HomeMy WebLinkAboutCorrespondence - Item 27 Becerra, Alexis
From: Dale Helvig <
Sent: Monday, August 3, 2026 2:56 PM
To: eComment; Amezcua, Valerie; Phan, Thai; Vazquez, Benjamin; Lopez, Jessie; Bacerra,
Phil; Hernandez, Johnathan; Penaloza, David
Cc: Nunez, Alvaro; Carvalho, Sonia R.; Thai, Minh; Vazquez, Sylvia; Hall, Jennifer
Subject: 2026-08-04 Letter to City Council - Item 27
Attachments: 2026-08-04 Letter to City Council - Item 27.pdf
Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana.Use caution when opening attachments or links.
See attached file.
Dale Helvig
Resident, Santa Ana
1
Dale Helvig
Resident, Santa Ana CA 92706
August 3, 2026
Mayor Amezcua and Santa Ana City Councilmembers
City of Santa Ana
20 Civic Center Plaza, 81" Floor
Santa Ana CA 92702
Subject: Items 27 - Establishing a Speed Safety System Pilot Program
Public safety is the issue here. This is the first step the City of Santa Ana needs to take to bring in a
program that has shown good results. This resolution is a request to the state to be included in a pilot
program. We need to do something, and this is the first step.
APPROVE THIS ITEM.
Respectfully,
Dale A Helvig
Resident, Santa Ana
cc: Alvaro Nunez, Minh Thai,
City Manager, Santa Ana Deputy City Manager, Santa Ana
Sonia Carvalho, Sylvia Vazquez,
City Attorney, Santa Ana Deputy City Manager, Santa Ana
Page 1 of 1
2026-08-04 Letter to City Council-Item 27
Becerra, Alexis
From: Riverview NA <riverviewna@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 11:07 AM
To: eComment
Subject: Support Item 27
Attention:This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana. Use caution when opening attachments or links.
Dear Mayor and Councilmembers,
On behalf of the Riverview Neighborhood,we strongly support the consideration of a Speed Safety System Pilot
Program.
Our city needs more tools in order to curb the dangerous speeding and running of red lights causing significant harm and
even death.
Our neighborhood suffers from drivers who ignore stop signs and signals, using our small streets as thoroughfares.
We've struggled to get speed humps and have yet to obtain them, however we strongly support all efforts to make our
city streets safer. Please support efforts to consider a Speed Safety System for Santa Ana.
Respectfully,
Martha Molina, President
Riverview Neighborhood Association
i
Becerra, Alexis
From: Bulmaro Vicente <boomer@chispaoc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 1:36 PM
To: eComment
Cc: Amaris Montes; Allison Rubinfeld
Subject: Public Comment CC 8.04.26 - Item 27
Attachments: 8.04.26. SA CC- Chispa Item 27 (Final).pdf
-Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana.Use caution when opening attachments or links.
Hi,
On behalf of Chispa and ACLU Southern California, please find our letter of opposition for Item 27.
In Solidarity,
Boomer
Policy and Political Director I Chispa
e: boomeWchispaoc.org c: 714-747.4271
1505 E 17th Street Suite 117 Santa Ana, CA 92705
Chispa is building a political home for young Latinxs in Orange County! Please consider making a donation to
help us build our casita. Chispa is a project of Tides Advocacy, a 50ic4 non-profit organization.
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August 04, 2026
Mayor Amezcua and Members of the Council
City of Santa Ana
20 Civic Center Plaza
Santa Ana, CA 92701
Re: Item 27 -AB 645 Speed Safety System Pilot Program
Dear Mayor Amezcua and Members of the City Council,
On behalf of Chispa and the ACLU of Southern California, we write to express our opposition
to Item #27, which proposes a resolution requesting that the California Legislature amend AB 645 to
allow the City of Santa Ana(City)to establish a Speed Safety System Pilot Program. While we
support prioritizing safe streets, the proposed Program is not the most effective means of making
our streets safer and will increase surveillance of community members. We strongly urge the
City to vote NO on Item 27 and to instead adopt readily available, cost-effective alternatives that
do not raise the fundamental privacy and equity concerns presented by the Speed Safety Pilot
Program.
