No WhiteWash!

 Avondale, Arizona cancels photo enforcement after it failed to generate accident reduction or profit.

Avondale, Arizona last week decided to terminate its contract with American Traffic Solutions (ATS) for the operation of red light cameras and speed cameras. The city council made its decision primarily on financial grounds after the program failed to deliver on its promise of enhanced safety and substantial profit. With Avondale facing a $3.8 million budget deficit, officials decided the cameras had to go.

"The largest reduction in budgeted appropriations comes from the camera traffic enforcement program," Avondale Finance Director Kevin Artz wrote in a February 8 memo to the council. "The police department has assessed the effectiveness of the program and determined that potentially the program costs outweigh the benefits. With the total costs of the program exceeding the revenue and little change in accident rate, staff recommends that council consider eliminating or suspending the program."

The city allowed ATS to deploy two red light cameras and one mobile speed camera van. Over the past two years, ATS issued 6326 photo citations, with the number of tickets issued down 46 percent in 2009. While some cities would trumpet this reduction as evidence of the benefit of camera use, Avondale provided a different explanation.

"In June 2009 the decision was made to discontinue photo enforcement at intersections for failing to stop turning right on a red light," Police Chief Kevin Kotsur wrote. "This was based on a review of the previous year’s accident rate that revealed there were no traffic accidents caused by a vehicle failing to stop on a red light turning right at an intersection… This decision appears to account for the majority of this decrease."

Since the economic recession took hold in 2007, traffic volumes have dropped nationwide. As a result, traffic fatalities have hit all-time lows. Since the beginning of the recession, fatal crashes have dropped 14.7 percent across the country. The half-mile radius surrounding Avondale’s camera locations only saw a 7 percent drop in accidents. Areas farther from the cameras experienced a more significant drop in the number of crashes.

The city budget did estimate that cameras would generate $318,610 in net revenue for the city, but Kotsur noted that indirect costs associated with the program would mean the city would wind up losing $80,000. Avondale’s contract was set to expire on September 19, 2010, but an early termination clause allowed cancellation without penalty to the city. A copy of the city council memo is available in a 260k PDF file at the source link below.

 Source: Budgetary Update and Strategy Discussion (City of Avondale, Arizona, 2/8/2010)

via Arizona: City Dumps Money Losing Traffic Cameras.

Virginia Department of Transportation defends red light camera study from attack of financially interested opponents.

In 2007, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) performed one of the most comprehensive statewide surveys of the impact of red light cameras on safety (view report). It caused quite a stir upon its release. The study took advantage of seven years’ worth of data both before and after cameras were installed, examining a far more extensive dataset than most competing studies.

Despite the agency’s best effort to present automated enforcement in a positive light, the unavoidable results were that, on a statewide level, accidents and injuries increased where cameras were used. This outcome has proved to be an embarrassment for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) which has been the primary organization generating research claiming that red light cameras improve safety. IIHS noted that VDOT essentially bent over backwards to accommodate the industry, but because the ultimate results were unfavorable, the VDOT report should be discarded.

Read more via Virginia DOT Defends Red Light Camera Study.

Voters in Baytown, Texas file petition calling for referendum on red light cameras.

Baytown, Texas will be the next city where voters decide the fate of red light cameras. A total of 1324 residents, more than double the number required, signed a petition proposing an ordinance that would outlaw photo enforcement in Baytown. Resident Byron Schirmbeck yesterday handed the city clerk a stack of signature sheets, but he expects officials to resist placing the ordinance on the ballot.

"Our fight to hold the city accountable and remove the cameras has just started," Schirmbeck said. "The city has given every indication they intend to invalidate our petition and ignore the will of the people. Even now the city is putting up more cameras even though they know we want a vote on them."

The clerk’s office must validate at least 620 petition signatures before the city council would be asked to place the ordinance before voters, but the city council may attempt to block the petition. Earlier this year, the city of Chillicothe, Ohio was so desperate to save its photo ticketing program that it asked the state supreme court to stop the vote on the referendum — a request that the high court swiftly denied. College Station, Texas likewise spent thousands in taxpayer dollars on a lobbying effort designed to allow ticketing to continue. After the election took place, College Station’s vendor, American Traffic Solutions, used a front group to file an injunction designed to have the public vote invalidated.

These efforts ultimately failed. As in every case where a referendum on photo ticketing has appeared on the ballot, the public demanded that the automated ticketing machines be removed. Schirmbeck believes Baytown residents will vote against the cameras because the city has been fundamentally dishonest about the program. The city has been caught not only manipulating data but also shortening yellow times at intersections.

