Gainesville City Commission gets update on federal grants, moves forward with school speed zone and red-light-running cameras
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the February 27 General Policy Committee meeting, the Gainesville City Commission heard an update on federal grant funds and moved forward with school speed zone and red-light-running cameras.
Federal grants
Finance Director Dennis Nguyen said, “As you know, grants play an important role in supporting essential functions for our City, providing enhancement to public services, infrastructure, and community programs. Federal and state grants enable our City to undertake projects that otherwise might not be financially feasible.”
Nguyen presented a chart showing how the City’s 80 active grants for a total of $146 million are distributed, with about $127 million from the federal government, $18 million from the state, and $75,000 from local sources.
The majority of grants, almost $67 million, go to RTS for capital and route assistance. About $32.4 million in ARPA funds have been allocated but have not been fully spent; Housing and Community Development has $23 million in awards for home rehabilitation and community housing assistance; and Public Works has $19 million in grants for infrastructure projects.
Nguyen said climate and environmental grants “have been a target for the current administration; we do know our EV infrastructure grant that was just awarded to us last month is on pause. We also know a solar panel grant that was awarded to RTS is also at risk.”
“The current administration, particularly the current Congress, might have different ideas, but this was passed under the previous Congress, and you know, we should go spend that, as opposed to having those impounded.” – Commissioner Casey Willits
Commissioner Casey Willits said, “Everyone can think something is waste or fraud or abuse, but we have real professional associations, the blue and the yellow book that our City operates under to understand all those auditing practices… The solar panel project was a great one – I hope the federal government realizes, after they look into it a little bit and realize how good we are at making sure we produce the goals that the federal government has set. This was set under a previous administration, and we should be allowed to finish those goals. The current administration, particularly the current Congress, might have different ideas, but this was passed under the previous Congress, and you know, we should go spend that, as opposed to having those impounded.”
Commissioner Ed Book said, “From a government efficiency standpoint, having outside funding sources is efficient because that is a tremendous amount of less money… [to] help us do more work with less money coming directly from the citizens within the city of Gainesville.” He offered a list of some other organizations that provide grants, based on his experience as the Santa Fe College Police Chief.
“This is money coming back to our community that we have already paid in the form of federal taxes. So if we don’t get it, somebody else is going to get it, and I really like it when our tax money comes back to us to invest in our community. That’s how it’s supposed to work.” – Mayor Harvey Ward
Mayor Harvey Ward added, “I want to remind everyone that, particularly when we’re talking about federal grants, what we’re talking about is our tax dollars. When any of us pay our taxes, every payroll, and file our tax forms every year, that money goes to the federal government. This is money coming back to our community that we have already paid in the form of federal taxes. So if we don’t get it, somebody else is going to get it, and I really like it when our tax money comes back to us to invest in our community. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
School speed zone enforcement cameras
Captain Summer Hallett said Gainesville Police Department (GPD) recommends contracting with Red Speed, which is the same company used by the Cities of High Springs and Alachua (High Springs is the only local area with active cameras at this time), and violations will be captured if a vehicle is 10 miles over the posted speed limit at the time of the violation. A local traffic enforcement officer reviews the violation and sends it to the registered owner of the vehicle if the violation is verified. The owner can pay the fine of $100 or contest it; if the owner does not respond within 30 days, a traffic citation is generated. For every $100 citation, the police department gets $60, and they pay $21 to Red Speed out of that; $12 goes to the school district for student safety, and $5 goes to the school crossing guard recruitment and retention program. GPD recommended starting with two schools, possibly Lincoln Middle School and Talbot Elementary School.
Hallett said the City Attorney’s office said the City could “piggyback” on the City of Plantation’s contract instead of going through a bid process; GPD Chief Nelson Moya also said this is good for the City because the contract has already been vetted and proven to have a track record of success.