We share the City's commitment to reducing traffic fatalities and creating safer streets. Speeding
is a serious public safety issue, and everyone deserves to safely walk, bike, and drive throughout
Santa Ana. However, expanding automated speed camera enforcement is not the most effective
way to reduce speeding vehicles, and the negative effects of expanded speed camera enforcement
disproportionately impact low-income communities of color. Instead of investing in additional
surveillance technology, Santa Ana should prioritize proven infrastructure improvements that
make streets safer by design.
As outlined in the staff report, the Proposed Speed Safety Program would rely on automated
cameras and radar systems that capture images of vehicles and license plates to enforce speed
violations. However, safety cannot be achieved through surveillance. True safety requires
investment in capital improvements, especially in those areas least equitably served. For
instance, traffic calming uses physical infrastructure changes to create multi-modal roads that
increase mobility for nondrivers, decrease car-based travel, reduce pollution and congestion on
roads, and create more efficient physical spaces.' When compared to surveillance measures,
traffic calming can achieve the outcomes we want for our communities at a lower short-term cost
1 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION,Federal Highway Administration, Traffick
Calming ePrimer, https://highways.dot.gov/safety/speed-management/traffic-calming-epn*mer.
1
and does not require the steep ongoing costs of speed cameras that often leave communities
saddled with long-term bills for surveillance that does not make the community safer.2
Our community has been loud and clear—it does not support any expansion of surveillance
technology. When this proposal first came before the City Council earlier this year, community
members and organizations, including Chispa, spoke in opposition and called for the City to
prioritize non-surveillance approaches to traffic safety. Chispa launched a public petition
opposing automated speed cameras in Santa Ana. Nearly 150 residents and community
supporters signed the petition, demonstrating the heightened public concern about expanding
surveillance technologies in our city. These concerns are not unique to Santa Ana. When AB 645
was originally debated and passed in 2023, it faced significant opposition from civil rights and
community organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Black Lives Matter California, and
ACLU California Action.3 These groups raised concerns about privacy, data collection, potential
misuse, and the disproportionate impact automated enforcement systems can have on low-
income, and immigrant communities.
In addition, data from other cities show troubling statistics. In Chicago, between 2015 and 2019,
speed cameras ticketed households in majority Black and Latino ZIP codes at two times the rate
of majority white zip codes.4 Similarly, in the District of Columbia—where photo enforcement
accounts for 96 percent of citations and 97 percent of fines—drivers in Black-segregated areas
were over seventeen times more likely to receive a moving violation than drivers in white-
segregated areas.5 When ending Rochester's red light camera program, the mayor noted that the
city's automated ticketing through their surveillance program "disproportionately affected the
poorest residents" and was "counter to [their] efforts to reverse Rochester's troubling rates of
poverty." 6 A study of Cleveland's speed camera program found that Black drivers received 6 1%
of tickets despite making up only 38% of drivers.7 This reflects a clear trend automated
enforcement mechanisms—disproportionately target and ticket drivers in Black, Indigenous,
People of Color(BIPOC) neighborhoods. The increased number of tickets issued through
surveillance technology especially burden low-income Californians, who have less money to
2 Todd Litman, Traffic Calming Benefits, Costs and Equity Impacts,VICTORIA TRANSPORT POLICY
INSTITUTE(December 7, 1999)https://www.vtpi.org/calming.pdf.
3CALMATTERs DIGITAL DEMOCRACY,AB645: Vehicles: speed safety system pilot program, (Oct. 13,
2023)https:Hcalmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab645.
4 Emily Hopkins and Melissa Sanchez, Chicago's Race Neutral Traffic Cameras Ticket Black and Latino
Drivers the Most, PROPUBLICA(January 11, 2022) https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-
neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most.
s William Farrell,Predominately Black Neighborhoods in D.C. Bear the Brunt of Automated Traffic
Enforcement,D.C.POLICY CENTER(June 28, 2018)
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/predominately-black-neighborhoods-in-d-c-bear-the-brunt-
of-automated-traffic-enforcement/.
