Whether Culver City – a notorious drive-through community – is a lucrative client for a red light camera vendor remains an open question this afternoon as a tighter bead is drawn on a nationally dominant company’s allegedly shady proclivities across a stretch of America.
Two days after the City Council approved going forward with a proposed three-year contract still to be negotiated, intriguing questions are dangling from the ceiling about troubled Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc.
Redflex, despite problems in other states, has been granted a perfect score, a whopping passing grade of 100 percent, by both the Police Dept. and the confident City Council. Not a single skeptic has yet been identified between the department and City Hall.
Interim Police Chef Scott Bixby said this morning that while he was aware of Redflex’s “shenanigans” in the past in Chicago, “with regard to us, there was never a competition for a contract for a red light until the present.”
For 12 consecutive years, Redflex had the field to itself in Culver City, the chief said. Never a rival for City Hall’s affections, suggesting that Culver City paid whatever the going rate was.
“There never was a question of ‘Who are we going to pick, A company or B company?’” said Mr. Bixby. “That is the way it was until the last staff report at Monday’s (City Council) meeting when a couple of other companies submitted bids. Of course, Redflex was the cheapest one.”
The chief explained that the latest agreement with Redflex expired “a few months ago. We extended it for three months until we could get RFPs (requests for proposals) from three or four companies.”
Why is competition only springing up now?
“I think,” said Mr. Bixby, “and I have to check to confirm this, the reason is that technology has been developed, and more companies entered the business and felt they could compete with Redflex.”