Hallett said High Springs’ system has generated about 900 violations, mostly on school days but not when the school zones are active. She said the cameras have generated $40,000-50,000 in revenue for traffic safety programs, and only “one or two” have been contested.
Hallett said GPD recommends starting with two schools so they can see whether the program puts pressure on staffing.
Ward said he didn’t “want people trying to figure out which school zones they have to be careful in.”
“We’re using technology to help law enforcement and increase safety. And that’s always good because it is enormously costly to put a law enforcement officer for that same block of time in any location.” – Commissioner Ed Book
Book said, “This is what we’re using as a force leverager, which is a good thing. We’re using technology to help law enforcement and increase safety. And that’s always good because it is enormously costly to put a law enforcement officer for that same block of time in any location.” He suggested selecting four schools, one in each quadrant of the city.
Nobody spoke during public comment, and Book made a motion to authorize the City Attorney to draft the ordinance and advertise it for first and second readings; the motion passed unanimously.
Red light violation cameras
Next, Commissioners took up a request to authorize the City Attorney’s Office to draft an ordinance authorizing cameras to automatically send out violations for running red lights.
Karla Rodrigues Silva, the City’s Vision Zero Coordinator, said that a review of the published literature indicates that red light cameras decrease crashes; although the studies also indicate an increase in rear-end crashes, she said, these tend to be less severe. Local data indicates that 41.2% of crashes in the city of Gainesville are intersection-related crashes and 48% of red-light-running crashes in Gainesville lead to injury.
City staff determined that the intersections listed above are the top 15 for red light running, but they decided to start with only two intersections, NE 39th Avenue & NE Waldo Road and NW 23rd Avenue & NW 6th Street.
Captain Hallett said a violation is a civil infraction that has no points and is not reported to the vehicle owner’s insurance company; the camera does not take pictures of the driver but just captures the tag, and the violation is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle. Like the school zone cameras, the violation is sent to the police department for review to determine whether there was a violation, and the vehicle’s owner can contest it. Tickets are $158, with $75 going to the City (minus the amount sent to the vendor, which was not discussed), $70 to the state General Revenue Fund, $10 to the Department of Health Emergency Medical Services Trust Fund, and $3 to the Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund.
“Make no mistake, y’all, there will be some blowback on this, there will be some Big Brother conversations about this, but this is going to save lives.” – Mayor Harvey Ward
Ward said he supported the red light cameras “to save lives in our community… Make no mistake, y’all, there will be some blowback on this, there will be some Big Brother conversations about this, but this is going to save lives.”
After some discussion about whether the recommendation from staff was to advertise the ordinance or ask the City Attorney to review the current ordinance and determine whether it needs to be updated to align with a recent statute change, Commissioner Bryan Eastman said he wanted the funds raised from the citations to go into pedestrian road safety projects.
Ward said, “I would remind everyone watching at home and here on the dais that it’s already illegal. You’re not allowed to drive through a red light. We just don’t have, and neither does any other community in America have, the resources to have an officer sitting there to enforce that all the time, and people die because we don’t enforce it.” He liked a phrase Book had used – “collateral deterrence” – to describe the effect of a few cameras leading to increased caution throughout the city to avoid citations.
Ward added that there will be social media posts claiming that the City is doing this to increase revenue, but “this is going to cost us money – I mean, in the long run, this is not something that is a revenue-positive sort of thing. It is a time-intensive, staff-intensive issue at GPD… It’s not revenue positive; it is hopefully life-positive.”
“That is absolutely not what I was expecting for these two topics, to not have any public comment, but I’ll promise you, before we get to the second reading of this ordinance and the one we discussed earlier, we will have some public comment on this.” – Mayor Harvey Ward
Nobody spoke during public comment, and Ward said, “That is absolutely not what I was expecting for these two topics, to not have any public comment, but I’ll promise you, before we get to the second reading of this ordinance and the one we discussed earlier, we will have some public comment on this.”
