Walnut’s red light cameras won’t be going away anytime soon. 

The City Council Wednesday night voted 5-0 to keep the cameras at the Temple/Amar/Grand intersection, citing safety as the main reason.

Councilman Tom King, who pushed to get the cameras before they were approved in 2007, said red light violations are down to 200 a month from more than 600 before installation.

“Before the cameras, that intersection was at an F level,” he said.  “The intersection was performing substandard.”

Resident Michael West, who has said he thinks the cameras do more harm than good when it comes to safety, attended the early part of the council meeting and spoke against the city’s contract with Arizona-based RedFlex Traffic Systems. 

He called for the contract to be renegotiated, adding that he felt the term of the agreement was too long and didn’t provide needed clauses to get out of it if desired.

“It looks like a slick corporation came in here, dictated the terms, and you all signed that,” West said.

King and Mayor Nancy Tragarz later corrected the record, pointing out that the contract was for five years, not seven as West had stated, and that there are provisions in the agreement to terminate it for cause.

Walnut pays $181,116 annually for the program.  The city gets an estimated $130,000 a year in revenue, which it must use for public safety expenses.

Staff reported that severing the contract before it expired would cost $365,000 plus another $25,000 to $50,000 related to the cost of removing the equipment early.  

King also accused West of misrepresenting the facts when it comes to safety. 

West has said that the fact that accidents, particularly the rear-end kind, have increased since the cameras were installed in 2007 proves that the cameras have not made the intersection safer.  King said during his comments that the statistics are often meaningless.  When you have three one year and five the next, that is not a substantial increase, he said.

The city had 10 collisions at the intersection in 2007, the year the cameras were installed, 12 in 2008, 13 in 2009, and 17 in 2010, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Accidents at the two approaches where the cameras were placed totaled eight in 2007, seven in 2008, six in 2009 and five in 2010.  Broadside collisions remained low in total but rear end collisions increased for the intersection as a whole.

Red light cameras have been in the news lately.  The Los Angeles City Council ended its camera program effective July 31 after finding out that the Los Angeles County Superior Court did not have the resources needed to go after drivers failing to pay their fines.

Councilman Joaquin Lim said the lack of enforcement of the fines in Los Angeles is what prompted him to ask that staff do an analysis.

City Attorney Michael Montgomery said he and staff met with the presiding judge and others at the Pomona branch of the court and were told that all of the branches are still enforcing collection of the fines.  The central court in Los Angeles is not due to staffing problems, Montgomery said.

Staff said that Walnut has one of the highest collection rates for fines at 73 percent, second only to Beverly Hills at around 80 percent.

Lim asked what about the remaining 28 percent of so.

Montgomery said the city could swear out a complaint requesting the court issue a warrant, but he said he was not sure that was economically feasible.

“Our agent has been very good at resolving matters in the hallway that never get to the courtroom,” he said.

King said one of the main reasons why red light cameras are so controversial is because of the cost of the tickets.  Fines are typically in the $400 to $500 range.  He said while he agrees that they are too costly, Walnut can’t do anything to change it.

“That’s not the city’s problem,” he said of the fines.  “That complaint needs to go to the Legislature, who put the fines on the red light cameras, and to the courts.”