At the intersection of Garth and Baker Roads, for example, accidents increased by eleven percent with no reduction in the number of injuries. The city had falsely claimed in reports to the state department of transportation that accidents dropped 63 percent at the same location. In July, Schirmbeck caught the city using an illegally short yellow time of 3.1 seconds at Garth and Baker. Once exposed, the city increased the yellow to 4.5 seconds. As revenue dropped, however, the city quietly shortened that yellow to just 4.0 seconds. It later attempted to justify the move by erecting a "40 MPH" speed limit sign, even though the opposite side of the same road is posted at 45 MPH.

After the clerk determines the validity of the petition, the city council will vote on the proposed ordinance at the next council meeting.

via Baytown, Texas Residents Demand Vote on Reed Light Cameras.

In another story that ticket camera companies will insist is an isolated incident (despite a new incident seemingly surfacing each week), a Peoria, Illinois woman was sent a ticket that should have gone to another driver.

A Chicago traffic camera could cost you hundreds of dollars. It did for Peorian Casandra Davis, who wrote ‘We Hear You’ after getting tickets for something she says she didn’t do. Her ticket charged her $100 for running a red light in Chicago. The only problem is Davis was in Tennessee.

A red-light camera caught a picture of the car in action. The license plates look almost identical, with the exception of one letter. Plus, Davis drives a silver Impala, and the car in the photo is a red Buick.

Surely if she presented the city with proof of their mistake, they would immediately remedy the situation and apologize, right? Maybe not:

Davis says she called Chicago’s Revenue Department and sent proof, but instead of correcting the problem, Chicago increased her ticket to $200. Now Davis is worried she’s driving around with a bad driving record that’s not hers.

As usual, pressure from the media is the only thing that seems to force cities to fix their errors:

After we called the Department of Revenue we got Davis’ ticket overturned. Representatives say they confused some letters on the license plate.

via Red Light Camera Wrongly Tickets Woman Who Was Out Of State.

Thanks to an excellent piece of investigative journalism by David Goldstein of Los Angeles television station KCAL, motorists are getting the real accident numbers at Los Angeles camera-enforced intersections.

The city has claimed that the cameras reduced accidents by 34%, but a little fact-checking proved this assertion wrong:

Is it money or safety? We wanted to know actual numbers of accidents at red light camera intersections to see if they really went down.

When we asked, the LAPD became very defensive. The sergeant in charge told me in an e-mail, “The city would hope that it is the goal of KCBS/KCAL to discuss the positive aspects of the photo red light program.”

So we filed a public records request. The department charged us more than $500 for a computer run. When we got the numbers back, they told a different story.

We looked at every accident at every red light camera intersection for six months of data before the cameras were installed and six months after.

The final figures? Twenty of the 32 intersections show accidents up after the cameras were installed! Three remained the same and only nine intersections showed accidents decreasing.

Read more via Los Angeles Red Light Cameras Lead To Increased Accidents.

A reader of this blog has submitted information below on the series of events that certain Kingsport city officials took to help out their friends.  In my view, the City of Kingsport should keep it’s nose out of other organizations business.  See previous post on Kingsport’s downtown turf battle.  Mayor Phillips photo is on the above left and Vice Mayor Mallicote is on the above right.

Summary: The recent numerous public accounts of continuing disputes in downtown Kingsport are unfortunately the result of extraordinary biased “leadership” by the Mayor and Vice-Mayor of Kingsport, that have emboldened and enabled bully tactics by the very small group of businesses that call themselves the downtown business alliance (dba).

The dba has been grossly misrepresented publicly as having over seventy members; while in reality it is led by two important downtown businesses (Adaptcore and Urban Synergy). The dba only has a handful of strong supporters, none paying membership dues while the Downtown Kingsport Association (DKA) has 160 dues paying members and represents a broad range of downtown interests and has been doing so successfully for 70 years. The leaders of the dba have been key campaign supporters of city leadership preferred political candidates while the DKA board has been perceived as political opponents of city “leadership” The DKA has taken extraordinary measures to accommodate the legitimate interests of the dba; the DKA has met 100% of its contract deliverables to the City of Kingsport, which has not been disputed; yet demands for extraordinarily detailed and unfortunately increasingly stringent organizational changes have been placed upon the DKA by the Mayor and Vice-Mayor accompanied by unwarranted public attacks and bias by them.

