Newark Docs - Main Page - Red Light Cams - Illegal Red Light Cameras

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

If you have a Newark red light camera ticket, be sure to look at the Countywide Information, on the Oakland Documents page.

This table made by highwayrobbery.net, using official reports provided by the City under the California Public Records Act.

The official reports for April - June 2010 are part of Docs Set # 3, below.
Official reports, 2006 - 2010
Official reports, late 2010
Official reports, 2011
If you would like to crunch or graph the numbers, use this Excel spreadsheet:
Activations and Citations, 2006 - 2010

[ ] indicates a footnote.
[1] Totals are as provided by the City.
[2] YTD = Year-to-date total.
[3] Un-used columns are to allow for later expansion of City's system.
[4] Except where noted otherwise, the figures given in the table are for the single calendar month indicated. Any figures in red type (or, if you are looking at this table in black and white, the upper figure when there are two or more figures in a cell) are what RedFlex calls Total Violations, or all incidents recorded by the cameras, and due to time limitations may have been posted here only for selected months or locations. If there is sufficient public interest, the remaining months will be posted. The figures in black type are what RedFlex calls Notices Printed, and represent the sum of genuine citations issued (those filed with the court) plus any Nominations mailed (not filed with the court, a.k.a. Snitch Tickets).
[5] Additional monthly or half-year data, and annual totals, are available in the spreadsheet linked above.
[6] The camera enforcement is believed to be on traffic on the first-named street, but the direction of enforcement (north, south, east, west, thru, left, right) may not be accurate.
[7] Direction of enforcement from list provided by the City.

Newark Docs Set # 2
"Late Time" Graphs

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 City has provided bar graphs for a 12-month period in 2009 & 2010, plus July 2007, 2010, and 2011.
See the links, below.

The picture above is an example from another city.

CEMO-01 Jul07
CEMO-01 Jul10
CEMO-01 Nov09 - Oct10
CEMO-01 Jul11
CEMO-01 Jan12

CHMO-01 Jul07
CHMO-01 Jul10
CHMO-01 Nov09 - Oct10
CHMO-01 Jul11
CHMO-01 Jan12

MOCE-01 Jul07
MOCE-01 Jul10
MOCE-01 Nov09 - Oct10
MOCE-01 Jul11
MOCE-01 Jan12

NEJA-01 Jul07
NEJA-01 Jul10
NEJA-01 Nov09 - Oct10

NEJA-03 Jul07
NEJA-03 Jul10
NEJA-03 Nov09 - Oct10
NEJA-03 Jul11
NEJA-03 Jan12

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

Newark Docs Set # 3
Signal Timing Charts

In Aug. 2010 the City provided signal timing charts (and the April - June 2010 ticket counts shown in the table above).

Until a Jan. 20, 2010 amendment, the 2006 contract included an illegal "cost neutrality" clause, whereby the city did not have to pay RedFlex
the full rent if the City's fine revenue was insufficient to cover the rent. See Subsection B. of Defect # 10.

On Apr. 14, 2011 the city council voted 5 - 0 to accept a new 5-year contact under which the City will pay $5700 monthly rent per camera for four of the five existing cameras. The camera covering northbound Newark/Jarvis is to be removed.

Had the council negotiated a $3052 rent like that in the 2010 contract of the City of Oceanside (available on the Oceanside Documents page), it could have saved $2648 per camera per month, or $635,520 for the four cameras over the 60 months of the contract.

The city council didn't need to agree to a five-year term in order to get a good price. The City of Hawthorne's three-year contract (available on the Hawthorne Documents page) sets a $2800 rent for its seven original cameras. Had the council negotiated a $2800 rent like Hawthorne's, it could have saved $2900 per camera per month, or $696,000 over the 60 months of the contract.

Nor did the city council need to agree to pay $6200 for the new cameras that are to be added to the system. A close-by example: Burlingame paid only $5870. Had Newark obtained the same rate as Burlingame, the City could have saved $118,800 over five years.

Thus, the city council gave away over $800,000 of City money, just because it failed to negotiate hard on the rent.

There is another problem with the contract. The contract contains no adequate escape clause should a future council wish to terminate the contract, or if the voters terminate the contract via initiative. A complete contract will include a formula by which the full cost of such a "for convenience" termination is to be calculated. While Section 6.1 of the contract does specify $1000 per month per camera - a figure that is much too high to retire five-year-old (or more) equipment - the section also requires the City to pay unspecified "...out-of-pocket and/or direct costs and expenses." For an example of a more complete formula - albeit one still having much-too-high prices - see Section 6.2 in the City of Victorville's original contract (available on the Victorville Documents page).

The Newark contracts may also be available at the NPD website - see Set # 5, below.

This list of contracts and amendments may not be up-to-date - there could be a contract or amendment later than the ones listed above.

The Newark PD has extensive materials on its website, including copies of the contracts (see Exh. 1 of the Court Discovery Documents on the site).
If the above link ceases to work, drill down: www.newark.org > Departments > Police > Field ops > Red light cameras.

Newark Docs Set # 6
More Coming

Here is a video of a technical violation at a Newark intersection.

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RED LIGHT CAMERAS
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