Councilmembers Dustin Zvonek and Curtis Gardner were absolutely right.
Yeah, it felt as odd for me to write that as it was for you to read it.
But giving credit where it’s due, Zvonek and Gardner were the only two holdouts back in 2022 when the rest of the city council was psyched about Aurora signing up for a pricey photo-radar van system to check rampant speeding.
These are the two city lawmakers who get to tell fellow city council members this week, “we told you so.”
They were spot on — but unsuccessful — in trying to dissuade the rest of the council dais in 2022 from a 13-month trial program outfitting three vans with photo radar systems. It turns out the guarantee to slow traffic, clock speeders, punish them with hefty fines and make a boatload of money for the city all at the same time was — twaddle.
“Law enforcement and public safety should not be used as revenue generation, and that’s what I’m afraid we’re going to do with this,” Gardner said last year, warning lawmakers, futilely, to turn down the plan.
He and Zvonek pointed to the past Aurora twaddle waddle through the Red Light Camera Zone.
Not so long ago, a previous-previous city council listened to a different carnival barker promise great riches and danger-free intersections. It was a dream-land where robot cameras took pictures of red-light scofflaws through their windshields, blowing through red signal lights and picking their nose or grimacing like a banshee while talking on a cell phone about everything and anything except how that innocuous red-light camera made them reticent about running the red light they were running.
Not only did voters in 2018 finally put an end to the obnoxious red-light camera project, they did it with a 2-to-1 vote-count sledgehammer.
Hell, no.
The problem is, those cameras were indeed cash cows. Put them on a pole, turn them on, catch people running red lights, collect upwards of a hundred dollars by mailing out a ticket and suddenly Aurora lawmakers were trying to decide how to spend about $2 million the system generated.
So when voters ended the party in 2018, the city had to slash budgets for mental health services and a long list of recipient programs by about $1 million.
Most importantly, the insistence that these devices save lives is dubious at best. Some studies show that local traffic-maze-weary motorist do, indeed, slow down in the red-light or photo-radar zone. But the “just driving through” road tourists clearly do not, hence the $2 million a year in red-light camera revenues.
More dubious is the idea that these devices actually prevent accidents and save lives.
At the time the local red-light camera controversy was being argued and re-argued on the city council floor, evidence showed that while the red-lighted camera intersections may have seen fewer “t-bone” crashes, they saw an increase in rear-end crashes when the “just visiting” motorists saw the signs and slammed on the brakes.
Even if you believe the Candy Mountain story, the evidence is pretty clear that drivers learn where the cameras are and get back to speeding and blowing red-lights and stop signs where the cameras are not.
But the “it could work” and “it should work” political Kool Aid is so tasty to some that they simply cannot resist.
Everyone on the city council except Zvonek and Gardner voted for Candy Mountain a couple of years ago.
“I get complaints weekly on, ‘Can you please enforce speeding?’ And my answer to them is we don’t have enough police officers,” Councilmember Francoise Bergan, who voted in favor of the program, said in 2022. “Obviously we’re trying to deter bad behavior, and tickets certainly get people’s attention.”
Not only are you probably like me, who saw essentially no less speeding across Aurora in the past year, you probably flinched when you saw, this week, reporter Max Levy’s story pointing out the city is on track to lose about a half-million of your tax dollars running this Kool-Aid driven scam.
It isn’t just conservatives who believe that the fear of the traffic gods keeps everyone’s lead feet off the peddle.
Former Councilmember Juan Marcano, arguably the furthest left of left-leaning city lawmakers, “said he saw the pilot program as a tool to curb dangerous driving, and that being punished with a speeding ticket had the potential to change driving behavior in the short-term,” according to the Sentinel.
So on board climbed all but Zvonek and Gardner, insistent of the folly of the re-invented red-light-camera scheme.
That was then. This is now.
“This thing seems about as useful as a chicken-wire raft to me,” Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky said during last week’s meeting of the council’s public safety policy committee, where the talk was racing toward killing the boondoggle. “We’re going nowhere with it.”
She voted “yes, please” in 2022. My, what a difference a year and a half-million dollars makes.
It’s essentially as good as dead now.
Not that the tickets to Deterence Candy Mountain are ever in danger of languishing. While Zvonek and Gardner sniffed out a fake when it comes to photo-radar ticket trauma, prompting drivers across the city to hit the brakes on speeding, they still believe in magic.
Both are strong supporters of other city measures that were supposed to end car theft, and now shoplifting, by giving offenders a ticket to jail.
It’s like Zvonek and Gardner taunting the rest for believing in Santa, all the while talking up the importance of a solid Aurora relationship with the Easter Bunny.
