Third in a series
Re “The Chin-Stroking State of City’s Almost Contract with Redflex”
Culver City’s controversial red light camera vendor, Redflex Traffic Systems, charged with criminal activity in Chicago, was no cinch to win a new contract from City Hall, says Police Capt. Alan Azran.
It was beginning to sound like an arduous process.
“We put out a request for proposal, and we received four proposals back,” he said. “We went through all of the proposals. We did our research. We did what it is that we do. “We then said that we are recommending to the City Council that Redflex be the company that we go with, based on all of these things. The proposal has terms in it.
“So the Council has agreed on the terms of the proposal,” Mr. Azran said. “But it is pending the approval of an actual binding contract. We are not there yet. We have not agreed on a binding contract. It still is being worked on.”
While Redflex is due to collect $3,211.11 per intersection approach, per month under the new agreement, what happens on the other end remains cloaked in clouds.
How much revenue from this scheme accrues to City Hall in a year’s time?
Seemingly, no one within the city limits of Culver City knows.
“I think those numbers are out there,” Mr. Azran said.
Where? That is more perplexing.
At first, Mr. Azran said he did not understand the question.
Mr. Azran suggested that when Chief Financial Officer Jeff Muir said he did not know, he was referring to “total traffic fines.”
Actually, that is not the question Mr. Muir was addressing.
“We are going to go back to this estimate,” the police captain said.
Mr. Azran, in part, repeated Mr. Muir’s response when he noted that Los Angeles County “does not precisely track the difference between red light camera money and other forms of traffic fine revenues.”
All concerned Culver City residents may go to sleep tonight secure in the hazy knowledge that no one who works for the city knows how much revenue the red light camera scheme channels into city coffers.
Safety, numerous Council members have said, is their primary responsibility, and the revenue…
(To be continued)
