Citrus He Citrus Heights Police Department Christopher W. Boyd Chief of Police October 1, 2015 Honorable Robert C*

Citrus Heights does not uphold its responsibility to operate and monitor its red light camera program. Response to Finding 1: Disagree The Citrus Heights Police Department (CHPD) Traffic Unit Sergeant oversees the daily operations and administrative functions of the Photo Red Light Enforcement Program (PRLEP). As well, the CHPD has two officers assigned to this program to review and process violations on a daily basis, attend annual training related to the operations of photo red light enforcement (i.e. updated case law, new and updated technology, etc.), maintain records involving day-to-day operations of the program, and conduct yearly audits of the records and facilities of RedflexTraffic Systems (the photo red light program vendor). Additionally, CHPD writes and annually reviews Business Rules to be followed by Redflex Traffic Systems to include, procedures for receiving, reviewing, and forwarding captures to and from the CHPD. Monthly maintenance is completed by a certified technician and a written report of the results on each PRLEP intersection is forwarded to the CHPD. This monthly maintenance includes a secondary computer system to validate all aspects PRLEP hardware and software at the red light camera intersections.

The CHPD routinely fails to follow its adopted policy and procedures on red light cameras. Response to Finding 2: Partial Concurrence The CHPD utilizes Lexipol to "serve as a template for how the Department conducts business, by documenting rules and establishing guides for consistent, efficient, and proper operation" (Citrus Heights Police Department, 2014, Preface). The CHPD Policy 378 establishes the procedures for the PRLEP and consists of five sections (Citrus Heights Police Department, 2014, p. 223-226). As a result of this Grand Jury inquiry, it was discovered that there were two items the CHPD had failed to follow in its Red Light Photo Enforcement policy: 1. Monthly signal light maintenance documents provided by the City engineers including, but not limited to, the amber lighting sequences per the Department of Transportation (DOT) standards. 2. Monthly stopwatch audits confirming the amber light timing. Sue Frost, Mayor . Jeannie Bruins, Vice Mayor Jeff Slowey, Council Member • Steve Miller, Council Member • Melvin Turner, Council Member Henry Tingle, City Manager • Ruthann Ziegler, City Attorney 6315 Fountain Square Drive • Citrus Heights, CA 95621-5577 • (916) 727-5500 • Fax (916) 727-4974 www.citrusheightspd.net Grand Jury Report: Red Light Cameras October 1, 2015 With respect to item #1, maintaining monthly signal light maintenance documents, the CHPD did not routinely collect this information from the City traffic engineers on a regular basis. This has since been corrected. For item #2, in People v. Goldsmith (2014), the Supreme Court of California concluded photographs and video taken by Automated Traffic Enforcement Systems (ATES) shall be considered an accurate recording of events and does not constitute as hearsay. Furthermore, the Court also stated that a computer system by its very nature is more accurate than a human witness (People v. Goldsmith, 2014). Due to this ruling and the fact that all photographs and video of red light captures include yellow light timing, the CHPD discontinued its use of stopwatch audits. Therefore, the CHPD will be removing the requirement of conducting monthly stopwatch audits from its policy.

The accident reduction data used to judge the effectiveness of the program by the CHPD is inconsistent and inaccurate in some instances. Response to Finding 3: Disagree All raw data provided to the Grand Jury was compiled from the CHPD's collision database. This database contains all accident reports taken by the CHPD. As such, we are unsure as to what the Grand Jury is referring. However, a City of Citrus Heights Staff Report dated November 8, 2012, was submitted to the Grand Jury which had incomparable data; as the year ranges did not match (pre-camera data was for five years while post-camera data was for four years). In response to this document and to clarify the raw collision data submitted, the CHPD submitted a document showing collisions for five years pre- and post- red light camera for the first five PRLEP intersections. A summary of that data is below: PRLEP Intersection Pre-Camera Post-Camera Difference Percent change Antelope and Garden Gate 60 34 -26 -43.33% Auburn and Antelope 73 46 -27 -36.99% Greenback and Fountain Square 44 36 -8 -18.18% San Juan and Greenback 125 88 -37 -29.60% Sunrise and Oak 48 17 -31 -64.58%