Cameras get green light to catch speeders in school zones | News, Sports, Jobs

YOUNGSTOWN – Unmanned radar devices in Youngstown school zones, last used in June 2023, will be turned back on in September and unpaid traffic tickets from last year will be waived.

“We're going to start over,” said city law director Lori Shell Simmons. “If you have unpaid tickets, don't worry. People will be happy about it. We want to be fair. Everyone thought it would be cleaner to start over.”

At a meeting on Wednesday, a long-standing dispute between the city administration and the judiciary over the handling of appeals against speeding violations was settled.

Shell Simmons said the meeting was attended by representatives from the municipal court, the clerk of court, the police department, the law enforcement agency and Blue Lines Solutions, the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based company that runs the camera program.

“We're ready to get started,” said David Magura Jr., court administrator. “It's been a long process. I'm glad it's over.”

Shell Simmons said: “This has been a long time coming. It will make people slow down in school zones. We want to protect our children.”

The 2024-25 school year for the Youngstown City School District begins on September 4.

The cameras will be on that day, but drivers will have a two-week warning period before tickets are first issued on September 18, Shell Simmons and Magura said.

In May, a decision was made to resolve the issue of appealing the summons. At the meeting on Wednesday, the details were determined and the cooperation of the courts with Blue Line and the interface between their computer systems were regulated.

Donna McCollum, a part-time justice of the peace in municipal court, will start in mid- to late October and will hear appeals once a month, Magura said. The court will reevaluate after a while how often McCollum is needed for the appeals, Magura said.

In Youngstown, radar devices were taken offline at the end of classes between May 18 and June 2, 2023. The city phased in the radar devices starting February 21, 2023. Radar devices at 19 schools were scheduled to be reinstated on September 18, 2023, when classes resumed in Youngstown after ending a nearly month-long teachers' strike.

However, due to disagreements between the administration and the courts, the cameras were not used at all last school year.

During the three months the regulations were enforced, 22,424 speeding tickets were issued.

City officials had previously stated that there were disputes over about 300 of them.

Since the program is being restarted, Shell Simmons said, those who contested the speeding tickets have had their cases dismissed and they do not have to pay.

QUOTES

The city has collected $596,878 from the fines, more than $300,000 of which has come since it was publicly announced last September that the program was suspended and there appear to be no penalties for non-payment of the fines.

65% of the money raised goes to the city, the remaining 35% goes to Blue Line.

Blue Line's share of paid summonses is $321,396.

On school days, the cameras were in use from the time the children went to class until 6 p.m. They were not used on weekends, in the summer, or on school holidays.

During the two hours that children go to school in the morning and during the two hours that they leave school, the speed limit in these zones is 20 miles per hour. Between and after school hours, the speed limit is 25 and 35 miles per hour, depending on the location.

Drivers who speed at least 11 mph and up to 14 mph will face a $100 fine. Those who speed 15 to 20 mph will face a $125 fine, and those who speed over 20 mph will face a $150 fine. No points will be added to the driving record for these citations.

Even with a minimum fine of $100, the collection rate was about 41%.

In a September 11, 2023 email to city officials as the City Council prepared changes to the speed camera ordinance, Magura wrote, “Rushing this process without due diligence could result in unintended consequences and complications in our operations,” and the administration's proposal “does not provide a comprehensive analysis of the potential impacts on our records and operations.”

The City Council made minor changes to the ordinance on September 20, 2023, but did not prompt the court to act.

In a letter to administrative officials dated April 4, 2023, Municipal Court Judge Carla Baldwin wrote, “In short, the City appears to have enacted these ordinances without in any way ensuring that the necessary procedures, resources, or personnel are in place to conduct the appeals specified in the ordinance.”

The City Council agreed in March to have the court hire a part-time judge to hear cases challenging speeding violations in school zones. Blue Line had previously offered to pay a judge to get the cameras back in service.

Instead, McCollum's salary for hearing the appeals will be reimbursed from the city's subpoena fund.

Under a state law restricting the use of speed cameras, Youngstown is allowed to use its share of revenue from speed camera violations exclusively for school safety measures, such as improving school zones and crosswalks near those buildings.

The city has not yet spent any of its traffic ticket money.

In addition, last year's state transport budget included a provision regulating the use of a “traffic photo surveillance device”. The provision was first adopted in March 2015.

The regulation states: “A local authority may only use a traffic monitoring device with a photo surveillance function to detect and punish traffic violations if a police officer is present at the location of the device at all times during operation of the device.”

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in July 2017 that it was unconstitutional for the state legislature to require the presence of a police officer when home rule cities use cameras for traffic enforcement. Youngstown is a home rule city.

The court ruled 5-2 in favor of Dayton, which filed the lawsuit, writing that a state law “requiring the presence of a police officer at the location of a traffic camera infringes on the municipality's legislative power without serving a higher state interest and is therefore unconstitutional.”

Do you have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.