The dba has failed to meet its few minor commitments to the DKA, but the city “leadership” has never requested the dba to comply. These actions by city “leadership” have harmed downtown Kingsport and are apparently driven by personal vendettas and agendas by them and not by any desire to improve Kingsport This is the second effort by city leadership to destroy the DKA as the Mayor attempted to force a “merger” with the Chamber of Commerce last year that made no sense.

• In 2008 the Mayor demanded that the DKA enter into “merger” discussions with the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce or receive no funding with no explanation of why this was appropriate This was a bad idea by the Mayor, and after brief discussions between the Chamber and the DKA both parties agreed If the Mayor had been successful, it would have meant the end of the DKA.
• The DKA negotiated a detailed list of 8 pages of deliverables with the city for the fiscal year ending June 30; and every single deliverable was met successfully. which has not been disputed.
• Late 2008 an informal alliance of a few downtown businesses (dba) approached the city regarding what that they perceived as problems within the DKA. The Mayor apparently saw this as second opportunity to destroy the DKA. Despite the dba refusing to be members of the DKA and work from within for improvements, the city “leadership” encouraged and emboldened the dba to compete with the DKA, to demand board seats and to further demand a long list of detailed organizational changes still without even joining the organization. The city “leadership” should have advised the “dba” to join the DKA and work from within instead of encouraging the bullying tactics employed by the dba.  If city “leadership” had acted appropriately at this point all the competition and disputes between downtown organizations would have been avoided.
• In February at a joint meeting attended by the Mayor, the dba and the DKA, the Mayor unfortunately showed his bias by opening the meeting prior to any discussions of the parties by advising the DKA to provide 6 board seats to the dba. He did not advise the dba to join nor make any suggestions to them on how to better work together.
• Also in February the DKA submitted a funding request with a detailed set of deliverables and at a proposed funding level to address increased downtown marketing as targeted by the dba. The city “leadership” provided no feedback on the proposal and the proposal was not even provided to the rest of the BMA for consideration. No opportunity was provided for the DKA to discuss this proposal with the BMA.
• Instead the city “leadership” scheduled a BMA work session in May regarding funding for downtown activities; they provided substantial advance notice to the dba who were given an opportunity to make a formal presentation while the DKA was given only one hours notice. This was a blatantly unfair by the city “leadership” The BMA tentatively split funding, which led to further competition between the groups and ultimately to formal mediation. This was a serious mistake as the dba was not a qualified non-profit organization legally able to accept city funding. In fact the dba were not even a legal entity, but only an informal alliance, which is still true today.
• City “leadership” is well aware that the dba has been grossly exaggerated in public descriptions of its size. In fact it is led by AdaptCore (owners of Bonefire Smokehouse, The Bus Pit, Kingsport Grocery and the apparent failed attempt to renovate the State theater) and Urban Synergy (developers of numerous lofts and business building renovations downtown) and a very small group of other moderate supporters. While these two companies are important to downtown, they do not represent broad interests downtown such as manufacturing, professional services, medical, banking, churches, etc. as the DKA does.
• Despite its funding cut, the DKA led an effort to have Kingsport’s greatest July 4th concert and fireworks display ever.
• At the first mediation meeting in July the Mayor and Vice Mayor were not neutral parties, they completely advocated on behalf of the dba; and made extraordinarily disparaging remarks about specific DKA board members. The dba had three pages of specific organizational demands and the DKA placed no demands upon the dba. The mediator stated that certain key corporate sponsorships were threatened unless the DKA met the demands of the dba and city “leadership” This meeting with two BMA members attending may have been a violation of State sunshine laws, which should be investigated.
• On September 28 at a BMA work session the Vice Mayor presented a completely one sided proposal to the BMA and falsely portrayed it as a “middle of the road” proposal. In fact if it had been accepted that evening by the BMA (which it was not), the DKA would have been required to meet 100% of every onerous demand by the dba, including a ridiculous demand for twelve Board seats or the DKA would receive no funding; and the dba would not have been required to do anything!
• At a DKA press conference on Oct 2, an extraordinary positive announcement was explained about downtown Kingsport. A joint arrangement had been reached between DKA and the Restoration Church located in the previous Strand Theater to lead to immediate and regular stage performances focused on family based dramas in this currently fully functioning state of the art performing arts facility. Instead of city “leadership” attending the press conference to praise these efforts, the Vice-Mayor attended, had no positive statements to make, and focused all his statements on creating false charges about timing concerns related to these actions. In the Kingsport paper the next day a great positive story for downtown Kingsport should have been the focus, but instead because of the Vice-Mayor’s almost unbelievable anti Kingsport actions another negative story was the focus.
