St. Louis News Blog

​Last week's post about a St. Louis driver who defended himself -- and won! -- a trial vs. the city and a red-light camera ticket, generated lots of traffic on Daily RFT.

So, here's another story that should rile up those of you who hate those pesky red-light cameras.

In cities where the cameras have gone up for a vote of the general public, the cameras have lost every single time.

As the Washington Post reported earlier this month:

Three cities Tuesday (Nov. 3) -- two in Ohio, one in Texas -- voted to rip the things down. In College Station, Tex., the camera manufacturer and their subcontractors reportedly spent $60,000 campaigning to keep them in place, more than five times the amount raised by the opposition, and lost anyway. Voters in Chillicothe, Ohio, went against the cameras at a rate of 72 percent. In Heath, Ohio, the mayor got caught removing anti-camera campaign signs from an intersection. He, and the cameras, got sent packing.

Nationwide, there have been something like 11 elections on automated enforcement. Your vote total: Revolting Peasants 11, Machines 0.  

Gant Bloom

​A Daily RFT post last week about a St. Louis judge fighting his ticket from a red-light camera generated a great response from reader Gant Bloom.

His comment?

"I won my red light ticket."
 
Yes, earlier this year the 38-year-old Bloom -- an IT professional at the Washington University School of Law -- became one of the first individuals in St. Louis who has demanded a trial after getting a ticket from a camera. (See a transcript of his trial at the end of this post.)

Bloom's case is even more special in that he defended himself (he's not an attorney) and won!

www.randomhouse.com

Judge Robert Dierker

​Last week St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Robert Dierker was denied a court motion to dismiss a red-light camera ticket issued against him, but the magistrate is undeterred.

Dierker is convinced he'll win when the case when it finally goes to trial.

On October 29 visiting judge Ralph Jaynes over-ruled Dierker's motion that the case be dismissed on constitutional grounds. Dierker contends that the red-light camera system violates due process of the law by presuming guilt. The judge says that he can't say for sure whether he was the person driving his car when it was ticketed on Kingshighway last December for running a red light.

Instead of simply paying the $100 fine for the ticket or trying to argue it in traffic court, Dierker demanded a jury trial in circuit court. It's believed that his case would be the first to reach a jury in St. Louis. (A pre-trial conference is schedule for later this month.)

Dierker says he may represent himself at trial, where he'll argue three key points:

​The controversial red-light cameras installed two years ago in St. Louis have collected $9.9 million in fines, according to KMOX.

For each $100 citation issued via the cameras, the city collects $68 and the camera's operator, American Traffic Solutions (ATS), receives $32. The city's take thus far: $6.8 million.

KMOX reports that citations are down nearly 85 percent at some intersections as drivers have become more aware of the cameras.

The bigger question is why people continue to pay the tickets at all? Last time we checked, the city had yet to issue any warrants against people who refused to pay the fines. Meanwhile, the city's contracted collected agency was essentially powerless to collect on the fees.

 It's been several months since I last wrote about red-light cameras. Frankly, I was a bit bored with the subject. Still am.

Yes, tickets from the cameras can seem a bit unfair (especially when you're unaware you even ran a light or, worse, turned right on red). And, yes, the cameras seem to be little more than a revenue generator for cities.

But there is something you can do about them. You don't have to pay the tickets.

As I've written on numerous occasions, most municipalities will do nothing if you choose to simply ignore the them. That's how it is in St. Louis and how it's also been in Arnold -- at least up until now.

Our sister city to the west, Kansas City, recently joined St. Louis and dozens of other Missouri cities that employ red-light cameras.

The Kansas City Star reports that cameras at the first intersection yielded 600 tickets in the first month of operation this March. All told, the cameras have tallied 900 citations to date -- with just 10 percent of them paid to date.

Kansas City now plans to install cameras at five more locations. Tickets in KC cost $113.50 compared to the somewhat cheaper $100 fine in St. Louis.
 

Earlier this week I posted a tidbit taken from the St. Louis American's Political Eye column.

The Political Eye reported how dark horse mayoral candidate Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman entered a lucrative, $160,000 contract back in 2006 to do debt collection work for the city's red-light camera vendor, American Traffic Solutions (ATS).