Eastman made a motion to authorize the City Attorney’s office to draft an ordinance to authorize red-light-running enforcement and advertise the ordinance for first reading, and Book seconded the motion.
Just as Ward called for the vote, City Clerk Kristen Bryant asked for a clarification because of the previous discussion about reviewing the current ordinance as opposed to drafting the ordinance right away.
City Manager Cynthia Curry referred to the presentation given earlier, which included a recommendation to receive the presentation, authorize the City Attorney’s office to review the current ordinance to authorize red light running enforcement, and advertise the ordinance for first reading and return to the City Commission for consideration.
Eastman changed his motion to align with the staff recommendation, and Book agreed with the change. The motion passed unanimously.
City management and RTS need to give up a LOT of their money to Police and Fire Department. Why do they sooooooo much $$$$$. Corruption is name of the democrat game.
They fail to admit that due to their own failures at supporting law enforcement, there’s a shortage of officers to enforce the laws on the books.
Some of the officers who are still here have better things to do than stop traffic infractions🙃. You should see the number of times the red light in front of the police station gets run every day. Add to that the people texting and speeding through Stephen Foster school zone and it’s easy to determine somebody’s not doing their job.
Mayor Ward seems to have missed that our Federal Govt is and has been operating at a deficit. They are not sending us our tax money, they are sending us deficit funding that our kids and grandkids will be paying.
The City Manager has the CC by the balls! I guess she knows where the bodies are buried! Otherwise, it is unbelievable she would grab all the money without explaining how it is spent (line by line)! I don’t think the GCC has ever closed out the annual audits they have been delinquent on for years!
Don’t worry, the pigs at the trough will start in on each other when the State and Federal grants stop flowing as they did under their fraudulent, wasteful, and abusive, spending heroes FJB and Kumalla!
Doge is illegally eliminating agencies, programs, and departments set up by Congress.
Here’s a typical cut by Elmo and the Geek Squad:
“The Defense Department is set to make deep cuts to the civilian workforce focused on reducing civilian harm in U.S. military operations, according to three defense officials, part of a broader Trump administration shift to scale back protections of innocents so commanders can focus more on “lethality” when conducting military strikes.”
Others have already caused tens of thousands of deaths now and in the near future.
What a joke, “civilian workforce focused on reducing civilian harm in U.S. military operations.” This sounds like more FEMA fata$$es who deny assistance to Trump supporters! What “miltary operations” are these desk jockeys addressing? 10s of thousands of deaths? That is total BS!
Besides that, DOGE has not eliminated one position! OPM has at the direction of the President perhaps! DOGE is identifying the fat and wasteful spending that has gone on in spite of past administrations vowing to cut fraud, waste, and abuse!
PS Speaking of “fraudulent, wasteful, and abusive”, enjoy the trade war!
“On Monday, an economic growth model from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta forecast a steep decline for the first three months of this year — a 2.8 percent contraction in economic growth, after nearly three years of solid growth.”
Yep, budget corrections hurt! So does leveling the economic playing field with the countries who have been screwing the US with their tariffs/taxes for years now.
Can’t hurt anymore than the Annual Democratic Spending Spree to steal from hard working Americans and giving to illegal immigrants, the stay at home Federal Workers who now feel entitled to stay home, the dead Social Security, SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid recipients!
How about supporting girls, and keep “boys to men” out of their sports?
Lots of things would be feasible if not for the fiscal incompetence of the locally elected idiots. There’s no telling how much potential malfeasance they’ve committed with tax revenues and “grants.”
They should fix the damn light at NW 6th and NW 23rd. I’ve called multiple times about the timing and they continue to ignore it. I’d like lard-ass Harvey Ward to get in the intersection and experience it. I’ll sue the city if I’m in an accident there because that intersection and 6th & 16th have the same problem – 3 – 5 seconds every second cycle. I would suggest anyone else who’s been in an accident there do the same. You’ll own the city. Incompetent traffic engineers who continue to make excuses. Here’s their number – (352) 393-8429.