• Alderman Munsey agreed to work over next two weeks (from Sept 28) to attempt resolution. During that period much real progress was made and only four detailed issues remained to be resolved by the next BMA work session on Oct 5, at which the BMA had targeted for final resolution. Note that while the DKA continued to make concessions in good faith the dba reduced its commitment to bring in new members to 15-20 from the 50-70 they first made in July and from the 30-40 new members promised just two weeks earlier.
• Well in advance of the Oct 5 BMA work session, the DKA prepared and submitted to the city manager’s office an 11-page presentation to be reviewed with the BMA that clearly laid out the case for the value of DKA and its rationale for funding. Unfortunately the Mayor advised the DKA ten minutes before the meeting that the DKA would be given no opportunity during the alderman discussion of potential DKA funding to discuss or review the presentation. Again this was grossly unfair.
• At the same meeting Larry Munsey covered the progress he made as described in his Oct 2 report and the four remaining issues were identified (number of board seats, term limits, election procedures this year and nominating committee). One alderman suggested the dba and the DKA representatives go outside the room and see if agreement between the parties could be reached. After a brief meeting, full agreement was reached, and it was explained orally to the BMA. The DKA, the dba and the DKA thought all of the BMA understood final agreement was reached that evening between the dba and the DKA, and that funding would be released right away to the DKA so that a completely unified downtown would be put into place immediately.
• Unfortunately the next evening the Vice Mayor continued his vendetta and convinced the BMA to impose additional requirements upon the DKA before funding would be released that had not been agreed to the previous night. The vice-mayor publicly criticized the DKA and funding was to be further withheld until the city attorney certified DKA had met its obligations. This was a serious mistake, and the BMA was advised of such as city “leadership” had previously demonstrated on numerous occasions they could not be trusted as described herein.
• Nevertheless the DKA continued to work in good faith to meet its commitments. Its Board met and made all the bylaw changes that it had agreed to. It added two representatives to the dba to the Board nominating committee and worked in good faith to pick six Board candidates from their list of 12 suggested (as was agreed to). The dba had agreed at the last BMA work session to have all of its board candidates join the DKA, generally for small business at the relatively small cost of $150, but unfortunately the dba did not comply.
• On Oct 28 a meeting of DKA, dba and city representatives was held. The dba admitted they still had not met their requirement for any of their Board nominees to join, but the dba now pushed ahead attempting to negotiate additional concessions from the DKA. On one issue the city attorney clarified that what the DKA had changed in its bylaws was consistent with the agreement previously reached and the dba position was wrong. On another issue the dba was again wrong as they were citing a preliminary report from Alderman Munsey not the final report. The DKA clarified such that evening to all parties. Despite the fact the dba had not met its meager commitments and the DKA had met 100% of its very demanding commitments, the Vice Mayor requested nothing from the dba, but insisted that the DKA make concessions beyond the agreement previously reached. The dba again agreed they would bring in the promised membership checks by the end of the day.
• By an Oct 29 called BMA work session, the dba still had not brought in any memberships as repeatedly promised and the DKA had met all its requirements that it agreed to on Oct 5. In fact the dba now was demanding several additional new concessions mostly of a technical nature. Instead of allowing the city attorney to discuss how the DKA had complied with its requirements and allow his certification for funding as the BMA had previously voted, the Vice Mayor convinced the BMA to support (subject to a final vote on Nov 3) funding for downtown through the KCVB, which already receives nearly a million dollars in city funding. There is no logical reason to take away DKA funding for additional funding to KCVB.
• At the November 3 BMA meeting the BMA voted by 5-2 to fund the KCVB. The two aldermen that voted on principle were Ken Marsh and Larry Munsey.
• The DKA has fully met all its commitments. The dba has not. The city “leadership” is continuing to deny funding to the DKA despite this, and has demonstrated that the Mayor and Vice-Mayor never intended to negotiate in good faith.
• It is now clear to the DKA that the Kingsport Mayor and Vice-Mayor are biased regarding the DKA.

Comments are welcome on this blog.

Below is data that was obtained form the website NeighborhoodScout which gives some interesting data concerning the high crime rate in Kingsport, Tennessee.  Kingsport is ranked as having a high crime rank by NeighborhoodScout and states that  Kingsport’s crime rate is higher than the average for the State of Tennessee and  United States.