As it turns out, even though Coleman's name appears on a contract forged between the city and ATS, the provision between ATS and Coleman was never actually tendered. That is, Coleman never did work for ATS and the company never paid her for collection services.

Yesterday the Political Eye wrote an article explaining last week's mishap:

stinson.com

Jane Dueker

On Friday, a lawyer representing ATS named Jane E. Dueker contacted the American claiming the company had never paid Watson-Wesley (Coleman) a dime. Dueker said Watson-Wesley (Coleman) had in fact agreed to be a part of ATS' bid with the City (filed June 9, 2006) as provider of collection services. However, Dueker wrote, "when the City selected ATS for its services on October 19, 2006, it declined the collection option offered by ATS."

Dueker is an attorney with downtown law firm Stinson Morrison Hecker and once served as chief of staff to former Missouri Governor Bob Holden. Dueker, working on behalf of ATS, helped several Missouri cities draft legislation allowing for the use of the controversial red-light cameras.

Meanwhile, as I wrote last month, the city has since contracted with San Antonio law firm Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson to collect on unpaid red-light camera tickets.
 
 

I've written a couple times (here and here) about the city's contract with a San Antonio law firm to collect on unpaid red-light-camera tickets.

Well, apparently the contract includes all unpaid traffic tickets -- even those going back as far as the 1980s.

Yesterday KSDK Channel 5 ran an amusing story about a Webster Groves grandma who recently received a letter from the law firm, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson. The notice demanded that the woman pay $155 for a ticket she allegedly recieved in 1997 for the crime of "passing another vehicle on the right." The notice also informed that the city has recently issued a warrant for the woman's arrest.



The granny in question, Patricia Wilhelm, says she doesn't remember receiving the ticket 12 years ago. The city is using the law firm to collect on $18 million in unpaid bills and fines and says that there is no statute of limitations on traffic tickets.

denisewatsonwesley/ coleman.com

St. Louis American columnist Political Eye had an interesting story last week about Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman and her ties to Mayor Francis Slay and red-light camera firm American Traffic Solutions (ATS).

As you may recall, the relatively unknown Watson-Wesley Coleman announced her candidacy for mayor in January -- on the very same day that former state senator Maida Coleman had announced that she too would file to run for mayor in the Democratic primary.

Watson-Wesley Coleman's entry in the race prompted Maida Coleman to run as an Independent. It also prompted Maida Coleman to accuse Mayor Slay of encouraging Watson-Wesley Coleman to run for mayor as a way to confuse voters and break up the African-American vote. (Slay and Watson-Wesley Coleman have denied the allegations and maintain that they have little knowledge of each other.)

Now comes news through Political Eye that Watson-Wesley Coleman and Francis Slay have at least one thing in common: Both are fans of the city's red-light camera program.
 

A blog item I posted earlier this month on St. Louis City using a Texas law firm to collect on unpaid red-light camera tickets continues to generate chatter on the Internets. And now, unfortunately, I'm part of the story.

A week ago I received my own collections letter from the San Antonio law firm of Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson for a ticket I received back in December 2007. That citation prompted me to investigate the city's red-light ticket racket program. The story that subsequently followed exposed how the city was legally powerless to collect the $100 fine for the tickets.

Part of my research for the article had me going to court to argue my own ticket before the judge. I won, with Judge Margaret Welsh agreeing that I came to a complete stop prior to turning right on red. Apparently, though, the court didn't pass along the paper work to camera vendor American Traffic Solutions -- and a year later I'm still on the hook for $100.

Last week I called the number on my collections letter. Here's what I discovered when I finally got in touch with a human being.

Maida Coleman

Yeah, incumbent Francis Slay may have all the money. But his challenger Maida Coleman has the time -- and she's willing to share it with just about anyone. Take me, for instance.

Last night I stooped by Rue 13 on Washington Ave. to visit with the mayoral candidate during one of several "Meet & Greet" sessions she's had since announcing her candidacy.

I caught Coleman just as she was taking a first sip of a Cosmopolitan martini. "I haven't been drinking at all on the campaign, but tonight I feel like unwinding a bit," Coleman informs me.

