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If
you haven't already done so, please read the
Oxnard section on the Camera Towns page City of
Oxnard Documents (Program Suspended) It may be possible to completely ignore an Oxnard
ticket !
If your "ticket" does not have the Superior Court's name and address on it, it is a fake ticket, which I call a "Snitch Ticket." For more details about Snitch Tickets, see the Snitch Ticket section at the top of the Your Ticket page. If you have a ticket from Oxnard - even one you already have paid - be sure to read Docs Set # 6 below, as the City has agreed to refund a number of tickets issued after Aug. 1, 2015 and may need to refund more. In June 2018, Vote No on Sheila Kuehl Do you live in LA County? Was Zev
Yaroslavsky your County Supervisor? (He
represented the Third District, which includes the
central and western San Fernando Valley, Malibu, Santa
Monica, Venice, Beverly Hills, the City of West
Hollywood, and part of Hollywood.) Zev "termed out," and in the Nov.
2014 election Sheila Kuehl won the race to succeed him,
by a narrow margin.
Sheila "Kuehl Cams" Kuehl, in 2007 During her career in the California
Legislature, Kuehl made three attempts to pass bills to allow
the use of automated speed enforcement (photo radar) in
California. As an LA County Supervisor,
she has a seat on the MTA/Metro board and she will be a
vote to continue and expand Metro's huge (101 cameras,
so far) red light camera system. In 2016
she voted to put an additional LA County-wide sales
tax, to go to Metro, on the Nov. 2016 ballot - and it
passed. (See Measure M on
the Action/Legis page, for more about that tax.)
Kuehl will be up for re-election on June 5, 2018 and Nov. 2022.
(Violations Recorded
& Citations
Issued) New 10-7-04, updated 6-3-17 See
footnotes for further details
This table made by highwayrobbery.net, using official reports provided by the City under the California Public Records Act. Official
reports, 2003 -2010 [ ] indicates a
footnote.
Oxnard Docs Set # 2 The City provided bar graphs of Late
Times, etcetera, for all of its cameras. Bar graphs are available for more than
fifty other cities - see the list in
the expanded version of Defect # 9. Oxnard Docs Set # 3 2008
Contract This contract is missing the year of
signing, but it is believed to be 2008. The term
was five years, so the original expiration date was
Sept. 2013. The contract was extended
to Sept. 2015 - there was no review by the city council
before the extension was agreed to - and then made
month-to-month with that to expire in Sept. 2016 - again
without review by the city council. The contract provides for Cost Neutrality. (See Defect # 10-B.) Exhibit D to the contract says: "Cost neutrality is assured to Customer
- Customer will never be required to pay RedFlex
more than actual cash received." (Emphasis
added.) Documents
received in 2013, invoices
and a spreadsheet received in 2014, and a spreadsheet
received in 2016 showed that while RedFlex invoiced the
City $30,500 monthly (equivalent to $2772 for each of
the eleven cameras), the City paid considerably less
than the full amount and as a result had an unpaid
balance (as of Dec. 2015) of $730,431. The prices the City agreed to pay were
way too high. For example: In March 2014 the
City of Elk Grove, California approved a new contract
which specified the following schedule of rents for
their five RedFlex cameras.
Oxnard was invoiced 62% too
much (compared to the Elk Grove price schedule) over the
two years of the 2013 - 2015 extension, $279,000
extra. To cover that extra rent, the City needed
to issue an extra 2970 tickets during the two years
(assuming that the City received an average of $100 for
each ticket issued).
During the 2015 - 2016 extension, the City paid $156,000 extra. Beginning in Sept. 2016 the cameras were operated on a month-to-month basis; each month the City will pay $13,992 too much. For more info about how much other cities pay, and how they negotiated, see FAQ # 17. To see how much fine money the City receives from the court, see Set # 7 below. New Contract in 2017? Refunds! In an Apr. 3, 2017 letter the Chief of Police said, "... the City's contract with Redflex has expired and as of the end of January all RLCs in Oxnard have been deactivated."See Set # 6, below, for info about the status of the contract in 2017. The Chief didn't promise to make the refunds we asked about - see Set # 6, below, for more details about our request. The Chief said: "Research will need to be conducted into each citation ...." In a May 3 VC Reporter article (archived copy) the City said that it had refunded 150 tickets. Grand Jury Report On May 25, 2017 the Ventura County Grand Jury published a report about Oxnard's camera program, and the refunds. KEYT story about the Grand Jury Report The City was required to make a written answer to the Grand Jury report. City staff prepared a draft of that answer for the July 18 Council meeting, for the Council's approval. The presentation to the Council consisted of a 20 page main report, plus eight PowerPoint slides. The seventh PP slide included a staff recommendation to re-start the cameras. Only Councilmember Ramirez said anything in support of re-starting the cameras, but the recommendation could still come back to a later meeting. VC Reporter July 20 article (If you would like to read grand jury reports about the red light cameras in other cities, go to the Grand Jury entry on the Site Index page.) This list of contracts and/or amendments may not be up-to-date or complete. Oxnard Docs Set # 4
Mickey Mouse Tickets - Mostly Right
Turns
An official report showed that in 2014, 52% of the City's tickets were for turns, mostly right turns. Oxnard Docs Set # 5 Most cities have, on their website,
some info about their red light camera program.