Are our city officials more concerned about putting in a new swimming pool, expanding the convention center, building more hotels, annexing more property, getting more restaurants, etc. than reducing the high crime rate in Kingsport?

Kingsport, TN Elected Officials – Board of Mayor and Alderman

Mayor Dennis Phillips	Vice Mayor Ben Mallicote	Alderman Larry Munsey	Alderman Jantry Shupe	Alderman C. Ken Marsh, Jr.	Alderman Tom Parham	Alderwoman Valerie Joh

NeighborhoodScout

With a crime rate of 89 per one thousand residents, Kingsport has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 11. Within Tennessee, more than 90% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Kingsport.

Separately, it is always interesting and important to compare a city’s crime rate with those of similarly sized communities – a fair comparison as larger cities tend to have more crime. NeighborhoodScout has done just that. With a population of 44,560, Kingsport has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size. Regardless of whether Kingsport does well or poorly compared to all other cities and towns in the US of all sizes, compared to places with a similar population, it fares badly. Few other communities of this size have a crime rate as high as Kingsport.

The crime data that NeighborhoodScout used for this analysis are the seven offenses from the uniform crime reports, collected by the FBI from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, and include both violent and property crimes, combined.

Now let us turn to take a look at how Kingsport does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Kingsport.

For Kingsport, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation, across communities of all sizes (both large and small). Violent offenses tracked included forcible rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout’s analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Kingsport is one in 107.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Kingsport is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Kingsport, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 13, which is a rate of 80 per one thousand population.

Click here to see the data below as well as a map showing where the safest places are in Kingsport.  At the top of the page you can get data for a different city.

West Tennessee wins and East Tennessee loses again.  What are our local elected officials doing to bring  jobs to the Sullivan County area?

Project will Create 275 New Jobs and an Investment of $100 Million

NASHVILLE – Governor Phil Bredesen and Commissioner Matt Kisber of the Department of Economic and Community Development announced today that the Unilever plant in Covington, Tenn. will be expanding, generating an investment of $100 million and creating approximately 275 new jobs.

“This is great news for Unilever and the state of Tennessee,” Governor Bredesen said. “These new jobs are the result of a strong partnership between the state and the local community. I’m pleased Unilever has chosen to further solidify its presence in Tennessee and we look forward to working with them on this ambitious expansion project.”

Read more via Governor Bredesen, Commissioner Kisber Announce Unilever Expansion in Covington | TN.gov Newsroom.

Vice Mayor, prior to his re-election, was very vocal and voted with Alderman Marsh and Shull against putting the Kingsport Aquatic Center in the MeadowView area.  He made the following statement below.

Kingsport Times News Published August 27th, 2008

“Kingsport needs an aquatic center to be downtown. It’s more convenient for more Kingsport residents than Meadowview. If the goal is to make the center only accessible to the affluent and tourists, then absolutely it should go to Meadowview. If it’s something for the entire community, then it needs to go downtown,” Mallicote said. “Supermarket row is blighted, rundown and ugly. If the city doesn’t redevelop it, who’s going to do it? If the city can’t afford to do it, point to the developer who could do it. The reasons stated why we can’t do it downtown are the reasons why Kingsport should put it downtown.

“It’s the heart of Kingsport, and 20 or 30 years down the road, we’ll live or die by the strength of downtown.”

However in the short video clip below you can hear Ben Mallicote state that he will be excited to put the shovel in the ground.  I guess he can change his mind because he got re-elected.  So much for his conviction about putting the aquatic center downtown.

At an BMA meeting in early 2009, Kingsport stated that they would do the following in the quote from the Times-News below.    .

Kingsport Times-News Published February 14th, 2009

Kingsport plans to solicit input from the public through the city’s Web site, Channel 16 and public meetings. The Web site will also be updated periodically with updates and notices of meetings.

Construction was to start around the third quarter of 2009.  It looks like none of the above has happened or maybe won’t happen.  If it does happen, it will more likely be, here it is and this is how it is going to be.

Chris McCartt in the video talks about future expansions and the citizens of Kingsport should be prepared to spend more money to fund the expansions.  The cost for the first phase of construction is about $15 million.

Johnson City manufacturer Alemite will lay off 119 workers beginning in November, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development announced Monday.

Alemite makes grease guns and lubricant handling systems.

Read more via Johnson City company cutting 119 jobs » Knoxville News Sentinel.