Why she felt the need to imbibe, I did not ask. Though perhaps it was because earlier in the day the editorial board at the Post-Dispatch -- in their magnificent wisdom -- chose to endorse Francis Slay for mayor.

But if this worried Coleman, she didn't show it and soon she was talking to me off the cuff about anything and everything -- including political conspiracies, her disapproval for red-light cameras and her unusual plans for shuttered St. Louis schools.

The Arizona-based company that manufacturers and operates nearly all red-light cameras in Missouri is fighting back against opposition to its traffic monitors.

Last week Daily RFT broke news that the St. Louis Police Officers' Association voted overwhelmingly to reject the use of the cameras in St. Louis. The police association's action followed efforts in Jefferson City to ban the use of the cameras throughout Missouri. Meanwhile, plaintiffs in Jefferson County are suing the camera company in federal court on charges that it violated their civil rights and attempted to collect fines through fraud and extortion.
   
In response to some of these attacks, camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) recently commissioned a poll of Missouri voters. In a press release issued today, pollster Neil Newhouse says 66 percent of Missourians favor the cameras as opposed to just 30 percent who oppose the devices.

Even more surprising -- according to Newhouse -- is the misconception that most Missourians disapprove of the cameras.

Board members with the St. Louis Police Officers' Association approved a motion Monday night opposing the use of red-light cameras.

Association president Gary Wiegert tells RFT that the motion passed overwhelmingly with just a few of the board's nineteen members voting against the measure. The motion states:

SLPOA is in opposition to the red light cameras because they limit interactions of police officers with the public. Additionally, revenue collected from this technology is not earmarked for law enforcement or any other public safety project.

Wiegert says that the police officers' association issued the motion in support of attorney Chet Pleban -- who last year filed suit against the City of Arnold over its use of red-light cameras -- and state Sen. Jim Lembke, who proposed a bill earlier this year that would ban the cameras in Missouri.

"What really ticked off members of the board was the report that aldermen weren't paying these citations and even going to the police department to have these tickets fixed," says Wiegert, whose organization represents 1,100 of the police department's 1,400 officers. "We hope that legislators or attorneys can use our motion to help make their case against these cameras."

Two members of the Arnold city council filed a Sunshine Law request yesterday with the city demanding a list of names and addresses of people who've received red-light camera tickets in the Jefferson County municipality.

Earlier this year the council members -- Matthew Hay and Jerel Poor -- joined with ex-councilman Paul Vinson in forming a political-action committee called "Don't Tread on Me" that aims to rid Arnold of the controversial cameras.

Last week Vinson submitted a Sunshine Law request with the city asking for the list of names and addresses of people caught and ticketed by the cameras. The city responded that no such list exists and that Vinson would have to search through all Arnold's traffic citations if he wanted to extract that information.

Yesterday's Sunshine Law requests filed by Vinson, Hay and Poor asks that if the city has no such list then it must require camera vendor American Traffic Solutions to hand over the names and addresses of people it has ticketed in Arnold. The petitioners hope to use the list of red-light violators to contact people who might be sympathetic to their cause to ban the the cameras.
 

mosaferroads.com

Where to begin? Let's see. Last week, a new advocacy group calling itself Missouri Families for Safer Roads held a press conference announcing its support for red-light cameras. According to the group and its aptly named Web site, MoSaferRoads.com, red-light cameras "are proven traffic safety enforcement tools that raise motorist awareness, reduce red light running crashes and save countless lives."

Hazelwood Police Chief Carl Wolf heads the organization, and during last week's press conference Post-Dispatch political reporter Jake Wagman did an admirable job of grilling Wolf about the funding for the group. 

After hemming and hawing for a moment, Wolf told Wagman that he and other citizens launched the group with money from their own pockets and have not received any financial support from the companies that operate -- and profit -- from red-light cameras.

That doesn't pass the smell test with several critics of the cameras. Yesterday, Jesse Irwin of the group Missourians Against Red Light Cameras phoned me to call bullshit on Wolf's claims. He and cohort Matthew Hay, who's founded a separate political action committee to ban the cameras in Missouri, recently uncovered that MoSaferRoads.com is hosted on a server located within the the same Arizona zip code as camera company American Traffic Solutions (ATS).

