- November 17, 2024
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Palm Coast may drop to five red light cameras from 43 and shorten its contract with camera company ATS in exchange for giving up some camera revenue.
The city’s current contract with ATS ends in 2019, and ATS gives the city a flat $700-per-camera-per-month for each of the city’s 43 red light cameras.
That brings in $361,200 per year for Palm Coast’s street improvement fund.
Dropping from 43 cameras to five would already mean a reduction to $42,000 per year.
If Palm Coast wants to end the contract in 2017, ATS officials have now told the city, the camera company would agree to do so — but only if the city takes $350 per-camera-per-month instead of $700.
Palm Coast’s City Council had directed City Manager Jim Landon at a Feb. 25 workshop to see if ATS would agree to shorten the contract and still give the city its $700 per camera.
“They came back to us with, ‘No, we’ll agree to reduce to 2017, but the city would keep no dollars,’” Landon told the council at a March 9 workshop. “After several, two, three conversations, they agreed to go to 2017, but keep $350.”
“Well, they pretty much met us halfway,” Councilwoman Heidi Shipley said.
That would leave Palm Coast with $21,0000 per year in camera revenue.
Palm Coast is not seriously considering dropping the camera program entirely for fear of a lawsuit from ATS — which would demand at least $1.8 million, Landon said, if the city terminated its program — and a desire to retain ATS’ protection from a class action lawsuit already filed against Palm Coast and other cities with the cameras. ATS has agreed to pay the city’s legal costs as long as Palm Coast retains its camera program.
But to comply with the latest legal changes, the city’s code enforcement staff would have to spend as much time on the red light program with five cameras as it does now with 43, because the outcome of a recent court decision would force the city, instead of ATS, to review all potential violations and handle the mailing of out Uniform Traffic Citations, a $264 fine sent to drivers who don’t pay their initial $158 ticket.
Landon told the council at the March 9 meeting that he and Palm Coast Attorney Bill Reischmann would work hard to finalize an agreement with ATS for a contract with five cameras, extending to 2017, and place it on the agenda of a City Council meeting on March 16 or March 30.
BOX: Where the cameras might stay:
If the city drops to five cameras, they would most likely remain at:
Northbound Old Kings Road North at Kings Way
Northbound Cypress Point Parkway at Boulder Rock Drive
Westbound Palm Coast Parkway Northeast at Harbor Center
Northbound Belle Terre Parkway at Rymfire Drive
Westbound Cypress Point Parkway at Belle Terre Parkway
