque, shows that other than having a new judge assigned to the case, nothing has happened in the past few months.

Current events, including a heightened pitch of opposition to the City's traffic enforcement scheme, an apparent withdrawal of support by the Mayor, whose decision to run for Senator sparked his concern over the negative value of being closely associated with a traffic enforcement scheme that almost everyone hated, and a lack of traffic safety data concerning the efficacy of the STOP Ordinance, combined to create a ripe environment for another legal challenge. Most recently, the Mayor appointed a Task Force to study the Safe Traffic Operations Program to see how safe it was, where the money was going, and how fair was it. Although they probably won't admit it, the Task Force may have to evaluate how many people hate the speed and red-light cameras enough to refrain from voting for Marty for Senator, and whether that number is sufficient to stop the STOP Ordinance.

Still another factor was a series of errors that gave the perception that the City and Redflex were just after money and more money, without any concern for what was right or fair. Three such incidents have come to light: 1) the signs at the Quail and Coors intersection on the City's west side were found to show different speed limits; 2) a speed van on I-25 near Ceasar Chavez reportedly "violations" of a 55-mph speed limit when it was actually in a 65-mph zone; and 3) tickets were given for violations of a 30-mph limit when the actual speed limit was 40-mph on Academy near Ventura. In each instance cases were dismissed for those who asked for hearings, appeared, and argued their cases, either themselves or through an attorney. As for all the others given violation notices that were paid, no refunds have been offered or given.

The most recent effort asserting a class action lawsuit gained special notoriety when a respected former Albuquerque Police Department Captain, Sonny Leeper, a victim of the third incident on Academy, joined the other named-Plaintiffs. The other Plaintiffs included two attorneys, and others opposed in fact and principle to the STOP traffic enforcement program. "Stop-on-red," also known as employment attorney Paul Livingston, represents the Plaintiffs.

Talking About Cameras

It's been a big week for talking about Albuquerque's photo enforcement scheme. Even though few call it by its real name, the STOP Ordinance is causing a big stir. This week the State Legislature is debating a bill that would require the City to pay a large portion of the fines to the State, and a City Councillor, Brad Winter, held a forum in the City Council meeting room where around 200 people, mostly against the Ordinance, commented.

Many of the people there were angry. Paying fines for violating traffic laws is one thing; but paying large amounts of money to the City as part of a money-making scam is something far different. We already had City and State Traffic Codes. But Mayor Chavez's STOP Ordinance is obviously little more than a way to make big money at the people's expense, and it should come as no surprise that the people resent it.

The Mayor and City Council should have thought it through. They should have realized how angry their constituents would get when they not only had "big brother" cameras watching them but a big money-making scheme supporting them. And the City's administrative foul-ups, the so-called hearing process, and the ridiculous "public nuisance" rationale haven't helped win sympathy for the cameras or the cops. The Mayor claims all the money is going back into the program, but Redflex gets a big cut and where's the approximately four million dollars that's left over and not presently accounted for?

Albuquerque media reports say the Mayor is threatening to cut out the enforcement program altogether if the State takes a cut. That leads to open skepticism about the real purpose of the STOP Ordinance, which many have suspected was just to make money, without a whole lot of concern for public safety. And today the Albuquerque Tribune editorially urged the City to STOP the camera enforcement, take a deep breath, and "retreat, reconsider, and redeploy," allowing the public a chance for comment and proposals.

The Tribune is absolutely right: stop the program and address "the myriad of public, legislative, technical and judicial concerns." It's just too bad they didn't have the sense to do that first, before they wasted so much time and money on this mess and got everyone so angry.

Stop-on-Red's e-mail address is Stop@stoponred.com. The Stop-on-Red website is, of course, www.stoponred.com.

A Really Bad Idea

Albuquerque is not a bad place to live or be a lawyer. The biggest city in New Mexico, the "Land of Enchantment," is also sometimes a place of great opportunity. Especially for a lawyer who represents City employees and labor unions.

Every once in a while the Mayor comes up with a new idea. And when it's a novel scheme to circumvent the law, or to do something that's legally bizarre, I somehow feel compelled to say (and maybe even do) something about it. Especially when the Mayor's "new idea" turns out to be a really bad idea.

That's what happened when the City jumped on the red-light camera bandwagon and invented its own version of a traffic law. Sure, cities around the country, and especially in California, are putting into place their own red-light camera and speed camera enforcement laws. Although it may be hard for some people to understand, speeding and failing to stop at stop signs and red lights are misdemeanors; "petty" to be sure, but little crimes nonetheless.

But in Albuquerque, under the direction of Mayor Marty Chavez, traffic enforcement is headed in a different direction. Now we have a new concept, "nuisance abatement," driving (puns here are generally gratuitous and intentional) local traffic enforcement.

The relatively new city law is called the Albuquerque "STOP" Ordinance, for "Safe Traffic Operations Program."

Albuquerque's new traffic ordinance substitutes a wacky enforcement scheme for the traditional traffic law. It was developed here as a revenue source, in defiance of state law and traditional judicial enforcement of traffic laws. They want you to think it's all about "safety," but really it's all about money. Unique to Albuquerque, it's based on the notion that offending vehicles (as opposed to their drivers) are "public nuisances." So "law enforcement" becomes "nuisance abatement."

I've got nothing against stopping for red lights, and I'm all for obeying red turn arrows. But the new Albuquerque STOP law is the result of governmental greed and it is an essentially irrational, somewhat abusive, and ultimately unconstitutional attempt to control people while making lots of money for the city at the people's expense.

So that's the subject of this new blog, a subject of interest and concern in Albuquerque, N.M., just as it is around the country and in some other parts of the world. There is plenty more to come, as I write here about traffic cameras and surveillance, enforcement and engineering, and about the law and our government's sometimes unwelcome intrusions on our lives.