"I'd say that's a curious coincidence," says Hay. 

Wolf, meanwhile, tells me that he doesn't know who hosts his organization's Web site.
  

flickr.com/photos/fringehog

Note: A follow-up to this story can be found here.

The City of St. Louis has yet to issue warrants against those who refuse to pay tickets generated from red-light cameras, but it has turned their names over to a collection agency.

Last month scofflaws who haven't paid the tickets began receiving letters from a San Antonio, Texas, law firm. The message? Pay your $100 fine or risk having the ticket impact your credit rating.

Derek Jensen

Legislators on Missouri's Senate Transportation Committee rejected yesterday a senate bill that would ban red-light cameras in the state.

Sen. Jim Lembke, a Republican representing parts of St. Louis city and county, first proposed the bill in January. Last week the bill got a speedy hearing before the transportation committee. Proponents of the ban, including Jesse Irwin with Missourians Against Red Light Cameras, questioned the constitutionality of the cameras and argued that they increase rear-end accidents by causing drivers to slam on their brakes to avoid a ticket.

Opponents of the cameras -- including several police chiefs -- countered that the cameras improve public safety. The committee sided with the camera supporters, voting 8-2 to kill the ban.

Derek Jensen

Opponents of red-light cameras are scurrying to defend Senate Bill 211 as it heads to a committee hearing tomorrow morning. The measure, introduced last month by State Sen. Jim Lembke, would ban the use of the controversial cameras in Missouri. 

Jesse Irwin, co-founder of Missourian's Against Red-Light Cameras, says his organization was taken aback when apprised that the bill would go before the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday.

"This is a complete ambush," says Irwin. "This was designed to throw us off balance." (Irwin is asking anyone interested in speaking at tomorrow's hearing to contact his organization through its Web site.) 

Kit Crancer, chief of staff for Lembke, isn't quite as alarmed by the hearing. "It came quick, but we're just thankful that it got a hearing," he says. "We're going to take it and run."

The bill could be voted out of committee following the hearing or killed in an executive session. If eventually approved by the General Assembly and signed into law, the ban is scheduled to go into effect in August.

In related news, legislators in the Missouri House last month introduced HB 241 that would limit red-light camera fines to no more than $25 (including court costs) and require all money made from the citations go to the local school district in which the infraction occurred.

Red-light tickets in St. Louis currently cost $100 per incident.

Derek Jensen

Opponents of red-light cameras are celebrating a ruling earlier this month in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Missouri.

In a broad-ranging order handed down February 3, Judge Thomas C. Mummert III denied defendant American Traffic Solutions' (ATS) motion to dismiss the RICO claims filed against it on behalf of several Missouri residents.

Arizona-based ATS operates red-light cameras in Arnold, St. Louis and several other municipalities in Missouri. Last year Fenton residents James and Kara Hoekstra sued ATS and Arnold in federal court alleging that the ticketing process violated their civil rights and attempted to collect fines through fraud and extortion. The couple sought punitive and actual damages from ATS, the city and the police department.

Chad Garrison, who is on vacation this week and will, if all goes as planned, return next week tanned, rested and blogging, has written extensively on the topic of red-light cameras.

If he were in the blogger's seat today, Chad would have passed along news that the St. Louis Board of Aldermen have passed a bill refining the requirements for warning signage at all intersections where red-light cameras are installed.

Board Bill 391, introduced by board president Lewis Reed and passed on Friday, February 6, stipulates that:

Any Automated Traffic Control System on a street or highway must be identified by appropriate advance warning signs conspicuously posted and affixed to traffic control signals. and not more than three hundred feet from the locations of the automated traffic control system location. All advance warning signs must be approved by the Traffic Commissioner.

As currently worded (and viewable here until it's replaced by the new language), Section 17.07.060 of the traffic code calls for signage "conspicuously posted...either at the major roadways entering the city, or not more than three hundred feet from the location of the automated traffic control system location."

Reed's bill now awaits the signature of Mayor Francis Slay.

State Senator Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis/St. Louis County) introduced a measure this week that would ban the use of red-light cameras in Missouri. If passed by the General Assembly and approved by Gov. Jay Nixon, Lembke's bill (SB 211) would become law in late August.