6 Will Cleveland,Red Light Camera Program Turned Off, ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE
(Dec. 21,2016) https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2016/12/20/red-light-camera-
program-turned-off/95679500/?gnt-cfi=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-
epti=z 1163xxe 1163xxv000031&gca-ft=146&gca-ds=sophi.
' Susannah Parsons, Can Automated Speed Safety Systems Advance Racial and Economic Equity, SPUR
(April 28, 2021)www.spur.org/news/2021-04-28/can-automated-speed-safety-systems-advance-racial-
and-economic-equity.
2
spare for tickets and are more likely to be subject to additional consequences for nonpayment.
While the amount of the fine for a violation is an annoyance to affluent drivers, it can impact
people with lower incomes' ability to feed their families or afford medical care, often initiating a
cascade of consequences.
Voting NO on Item 27 is especially important given the City's recent adoption of Automatic
License Plate Reader(ALPR)technology through Flock. As the City considers additional
automated enforcement tools, it is necessary to be critical of the impact of this ever-increasing
surveillance system. This surveillance technology does not make the community safer and puts
the most vulnerable in our community at risk through data sharing with other agencies such as
immigration agencies.8
We are also concerned about the financial implications of this proposal. According to the staff
report, implementing a Santa Ana program could cost approximately $2 million in startup costs
and between $1.5 million and $2 million annually to operate. While the report suggests citation
revenue may help offset these costs, it also acknowledges that if the program is successful at
reducing speeding, that revenue will naturally decline over time. This raises legitimate questions
about whether the city's limited resources would be better invested in permanent street safety
improvements, especially when there are serious implementation issues for these systems that
unnecessarily waste taxpayer money. Cities like San Francisco have experienced delays and
challenges in rolling out speed camera programs, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and
effectiveness.9 Speed cameras could also be exploited against communities without making
neighborhoods safer. For example, in 2021, Chicago changed its speed camera program to issue
tickets for driving 6 mph above the speed limit, generating $89 million in fines in just one year
and increasing the daily tickets issued by nearly ninefold—all while pedestrian fatalities
increased that same year. 10
Furthermore, while this Program requires substantial startup costs, the Program can result in
exponential costs to Santa Ana residents over time. While these speed trap programs may start
small, they often balloon into ever expanding surveillance and ticketing apparatuses that result in
millions more tickets being issued, further incentivizing the growth of these programs regardless
of whether they result in fewer speed-related traffic collisions. New York, for example, started
'See, e.g., Khari Johnson and Mohamed Al Elew, California police are illegally sharing license plate
data with ICE and Border Patrol, CALMATTERS (June 13, 2025)
https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/06/califomia-police-sharing-license-plate-reader-data/;
Russell Brandom,Exclusive:ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US, THE VERGE(Jan.
26, 2018)https://www.theverge.com/2018/l/26/16932350/ice-immigration-customs-license-plate-
recognition-contract-vigilant-solutions; Vasudha Talla,Documents Reveal ICE Using Driver Location
Data From Local Police for Deportations,ACLU OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA(Mar. 13, 2019)
https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses/documents-reveal-ice-using-
driver-location-data.
9 Azule Dahlstrom-Eckman,Just Over Half of SF's Speed Cameras Are Operational. What's With the
Slowdown?,KQED (May 14, 2025)https://www.kged.org/news/12039914/just-over-half-sfs-speed-
cameras-operational-whats-with-slowdown.
10 Priya Sarathy Jones, Traffic enforcement cannot do the job of better roadway design, SMART GROWTH
AMERICA(July 12,2022)https://www.smartgrowthamen*ca.org/knowledge-hub/news/traffic-
enforcement-cannot-do-the job-of-better-roadway-design/.
