ST. LOUIS, Missouri — New automated traffic cameras are returning to the streets of St. Louis.
Depending on how quickly the city moves to hire a camera company, drivers could start to see tickets showing up in their mailbox within a matter of two to three months.
The technology promises to rush reinforcements to a depleted police department, which is now 352 officers short of its budgeted strength, according to a public employee database of city officers.
Mayor Tishaura Jones and a progressive-leaning Board of Aldermen embraced the high-tech enforcement tools after a rash of high-speed, high-profile, high-impact crashes.
"Driving is out of control in the city of St. Louis," Alderwoman Cara Spencer (D-8th Ward) said. "It's extremely dangerous to be a pedestrian, a cyclist and even a fellow drive motorist. So I think anything that we can do to make our streets safer is something we should and can and should be doing."
The Board of Aldermen voted 12 to 2 to adopt the new automated traffic cameras on Monday morning, with one member voting 'Present.'
In a Monday afternoon statement, Jones said she is "looking forward to signing this legislation into law."
“Smart technologies like the ones covered in the Automated Camera Enforcement Act are a necessary tool in our city’s ability to combat reckless driving,” Jones said. “My administration has worked diligently to make certain these technologies will be used solely to reduce traffic violence, and not target already vulnerable populations."
These new devices, unlike the old ones that courts found were unenforceable, promise a more precise positive identification of the facial features of the driver behind the wheel. They will also be set up to capture video evidence of drivers breaking the speed limit or rolling through stop signs without coming to a complete stop.
"We probably will get sued over it again," Board of Aldermen President Megan Green (D-St. Louis) said after the close of the legislative session on Monday.
Spencer voted for it but says the plan still has flaws that could let some speedsters off the hook.
"If you don't have tags on your car, if it's not your car, there's a whole host of reasons why you could skirt that easily," she said. "So I'm pushing for tougher policy. I've got a bill that would require that would authorize the city to put a boot on your car, stop the car from operating, if you're driving it in a way that is endangering the general public."
Outside City Hall, the reaction was mixed.
"That's a bunch of bull crap," Angela Kendall said. "That's like a setup. You know what I'm saying? It's a trick. If a cop doesn't catch you, I don't think no light should."
Others applauded the crackdown.
"Everybody's speeding, running the lights," Michael Adiasor said. "We need to control the traffic. We need to control the craziness in this city."
Board Bill 106, an accompanying proposal from Alderman Shane Cohn (D-3rd Ward), would spend all the fines and fees on traffic signs and driver education classes.
Alderman Michael Browning (D-9th Ward), a co-sponsor of the automated traffic camera proposal, couldn't say with certainty how much-projected revenue the devices could bring into city coffers.
"We honestly don't know," he said. "It could be a lot. We hope that it is a declining amount."
The city's embrace of the traffic cameras comes at a time when the fiscal outlook is tightening.
Last month, Jones announced a hiring freeze for all non-essential city workers, citing a number of "very real and present threats to our revenue."
"We cannot control what the Mayor does, we can only control our own behavior," Green responded on Monday.
Green said she hasn't seen the hiring freeze impact the delivery of any city services yet.
"Every position that was listed on the city's website is open and hiring on the day of the hiring freeze is still open and hiring," she said. "So I'm not actually sure what positions are being frozen at the moment, and that's something that I anticipate our Budget and Public Employees Committee will start diving into during our budget discussions in the coming weeks."
A spokesman for Mayor Jones said the hiring freeze only impacted upcoming vacancies and did not halt any ongoing processes to recruit or hire workers to fill jobs that were previously listed.
"I'm disappointed, but certainly not surprised, to hear that President Green has not read the publicly available FAQ about the hiring freeze, or listened to the testimony from the Director of Personnel in the Budget and Public Employees committee last week," spokesman Conner Kerrigan wrote in an email to 5 On Your Side.
"As clearly stated in the FAQ, the city is still hiring for any positions that were posted to the city's website on the day the freeze went into effect. However, the city has not posted any new job openings since the hiring freeze was implemented on March 29th."
If courts or state legislators ultimately determine the city can no longer collect a 1% earnings tax from remote workers, pressure could mount on policymakers to backfill budget holes with revenue raised by the traffic cameras.
Green suggested she could be open to diverting those funds to plug other holes in the budget at some point.
"That could potentially be a question for another day," Green said.
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