A group calling itself Missourians Against Red Light Cameras (MARLC) is championing the bill. The organization was founded about six months ago by Webster University employee Jesse Irwin and ex-Gov. Matt Blunt's former chief-of-staff, Ed Martin. Irwin tells me that if the bill fails to gain traction with state legislators, MARLC plans to start a signature campaign in St. Louis to get a similar measure on the city ballot. 

The Post-Dispatch is reporting today that a group in Arnold is asking the City Council to rid the town of red-light cameras.

In 2005 Arnold became the first city in Missouri to install red-light cameras. Since then Jefferson County municipality has issued more than 19,000 tickets from the cameras, generating $484,000 in revenue for the city.

Arnold Police Chief Robert Shockey has responded to the group by preparing a report he says proves that the cameras improve safety of motorists. As I pointed out last March in an RFT cover story, the safety data on red-light cameras can be mixed. Although they decrease T-bone accidents, the cameras have been shown to increase the number of rear-end collisions as drivers slam on their brakes to avoid running through a yellow or red light.

My story also revealed that if you don't pay your red-light tickets issued in St. Louis, there's nothing the city can do.   

(The eyes have it! Here are the Top 10 most-read stories online, which were published in 2008 by the RFT. After the jump, we also included a few stories that came back from the dead in '08 because of timely news -- earthquakes and college basketball among them. Below, RFT Editor Tom Finkel runs down the Top 10.  - Nick Lucchesi, Web Editor)

1. Radio Active: What has Patty Wente done to create such a meltdown at KWMU?

You say public radio's dull? Not when your general manager is known to strut around the office in miniskirts, halter tops and what one staffer described as a leather dominatrix outfit. Make that former general manager. Patty Wente was fired less than a month after we published our story. Read "Radio Active"

2. 7-Up vs. Coke
Savvis founder/John Burroughs grad goes off the deep, deep, deep end. Read Part 1, Read Part 2

3. Blood on the Tracks: Is MetroLink a vehicle for crime?
A number of Galleria and Delmar Loop merchants think so. Read "MetroLink"

A small group of St. Louis artists gathered at the intersection of Skiner and Clayton at dusk Friday night to get their work seen by the unblinking eyes of St. Louis' controversial traffic light cameras.

St. Louis Alderman Charles Quincy Troupe (Ward 1) has introduced a bill to repeal the ordinance allowing the use of red-light cameras in the city.

The north-side alderman quietly introduced the legislation during an April 25 meeting of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. On Wednesday Troupe penned a note to Municipal Judge Margaret Walsh demanding that the city turn over information regarding the zip codes of people who've been fined by the cameras. Troupe also wants Walsh, whose court oversees red-light camera cases, to provide a count of the number of people who've been issued tickets by the cameras for turning right on red.

I wrote about problems with the camera systems in a March 6 feature story, "Red Alert."

Here's some interesting follow-ups to my March 5 feature story examining the use of red-light cameras in St. Louis.

MSNBC reports today that officials in Dallas are removing more than a dozen cameras from intersections because they don't generate enough money to merit their cost. The news network reports that other cities -- including Charlotte and Fayetteville, North Carolina -- have also shut down cameras because the devices failed to raise enough revenue.

But red-light cameras aren't about making money. They're about public safety, right?

Tell that to officials in Lubbock, Texas, who last month shut down all cameras in their city after learning that the cameras actually increase the amount of rear-end collisions at intersections (a factoid my article pointed out.)

In St. Louis, meanwhile, the Board of Aldermen is expected to soon pass Board Bill 511 that would allow the city to jail and fine people who do not promptly pay citations generated from cameras installed at 21 intersections. As I reported earlier this month, city officials are effectively powerless -- as it stands -- to collect the $100 fines generated by the cameras and won't issue a bench warrant against people who simply ignore the citation or fail to appear in court.

-Chad Garrison

Somewhere in Arizona a CEO by the name of Jim Tuton is smiling.

In early 2006 I took a look at how St. Louis awarded Tuton’s American Traffic Solutions (ATS) with a multimillion-dollar contract to install red-light cameras in the city. My reporting revealed that Mayor Francis Slay’s office, at the behest of ATS lobbyist Joyce Aboussie, bent over backward to help ensure Tuton’s Scottsdale-based firm won the lucrative contract.

