Photo van petition The state administration intends to continue its traffic photo enforcement program despite increased legislative demands that it be halted. However, there are indications that the program may be modified.
falls flat
The governor rejects a legislative call
Mainland rulings favor drivers
to end the controversial
speed enforcement programBy Richard Borreca
rborreca@starbulletin.comScrapping the program altogether because of citizen and legislative protests would be "a knee-jerk reaction," said Gov. Ben Cayetano, who received a petition yesterday from 46 of the 76 lawmakers asking the state to halt the program.
He defended the process of sending out vans along state highways to photograph speeders, saying the program answers the Legislature's concern that "we do something about speeding."
Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, Senate vice president, who authored a bill to repeal the program, said the administration is not listening to the people. "Now that it is acknowledged that the program is not all that they said it would be, by their own actions it appears flawed, so why do they keep battling?" she said.
"Why don't they listen to the people, scrap it and start over?" Hanabusa (D, Waianae) said.
Sen. Bob Hogue (R, Kaneohe) organized the petition drive.
Cayetano noted that Windward drivers were one of the big problems for traffic enforcement.
"He (Hogue) doesn't want his particular area covered, although drivers coming from the Windward side are a big problem in terms of speeding," Cayetano said yesterday during an informal news conference at the state Capitol.
Hogue said he was able to talk to Brian Minaai, state transportation director, Tuesday evening and was assured that the state would announce changes either tomorrow or Monday.
"He agrees that they have made mistakes," Hogue said.
One thing they did, Hogue said, was to remove veteran Transportation Department public information officer Marilyn Kali from the program.
"She has become part of the center of controversy, so removing her was a major step," Hogue said.
Minaai was unavailable for comment.
Hogue was also critical of the Transportation Department's entire public communication effort, saying the last neighborhood board meeting he attended was devoted to complaints about the DOT.
"The Transportation Department has pulled its representatives from attending neighborhood board meetings, and that is an example of the DOT not listening to the public or the Legislature," Hogue said.
"It is an example of the arrogance of the Transportation Department," he said.
Cayetano explained yesterday that while he considered a petition from more than half of the Legislature to be a significant expression, the Legislature itself was not clear on what it wanted the state to do.
Rep. Joe Souki, House Transportation Committee chairman, postponed hearings yesterday on a legislative review of the state speed limits, saying he was awaiting more information from the state.
Souki (D, Maui) said he did not sign Hogue's petition, and said he expects the administration will come out with modifications to the program.
Denver criminal defense attorney Gary Pirosko did what hundreds of Oahu motorists dream of doing when they finally go to court to challenge their traffic photo citations. Mainland rulings
favor driversJudges in San Diego and Denver
throw out traffic photo citationsBy Rod Antone
rantone@starbulletin.comHe got the court to throw them out.
"I got two citations within half an hour of each other," said Pirosko yesterday during a phone interview from Denver. "I got hit by the cameras going 35 mph in a 25 mph zone. ... Basically, I got two citations when I was going to the store and coming back.
"I hate them."
Pirosko hated the citations so much, he filed a motion to dismiss them with the Denver County Court. On Monday, Denver Judge Mary A. Celeste issued a 20-page decision on the matter, stating that the city of Denver violated state law by in effect paying the contractor according to the number of tickets issued.
While the ruling itself may not have any bearing in Hawaii, traffic camera opponents point out that Denver set up its laws to ensure that the vendor does not get paid based on how many citations it issues.
Affiliated Computer Services, the vendor in Hawaii and Denver, gets paid by the citation in Hawaii.
"Denver felt so strongly, they wrote a law and said you couldn't pay people per ticket issued," said Brent White, legal director of the Hawaii chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It creates a bias. It taints the evidence."
White points to the Denver case as well as another case in San Diego as a trend with judges who recognize the "inherent unfairness" in getting paid per ticket when it comes to camera citations.
In San Diego last August, a Superior Court judge ruled that the payment system created a conflict of interest, and as a result found the evidence gathered by red-light photo cameras "so untrustworthy and unreliable that it lacks foundation and should not be admitted."
"The bias is so strong that in San Diego the judge threw out all the documentation and citations submitted by the contractor," said White.
"I think there is an underlying theme in the Denver case and the San Diego case in that both courts have found that the evidence or the tickets were untrustworthy."
Brook Hart, a Honolulu criminal defense attorney who has agreed to help the ACLU if it wants to file a class-action lawsuit against the state's traffic camera project, said that while Denver judges upheld a set policy, Hawaii judges should uphold the law in spirit.
"The important thing here is the concept," said Hart. "Compensation should not be based on the number of tickets."
"We don't have that concept in our law, but we ought to have it ... otherwise you run the risk of the vendor writing more tickets because that's the way they'll get compensated the most."
State Transportation Department spokeswoman Marilyn Kali said previously that the reason the state set up the payment process in a per-citation fashion was because that was the only way to get the project started with no cost to the state.
According to the Denver ruling, ACS is supposed to be paid based on the value of the equipment used to issue the citations -- in this case, the traffic camera vans. The ruling states that in 2000, ACS was paid $3 million, much more than the estimated worth of the three camera vans, valued at $12,000 each.
The ruling also said Denver violated its own laws by "wrongfully delegating police duties" when it allowed ACS to issue citations.
However, officials from the Honolulu prosecutor's office said that ruling did not apply to Hawaii because lawmakers have passed legislation enabling ACS to issue citations.