Community Commentary -- TOM EDSON

If Costa Mesa is considering a contractual partnership with Nestor

Traffic Systems to install and operate cameras to photograph red-light

violators at intersections, it had better hire a good lawyer to defend

itself in court (“City may put brakes on red-light runners,” Aug. 15).

San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Styn determined recently that

San Diego’s system of photographing and citing traffic violators is

substantially unconstitutional because it clearly violates the state

vehicle code that requires, according to Styn, that only a governmental

agency, in cooperation with a law enforcement agency, may operate an

automated system.

Several hundred red-light citations will probably be dismissed because

Styn has ruled that the photographs in these cases won’t be admitted as

evidence.

While Styn’s ruling is not binding on Orange County officials, it does

raise the most pertinent question regarding the installation of

enforcement cameras. Nestor Traffic Systems proposes to install the

cameras at no cost to Costa Mesa, in return for which Nestor will manage

the daily operation of the system, including the issuance of citations,

and pocket some portion of the $271 fine for violations. And that is the

problem.

Styn stated in this recent ruling that San Diego violated both the

letter and intent of the vehicle code, which requires that “public”

agencies must operate and administer such enforcement systems: “In this

case, the actions of [San Diego] do not satisfy the plain meaning of the

word ‘operate.’ The city has no involvement with, nor supervision over,

the ongoing operation” administered by Lockheed Martin, Styn wrote.

Peter Buffa’s recent column in the Daily Pilot (Comments &

Curiosities, “Photos cops won’t turn up prettiest pictures,” Aug. 19)

erroneously suggested that “the court gave [San Diego] a clean bill of

health” permitting the continued operation of the intersection cameras.

That’s factually incorrect. While privacy issues were handily dismissed

in this case, the larger and more important issue remains the constituted

legal obligation of public agencies to “enforce” the law and not to

surrender this function to private companies who derive economic benefit

from issuing citations. Buffa suggested that this was “a little more

legalese.” Hardly. A San Diego councilman commented that the system

should be “dumped” because people have lost faith in it and rightly so.

Citizens -- even those who recklessly endanger others when they run

red lights -- deserve to know that the system of vehicle code enforcement

is in the hands of public officials -- police officers, traffic

commissions and judges -- who are accessible and responsible to the

public. The San Diego cameras were turned off in June when it was

discovered that the contractor had modified the system without obtaining

prior public approval, and only after hundreds of lawsuits prompted a

council response. The proposed contractual relationship with Nestor

Traffic Systems violates that central principle of self-government and

regular oversight, and we are rightly suspicious that the economic

self-interest of such private contractors will trump the civil rights of

alleged violators.

When we accelerate through an intersection at the last possible

moment, we risk not only our own lives, but innocent lives as well --

aged parents, young children and kids on their way home. It’s wrong. It’s

stupid and tragically shortsighted. This proposed technological fix is

equally shortsighted, and it violates a clear and urgent need to separate

the administration of justice from the coffers of private interest. If

Costa Mesa decides to operate and manage its own traffic camera system,

I’m behind the idea, but don’t even consider the legally dubious

proposition of permitting a private vendor to administer public justice.

* Tom Edson is a Costa Mesa resident who teaches English at Mt. San

Antonio College.