According to my findings, Slay’s attorneys tailored an ordinance in such a manner that it would eliminate nearly any other company that might compete for the camera contract. Later, the police department selected ATS without testing any of its products or assembling a selection committee before making its decision, as required by the ordinance.

As a result of my story, the city was forced to throw out its contract with ATS and rebid the cameras. Shortly thereafter Tuton faxed me a testy note, stating: “We are confident that we will once again be selected over all other vendors and that ATS will be awarded the contract based on the merits of our product and the value of our offering.”

Tuton was right, of course. ATS won the contract a second time, and today ATS cameras are installed at thirteen of the city’s “most dangerous” intersections, according to Mayor Slay’s chief of staff, Jeff Rainford.

Given the growing number of intersections equipped with the cameras, I was hardly surprised last month to receive my first red-light ticket courtesy of ATS. The camera allegedly caught me making an illegal right turn at the corner of Delmar and Skinker boulevards. A sign at the intersection clearly states “No Right Turn on Red,” but that’s not the ordinance I violated -- according to the ticket. The ticket states that I failed to come to a complete stop before turning right on red, and it includes photos of my car as proof of my misdeed.

The fine for the infraction is $100. I could either send the city a check for the money, or argue my case. I chose the latter, and yesterday I sent the city a letter enumerating why I believe that I – and others – should not be forced to pay tickets from red-light cameras.

For starters, I believe the city has installed cameras not at the “most dangerous” intersections, but at the corners where it assumes it will make the most money. Back when I first reported on red-light cameras, Jeff Rainford told me the cameras were necessary because of the tragic story of Eunice Felder. In 2004 the 82-year-old Felder was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street at the corner of McCausland and Plateau avenues in Dogtown.

“That’s pretty much what started it,” said Rainford back in 2006. “After that accident, the mayor inquired about the camera technology, and we put it on the legislative agenda.”

Why then does the intersection of McCausland and Plateau not have a red-light camera? My guess is because that intersection gets far less traffic -- and fewer potential fines -- than busier streets around town.

Below is the list I sent to the city explaining two more reasons I believe I shouldn’t pay the fine. I’ll keep you posted as to how the city responds.

1. The City of St. Louis is employing red-light cameras solely as a means of increasing revenue and NOT for the stated goal of improving public safety. Until the city proves that it selected intersections for red-light cameras based on legitimate safety concerns (i.e., accident and police reports) and NOT based on the quantity of traffic, the city cannot justifiably ask motorists to pay fines for photos taken by red-light cameras.

2. There is no sign alerting drivers that the intersection of Skinker and Delmar boulevards is under red-light surveillance. Lawmakers in Jefferson City will soon consider legislation that will require municipalities to warn drivers if they are approaching an intersection that employs red-light cameras. Until that matter is resolved, the city cannot justifiably fine motorists for red-light photos taken at unmarked intersections.

3. After multiple attempts to download the video of my “violation” from the city’s Web site, I was unable to see a moving image of my alleged infraction. This requires the unreasonable burden of me traveling to city hall to view the film. Further, the photos of the alleged violation clearly show that my brake lights were engaged. I believe I came to a complete stop before turning right on red.

-Chad Garrison

More than a year behind schedule, red-light cameras commence operation today in the City of St. Louis . For the next month, motorists who run lights at the intersections of Hampton and Wilson avenues and Hampton and Chippewa Street can expect to receive a warning citation in the mail. Following that grace period, traffic scofflaws will be subject to fines.

The cameras along Hampton Avenue are the first of several dozen to be installed and operated by Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions. In December 2005 the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners awarded ATS the contract, but that agreement was thrown out a month later following repeated queries from Riverfront Times as to how the police agency awarded the deal.

This past August a five-person selection committee composed of representatives from Mayor Francis Slay's office, the Board of Aldermen and the city's Comptroller's Office again awarded the contract for the cameras to ATS.

In a statement today, Police Chief Joe Mokwa reports that more than 70 accidents occurred at the two Hampton Avenue intersections in 2005, with many of those crashes resulting from motorists who ran red lights.

-Chad Garrison