A few cities have quite a lot of information. But
as of Oct. 2010 I could not find any info on Oxnard's
website. In response to a public records request,
the OPD sent some program
information. In 2014 the City provided this map of
camera locations. Oxnard Docs
Set # 6
Mass Refund in Early 2017 In early 2017 the City refunded a number of tickets issued after Aug. 1, 2015, because it missed the deadline to set longer yellows at some of its camera enforced intersections. On Feb. 22, 2016, in response to highwayrobbery.net's Dec. 30, 2015 request for "The current signal timing charts for the intersections having red light cameras. Also, the charts reflecting the immediately preceding signal settings at those intersections." the City sent just a one page Yellow Phase Timing table (dated 3-18-15) showing the length of the yellows at the City's camera enforced intersections. The City also provided the Engineering and Traffic Surveys showing the 85th Percentile Speed for the streets approaching most of the cameras. Two more Engineering and Traffic Surveys The new statewide rule effective Aug. 1, 2015 requires that the 85th Percentile Speed be rounded up to the next 5 mph increment, and that the resulting number be used to look up the applicable minimum yellow. The lookup table (see Defect # 2) requires a yellow of at least 3.9 when the so-adjusted 85th is 40, 4.3 when it is 45, 4.7 when it is 50, and 5.0 when it is 55. Applying the new rule to the data provided by the City, eight of the City's eleven cameras had yellows that were below the minimum: 1. For the camera monitoring NB Rose at Gonzales the 85th Percentile Speed was 47, which would require a yellow of at least 4.7 seconds. The City's table shows a setting of 4.6 seconds. 2. For the camera monitoring SB Rose at Gonzales the 85th Percentile Speed was 44, which would require a yellow of at least 4.3 seconds. The City’s table shows a setting of 4.6 seconds. 3. For the cameras monitoring Saviers at Channel Islands the 85th Percentile Speed was 43, which would require a yellow of at least 4.3 seconds. The City's table shows a setting of 4.1 seconds. 4. For the camera monitoring Victoria at Channel Islands the 85th Percentile Speed was 51, which would require a yellow of at least 5.0 seconds. The City's table shows a setting of 4.8 seconds. 5. For the camera monitoring Gonzales at Snow the 85th Percentile Speed was 47, which would require a yellow of at least 4.7 seconds. The City's table shows a setting of 4.6 seconds. 6. For the camera monitoring Gonzales at Ventura the 85th Percentile Speed was 44, which would require a yellow of at least 4.3 seconds. The City's table shows a setting of 4.6 seconds. 7. For the cameras monitoring Fifth at Ventura the 85th Percentile Speed was 41, which would require a yellow of at least 4.3 seconds. The City’s table shows a setting of 4.2 seconds. 8. For the camera monitoring Rose at First the 85th Percentile Speed was 39, which would require a yellow of at least 3.9 seconds. The City's table shows a setting of 4.4 seconds. 9. For the camera monitoring Victoria at Wooley the 85th Percentile Speed was 51, which would require a yellow of at least 5.0 seconds. The City's table shows a setting of 4.8 seconds. The above too-short yellows were brought to the City's attention on May 9 and July 11, 2016. On Dec. 21, 2016 highwayrobbery.net was told that the City's new traffic engineer was reviewing the matter and that they had (temporarily) stopped some of the enforcement. And then in an Apr. 3, 2017 letter the Chief of Police said, "... the City's contract with Redflex has expired and as of the end of January all RLCs in Oxnard have been deactivated." The Chief didn't promise refunds. He said: "Research will need to be conducted into each citation ...." In a May 3 VC Reporter article (archived copy) the City said that it had refunded 150 tickets. Oxnard Docs Set # 7 How Much $$$ They Get In May 2016 we asked the Ventura County Superior Court how much red light camera fine money Oxnard and the City of Ventura were getting, during selected months. Here is the table they sent. The figures from this table have also been posted in a column in Set # 1, above. Oxnard Docs Set # 8 More Coming There may be some more Oxnard information posted in the next few weeks. Mark your calendar to remind you to come back here and look! --------------------------------- RED LIGHT CAMERAS www.highwayrobbery.net www.highwayrobbery.net |