If you believe that jail threat actually has had something to do with a gradual reduction in car thefts and shoplifting, you’d have to believe that Aurora’s unique jail threat is so magical that it actually reduced car theft and shoplifting not just here, but by the same, exact rate across the metro region, across the state and, goodness gracious, across the entire country.
That’s some powerful magic, which, no doubt, this or another future Aurora City Council will be swearing on or swearing off again in the future.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
Call me crazy but in my humble opinion the only true solution for all of our vehicle related woes is to go completely autonomous and revoke everyone’s driving privileges across the board. I think it’s already on the horizon, I’m here for it. I drive for work and no longer love it like I used to. An autonomous future provides a definitive end to rush hours and traffic jams, speeding, aggressive and distracted driving, driving under the influence, etc. That’s my candy mountain.
Who “loves” driving to work? Honestly, this cultural belief that if you’re not in a constant state of euphoric bliss in life, then there’s something wrong that needs to be corrected really has to end. The “happiest” people are usually the ones who lead rather staid, uneventful lives because they’re not constantly chasing dopamine hits.
And let’s be realistic, the Fully Automated Luxury Space Future just isn’t happening. “Utopia” means “nowhere” for a reason.
Flavor-Aid, not Kool-Aid.
Know your Jonestown meme.
Gosh Dave, you mean council members who supported it saw that it wasn’t coming out on the positive end of the cost-benefit results, and decided to end the program rather than continue on with it? Isn’t that what adults running a complex society should do in a situation like that? How is that in any way related to what happened at Jonestown (which was run by a radical leftist, incidentally)?
So let’s see–you’d complain if they decided to keep it going, obviously, and you’re complaining because they decided to end it. So what exactly is the problem?
A couple of observations to re frame this piece. The part “previous city council listened to a different carnival barker” That carnival barker was not a “different” promoter as you say. A little outfit called Xerox/ Conduent Transportation was the same company that had the years long benefit of the Red-Light intersection camera contract with Aurora. The voters summarily sent a message, we don’t like ticketing cameras period!
Here came a new ticketing scheme, yet same ole promoter.
And what a new sales pitch this company could advance, “fairness of enforcement”.
https://insights.conduent.com/transportation-solutions/advancing-social-equity-and-improving-automated-traffic-enforcement-systems
“Advancing social equity and improving automated traffic enforcement systems.”
These carefully chosen words were magic words to the ears of woke “Council member Juan Marcano, arguably the furthest left of left-leaning city.”
“Automated speed and red light enforcement systems play a pivotal role in reducing motor vehicle injuries. Increasingly, these systems are also influencing social equity initiatives by providing insights that promote fairness in otherwise marginalized communities. Discover how new technologies are helping to improve social equity while enhancing public safety.” Advancing social equity and improving automated traffic enforcement systems Proper deployment of enforcement systems ensures geographical and socioeconomic diversity.
Pretty simple, this electronic speed trap sales pitch, was something just to good for council to resist.
Please, there is no Candy Mountain. There is a Big Rock Candy Mountain and there is a Sugar Mountain, but not a plain old candy one.
Shun the non-believer. Shuuuuuuuuuun.
Well I stand corrected.
Oh. My. Goodness. I can’t believe I actually watched every bit of that YouTube video! Oh, and, Dave… You spelled believer wrong. Thanks for the laugh!
Want to stop people running red lights or speeding?
Hire those people who are already standing on the street medians, equip them with radar guns or cameras, train them briefly, and then sit back and watch the money roll in.
No, this isn’t (entirely) snark.
I appreciate all attempts to make our streets safer — especially near schools and at high accident intersections. I don’t understand why Editor Perry is choosing to be snarky about these public safety initiatives. Ever since the introduction of the horseless carriage, cities all over the world keep trying to manage traffic in new and better ways. Some attempts work, some don’t.
I will add that after recently spending a full day shopping for affordable car insurance, I am even more motivated to avoid any moving violation.
In reality, any attempt to manage traffic, in any location, does not work. Your fellow motorists could care less about any restriction or fines in reference to any such attempt. They will simply do what they want until they kill or injure someone. In reference to auto insurance, a great number of those driving don’t have it and refuse to obtain it, one of the main problems with its affordability. This will not change.
Ever since the COVID lockdowns speeding has gotten much worse. I would like to see how many tickets have been given. The revenue is not the point (but city coffers could benefit projects that help citizens). It may not prove to be a deterrent to some drivers, but it will be to others. Even those not ticketed and bystanders probably think about being more careful.