16th and 6th does not have the usual one-second delay after one direction turns red, before the other turns green. I just shake my head at the tards running (ruining) the city.
If you want to do something to protect the city from automobile drivers, add those running stop signs to the camera list! I have never seen such outright ignoring of stop signs as in this city, and county! AC and GNV drivers give new meaning to California Stops! A&&holes!
Red light cameras = City Commission money grab.
They should not be legal.
How do you prove someone was the person who ran the red light or was driving through the school zone?
When an officer goes to traffic court he has to ID the person he ticketed.
Can you say that about a photo of a car? Sure that’s the car, but you can’t say who was driving it.
You know liberal thinking… it’s the inanimate object’s fault but since you own it, you’re responsible for it.
The camera’s can capture the violation, but you would need a officer nearby to conduct a traffic stop and identify the individual.
So to hold up in court, this would be a two part system, the cameras capture and record, the officer stops, verifies identity, enters it into the file, and the system then issues the ticket.
They are lickin their lips 💋 now! The smell of free money. Why we’ll use those dollars to further our perverted plans for this pitiful city!
and, typically, they’ll shorten the yellow lights as low as (or lower than) the law allows if (when) revenue flattens out. Nice to have such an adversarial relationship with our elected representatives.
Now that their grants are at risk they are trying to nickle and dime us to make up for their shortfall.
Ward said, “this is going to cost us money – I mean, in the long run, this is not something that is a revenue-positive sort of thing. It is a time-intensive, staff-intensive issue at GPD… It’s not revenue positive.”
Leave it to that idiot to support something that has neither monetary or intrinsic value to the city.
Leave it the idiots who voted for him to think he really places any value in their opinions.
Surveillance tech vendors do well in Gainesville. Cameras in 5G-equipped streetlights, face recognition tech that brought national media attention to Gainesville for its creepiness, license plate readers, benches that detect nearby phones, considering and maybe implementing reports on social media comments about the city. As if buying “smart city” tech makes it smart. Data mining is the new gold rush. Please stop and assess actual need, cost, and risk for a change.
Well said and don’t forget the devices that capture and track every connected device that passes. Take note of the square pieces of equipment with 4 antennas protruding…mounted beside most traffic lights. Once you see the control grid being installed you can’t unsee it!
“Iteris’ BlueTOAD Spectra uses a variety of proprietary scanning techniques to search and match “discoverable” (unpaired) and “non-discoverable” (paired) based Bluetooth devices – adding greatly to the number of matches available for travel-time analysis.”
https://www.iteris.com/oursolutions/travel-time-measurement/BlueTOAD
👁️
Time to obtain a Harvey Ward mask for driving downtown.
How many deaths as a result of running red lights have occurred in the County or City in the last ten years?
Notice how Ward makes a virtue signaling speech about saving lives, but is this really an issue in Gainesville, do we have a bunch of deaths or accidents as a result of running red lights?
Distracted driving is Gainesville’s biggest problem, not running red lights. Put plain clothes officers on street corners with units around the major intersections, or use the traffic cameras, if a driver has their phone in their hand, have another unit pull them over and issue a ticket, or use the red light camera system to achieve the same objective, when the light turns green, if you have your phone in your hand, you get a ticket in the mail. That would increase revenue and take away the number one cause of accidents in a “college town”.
Ed Book got it right, “collateral defense”, that’s the best and most reasonable argument without the virtue signaling of Ward. Ed book should also be Mayor.
Ward does not care about “life”, my situation is testament to that, after all he is the Mayor and the buck stops with him, and his trusty golden Labrador Curry.
Also what is “life positive”, google it, lol. Now what context was he shooting for when he used it?
Also, the high springs model, resulted in a bunch of tickets “on school days, but not during school hours”.
So is this to ensure safety of kids coming and going to school, or the cities budget?
