Suit Targets Cities Over Cameras at Stop Lights.

A recent state court ruling on red light camera enforcement has sparked a lawsuit against the cities of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood concerning their ticketing programs.

The lawsuit, for which class-action status is sought, was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by two San Diego attorneys who are backing up their case with the Sept. 4 action of a state judge who threw out 290 tickets issued by the city of San Diego's red light camera system.

That case claimed that the city's program was enforced illegally by the city and Lockheed Martin NS Corp., now owned by Dallas-based ACS.

Superior Court Judge Ronald Styn ruled that the city of San Diego did not operate the red light cameras legally because it gave the bulk of the responsibilities to ACS, including operating the cameras, moving the sensors on the ground and issuing the tickets. Under state law, a municipality or government entity is required to maintain the operations of the program.

The local lawsuit is based on tickets issued to more than 150,000 L.A.-area drivers through the red light camera law enforcement program, which takes pictures of drivers going through an intersection on a red light and mails them the tickets.

"Lockheed essentially runs this program in the same way in all the cities," said Gene Iredale, one of the two San Diego attorneys.

The suit also alleges civil rights violations for those who were issued tickets because they were the registered owners of the vehicles, and not the person driving the car through the intersection.

ACS executives declined to comment about the lawsuit or the company's relationship with various cities.

Officials of the three cities said they are not violating any state laws. They said while ACS provides the picture-taking and often first-time review of photos to determine if those drivers should be ticketed, at least one law enforcement official in each city is assigned to make a final review.

The cities did say, however, that they are re-evaluating their contracts with ACS.

As part of his ruling, the judge in San Diego said ACS and any other private entity that handles the issuing of tickets have a financial incentive to issue more tickets than necessary.

John Fisher, assistant general manager of Los Angeles' department of transportation, said ACS -- which receives $60 of each $271 violation -- is already asking the city for more ticket revenues. L.A., which began using red light cameras in December 2000, currently has 16 cameras at eight locations, he said.

"Right now one could argue they may be in violation of our current contract in the red light cameras," Fisher said. "They were supposed to install 32 cameras at 16 locations before this time. Now, we will not agree to further locations at this time."

The Public Safety Committee and the City Council, which must approve any amendments, have yet to schedule discussions on whether they want to pay more per ticket to ACS or go with another contractor. ACS is demanding at least four paid citations per day per intersection, which would be a guaranteed $240 per day. Right now, intersections average less than four citations per day, Fisher said.

"To some degree, this could eat into the amount that goes to the city coffers," he said, although he couldn't say by how much.

But the city likely will not try to operate the cameras on its own because of the manpower and costs involved with processing so many tickets, Fisher said.

Despite the costs, few cities will give up the program. The cameras help cities like L.A., which are increasingly limited in officers to patrol intersections, said Sgt. John Gambill of the Los Angeles Police Department. Since 1971, the percentage of officers assigned to traffic enforcement has shrunk from 11 to 7 percent, he said.