3
its speed camera program in 2012 with a pilot of 20 school speed zones, but planned in 2021 to
install an average of 60 additional cameras per month to bring the city to a total of 2,220
cameras.11 In 2020, New York City issued 4,397,375 speed camera tickets, totaling nearly $220
million in tickets. In Chicago, speed cameras resulted in a ticket being issued every eleven
seconds, totaling more speed camera tickets in 10 months than had been issued in the previous
three years combined.12
There are successful alternatives that improve traffic safety without expanding surveillance.
Investments in speed humps, raised crosswalks, curb extensions, protected bicycle facilities, lane
reductions, chicanes, and roundabouts consistently reduce speeding while making streets safer
for everyone. We encourage the City to continue prioritizing these evidence-based infrastructure
improvements over automated enforcement and surveillance.
Traffic safety and civil liberties are not competing values. Santa Ana can build safer streets
without expanding automated surveillance. We believe the City should continue investing in
engineering improvements, education, and community-centered safety strategies rather than
pursuing legislation that would authorize another surveillance-based automated enforcement
program.
For these reasons, Chispa and the ACLU of Southern California respectfully urge the City
Council to vote NO on Item 27 and reject the resolution requesting that the Legislature expand
AB 645 to include the City of Santa Ana.
Best,
Bulmaro Vicente,
Policy and Political Director
Chispa
�,
Amaris Montes
Allison Rubinfeld
Staff Attorneys
ACLU of Southern California
" Ydania Rodriguez,New York City Automated Speed Enforcement Program: 2014-2020 Report,NYC
DOT,https:Ha860-gpp.nyc.gov/concern/nyc_government_publications/lz4Okw74g?locale=en.
Patrick Andriesen, Chicago's Speed Cameras Ticket 8x Faster After Limit Drops to 6MPH.1LLINOIS
POLICY(Jan. 3, 2022)https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicagos-speed-cameras-ticket-8x-faster-after-limit-
drops-to-6-mph/.
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Zuniga, Diana
From: Le, Lan-Anh <lan-anh.le@lgbtgcenteroc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2026 2:25 PM
To: eComment
Subject: Agenda Item 27 Comment 8/4/2026
Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana.Use caution when opening attachments or links.
Dear Mayor and Council Members:
My name is Lan-Anh Le, and I work with the Immigration Resources Department at LGBTQ Center OC. I am writing to
express concern regarding Agenda Item 27, which would support a request to the California Legislature to amend AB 645
so that Santa Ana could participate in the state's Speed Safety System Pilot Program.
We respectfully urge the City Council to vote NO on Item 27. Seeking legislative authority for automated enforcement
before conducting a transparent and community-centered assessment of the program's costs, effectiveness, civil-rights
implications, and potential alternatives is premature.
Santa Ana residents deserve clear and accessible information about where cameras could be located, who would have
access to the data, how long it would be retained, the role of private vendors, the circumstances under which information
could be disclosed, and how residents could contest citations or request reduced penalties.
These questions are especially important for the immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities our organization serves. Many
community members are deeply concerned about government surveillance and the collection or sharing of personal
information. Language barriers, limited access to technology, and fear or distrust of government systems could also make
it more difficult for some residents to understand notices, exercise their appeal rights, or seek financial relief. LGBTQ+
immigrants, transgender residents, and LGBTQ+ people of color should be meaningfully included in any assessment of
the program's privacy and civil-rights implications.
Before asking the Legislature to expand AB 645, we hope that the City can engage directly with residents and
organizations representing immigrant communities, LGBTQ+ people, low-income residents, communities of color, privacy
advocates, and traffic-safety experts; as well as evaluate the anticipated costs and effectiveness of automated
enforcement and compare it with infrastructure-based alternatives that could reduce dangerous driving without expanding
surveillance.
For these reasons, we respectfully urge the City Council to vote NO on Agenda Item 27 and instead pursue a transparent
community-engagement process before taking further action.
Thank you for your consideration and for your commitment to the safety, privacy, and dignity of all Santa Ana residents.
Best,
Lan-Anh Le (he/they)
Legal Empowerment Intern
Immigration Resources Department
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