Daly City Documents

Some of Daly City's tickets can possibly be ignored.  If your "ticket" does not have the Superior Court's name and address on it, it is what I call a "Snitch Ticket."  For more details, see the Snitch Ticket section on the Your Ticket page.

In 2014 Sen. Corbett "termed out," and was replaced by this person

Wieckowski, Author of the anti-motorist bills SB 1 and AB 666

Daly City Docs Set # 1
Ticket Counts

Total Violations, Notices Printed [4]

Ticketing Highlights

The 2019 jump in the amount of fine money flowing from the court to Daly City (the figures in the rightmost column in the table above) was the first hint that in early 2019 the city doubled, or more, the number of red light cam tickets issued each month.
(We requested the official month-by-month ticketing reports on 10-11-19 but did not receive them until 11-22-19.)  




Daly City Docs Set # 2
"Late Time" Graphs

The City provided bar graphs of Late Times, etcetera, at four intersections.
These graphs track violations recorded, not tickets issued.
Where there is a large number of long Late Time violations in a curb lane, it is believed to indicate heavy ticketing on right turns.
(The curb lane will be the lane with the highest lane number.)


The picture above is an example from another city.

17 months up to July 2009

Jan 2009

July 2009

HIGE July 2010
JDSH July 2010
JSWA July 2010
SPJS July 2010

July 2012

July 2014

2014 Twelve Months

Aug. 2015 (tabular version)

2015 Twelve Months

July 2016

April 2019

Bar graphs are available for more than fifty other cities - see the list in the expanded version of Defect # 9.

Daly City Docs Set # 3
2009 & 2011:  Successful Appeals

In Dec. 2009 and Jun. 2011 defendants won appeals on the cost neutrality issue.   P. v. Lopez, P. v. Chew. 
In response, the City revised its contract, as did San Mateo after its loss in P. v. Bullock.
But then in late 2019 the City approved a new contract which appears to re-instate cost neutrality.

Daly City Docs Set # 4
The Contract - Paying Way Too Much, with No Escape

2007 Contract

In Mar. 2007 the city council approved a contract, in which they agreed to pay RedFlex $6000 per month, per camera, for five years.

The contract included an illegal "cost neutrality" clause, whereby the City did not have to pay RedFlex the full rent if there weren't enough fines to cover the cost.  See Subsection B. of Defect # 10.

The contract also said:  Definitions.  "Warning Period" means the period of thirty (30) days after the Installation Date of the first intersection approach.  (Emphasis added.)  See Defect # 6.

A 2011 amendment removed cost neutrality.

The contract was due to expire in a few months, so on Dec. 10, 2012 we wrote to the City Council, suggesting that if they decided to renew the contract, they should not agree to pay more than $3000 per camera, per month. 
(To see a list of cities that pay less than $3000, go to FAQ # 17.)

On Jan. 14, 2013 the City Council approved, without discussion, a contract amendment in which they agreed to pay $5520 rent for each camera each month, which when compared to a $3000 target price means the City overpaid by $604,800 over the five-year term, enough money to purchase and equip a dozen new patrol cars. 
Or, looking at it as the motoring public would:  To cover that extra rent, the City needed to issue an extra 6048 tickets (assuming that the City received $100 of revenue from each ticket issued).

The amendment also provided for automatic renewal of the contract!
(Renewal should never be automatic - this is not a contract for cable TV!  Renewals should occur only after a public review by the City Council.)

The amended contract did not include an escape clause (Termination at the Convenience of the City), so the City was stuck paying the too-high rent for five years, until Jan. 2018.

In 2014 we noticed that Elk Grove, a RedFlex customer having five cameras, had negotiated camera rents much lower than those in Daly City.

Table from March 2014 contract between the City of Elk Grove, California and RedFlex, for the City's system of five cameras.

 Daly City's first automatic renewal was due to occur in Jan. 2018, so in Nov. 2017 we sent them a copy of the Elk Grove pricing table and suggested that they bargain to get the rent down to $2000.  
Daly City took no action, eventually allowing a second one-year automatic renewal to occur.  They continued to pay $5520 per camera, so they overpaid by $337,920 during the extra two years.
The total overpayment during the 5 + 2 years?  $942,720.

Late 2019:  Contract Extended 5 Years

There were no more automatic renewals, so the city's contract with Redflex was to expire in January 2020.  The city council voted, at the council meeting of Nov. 25, to extend the program for another five years (plus two one-year automatic renewals) and with a rent of $5000 per camera.  Over the five years the City will pay $720,000 extra when compared to Elk Grove prices, and to cover that extra rent they will need to issue an extra 7200 tickets.

The new contract appears to re-instate cost neutrality, which was removed by a 2011 amendment.

Here are some reasons they should have let the program end.

Staff Report
Proposed Contract
Signed Contract

This list of contracts and amendments was up-to-date as of  Jan. 21, 2020.

Daly City Docs Set # 5
How Much They Get

Daly City Docs Set # 6
Prevailing Wage Action

RedFlex' construction work in Daly City was the subject of a Prevailing Wage action by the California Department of Industrial Relations.

Daly City Docs Set # 7
The Business Rules

Business Rules, as of Sept. 2014

An official report showed that in 2017, 58% of the City's tickets were for turns, mostly left turns.

Daly City Docs Set # 9
Signal Timing & Big Refund/Dismissal in 2015

The City failed to lengthen its straight-thru yellows prior to the Aug. 1, 2015 deadline (see Defect # 2 for more info about the deadline), and in Dec. 2015 asked the court to cancel (or refund) 300+  tickets issued Aug. 1 or later.
City's Correspondence about the Refund
List of Tickets to be Refunded (78% went to visitors to Daly City)

Signal Timing Charts, Surveys, Etc. Rec'd in 2016

Signal Timing Charts Rec'd in 2019

Daly City Docs Set # 10
Countywide Info

Including a Grand Jury Report about the Cameras

Look in Countywide Info on the San Mateo Docs page for info about the judges, the court, and the Grand Jury report.

Daly City Docs Set # 11
More Coming

There may be some more Daly City information posted in the next few weeks.  Mark your calendar to remind you to come back here and look!

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