You could just use that money to pay for more officers and better pay, then, as well as traffic you have more police available to handle other things.
Correction “collateral deterrence”, also if you are involved in a traffic accident at any intersection with a traffic light camera, you should call public works, they have the traffic camera system in their building, and tell them to clip and save the footage from the intersection, you must do this within 30 mins of the accident.
I don’t know why this is not mandatory, as soon as a traffic crash call goes out over the radio, the people in that department should review the footage, save it, and turn it over to police for their investigation of the crash, that would save alot of time trying to figure out who is at fault.
Have a traffic detail officer, review the footage from the crash, and by the time the officers respond, they can FOLLOW THE TRAFFIC CRASH POLICY, lol, and the officer who reviewed the footage can tell them who to ticket.
So the police who responds main objective becomes taking care of the injured and clearing the roadway to resume normal traffic.
Local data indicates that 41.2% of crashes in the city of Gainesville are intersection-related crashes and 48% of red-light-running crashes in Gainesville lead to injury.
You have to watch these people and their use of statistics,
Out of the 41.2% how many are “right of way” accidents vs how many are “running red light” accidents.
So less than half of all crashes are intersection related, and of that 41.2% how many are “red light related”, then you can have true context on the “48%” of red light accidents that lead to injury.
Back in the Dark Ages they taught us this evil process called “Defensive Driving” full of such sacrilege like “look both ways after the light turns green before entering the intersection”.
It won’t be long before we can dump out this bucket of Heavey Lard and replace it with something else.
So Gainesville will ticket drivers at 39th and Waldo while the bums illegally hang around the medians. Figures.
Typical. Another boondoggle that gives 21% of revenue to an outfit not even from here. Add to that various impact evaluation studies of red light cameras (RLCs) showed an increase of rear-end collisions (up to 44%). While I mind my speed and don’t run red lights, that ain’t gonna help me when some inattentive student wallops me from behind. Thanks for nothing. Stop spending taxpayer money on things taxpayers DON’T WANT. This is an abrogation of fiscal stewardship.
It will probably make everyone’s auto insurance rates go up, too.
Note the effective date and you’ll understand why this is being rushed through now.
“Gov. DeSantis signs bill imposing restrictions on red light camera programs”
HB 1363, which passed the Senate and the House without a single no vote earlier this year, puts new stipulations on these controversial devices.
Localities are compelled to make annual reports of activity regarding traffic infraction detectors at public meetings.
Similarly, local legislative bodies are compelled to approve the contract for these devices during a publicly-noticed meeting.
Failure to comply with these requirements means the local jurisdiction is suspended from using these devices, per the legislation.
Additionally, the legislation puts stopgaps on localities that might want to contract with Chinese companies or those from other so-called “foreign countries of concern” (the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the Venezuelan government, or the Syrian Arab Republic) including any agency of or any other entity of significant control of such foreign country of concern.” that are involved in the red light camera business, after July 1, 2025.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/677484-gov-desantis-signs-bill-imposing-restrictions-on-red-light-camera-programs/
I left out a lengthy discussion of this upcoming deadline, but commissioners indicated they didn’t want to “rush” to get in under the wire; they could install the cameras without any change to their ordinance before July 1, but they don’t think the contract will be in place by then.
“..the legislation puts stopgaps on localities that might want to contract with Chinese companies or those from other so-called “foreign countries of concern” (the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the Venezuelan government, or the Syrian Arab Republic) including any agency of or any other entity of significant control of such foreign country of concern.”
Exactly…America can only use Israeli cameras. 🤡.
Why does everyone ignore the nation state that actually spies on everyone and uses it as blackmail?
I’m not sure I understand the High Springs school zone cameras. Why are they not catching people in the school zone during the time of drop off and pick up? Why are they active when school zone is not in active during the school week? Once the time frame ends for the school zones the cameras should shut off. This was the problem they had with several other camera systems where people were cited on Saturdays and Sundays for school zone violations.