Court Decisions Vendor shuts city out of information related to red-light cameras (ACS in Tallahassee)
Vendor shuts city out of information related to red-light cameras
7:45 PM, Jul. 29, 2011 |
Written by
TaMaryn Waters
Democrat Staff Writer Filed Under
City of Tallahassee officials denied a public-records request for individual red-light camera citations, saying its contractor would not do so without redacting the names and addresses of those cited.
City Deputy Attorney Lewis Shelley said the city will cooperate to seek an attorney general’s opinion and a declaratory judgment in court that will resolve the issue and free the records.
“There is no court case that says (ACS) has to give them to us and that’s why (ACS) is hesitant,” Shelley said regarding the release of the records.
ACS State & Local Solutions, the Virginia-based vendor for red-light enforcement, wrote that federal law and its own agreement with the state’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles prohibit it from providing the citations that include the names and addresses of those receiving the tickets.
City officials said they, too, cannot get the information from its vendor.
“It is our understanding, from Federal and State law as well as from the access ranted from the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles . . ., that this information is confidential in nature and has restrictions on the dissemination thereof,” wrote James Haddow Jr., associate corporate Counsel for ACS, in a July 20 letter to the city.
That position seems to be in conflict with state open-records law.
A 2010 advisory opinion from the Florida Office of the Attorney General addressed a similar situation with the South Florida city of Juno Beach. The advisory opinion indicated a request for public records should be fulfilled.
“To the extent information is taken from these records and used in preparing other records of the law enforcement agency or its agent, the confidentiality requirements do not reach records created by subsequent users,” the opinion stated.
Shelley said the city could not fulfill a July 15 open-records request from the Tallahassee Democrat. The request asked for a complete list, including names, of all mailed citations from Aug. 1, 2010 to July 15.
“If ACS said fine, we don’t have any objections, we’d give it to you in a second,” Shelley said Wednesday at City Hall. “We quite honestly assumed without putting anything in the contract that it would all be public record.”
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The city signed a contract with ACS on Dec. 11, 2009, for the installation, operation and maintenance of the city’s Red Light Camera Safety Enforcement Program. Seventeen cameras are now operating; more are on the way.
ACS has been paid $436,928 from cameras in Tallahassee Aug. 1, 2010 to mid July. The city’s cut was $878,022. Shelley said the red-light camera contract is the first contract the city has had with ACS.
City officials say it’s a matter of how the driver information is obtained.
If a police officer issues a ticket to a driver for running a red light, the driver’s personal information would be part of the police report. And police reports are public records, said Michelle Bono, assistant to the city manager.
“That’s what’s hard for us,” Bono said. “What’s protected is not just the information but how they got it.”
Jim Rhea, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation, said the city should have had more foresight when it comes to avoid a potential conflicts with public records.
“Agencies should consider the impact of the contracts that they enter into with private vendors and the impact they have on access to records,” he said.
City Commissioner Gil Ziffer said he was under the impression the city would be able to get information, especially from one of its own vendors.
“I am surprised that we do not have access to information from ACS since we have a contractual relationship” Ziffer said. “It does seem odd.”
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