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Mr. Van Gelder said these were developed jointly between City Staff with Nestor, based on its experience in other cities. Nestor does a pre-installation and pre-proposal review of the specific location. While Nestor is not in the business of writing citations for free, they do not make a lot of money. It does have to show some profit. Ms. Ayala asked if the City has looked at the opposite end of this. What if we gave 50 citations? Mr. Van Gelder said he thought the police would use some discretion in what citations are signed. There are some other factors involved and while he is very confident that the clarity of the high-speed video is good on the license number, it is also good to get a clear picture of the driver also. A certain amount of these will not be ones that we cannot comfortably write a citation on. Ms. Ayala asked if Mr. Van Gelder was confident that the City was not making millionaires out of this company. Mr. Van Gelder said he was. He said there is another option and the contract is still being finalized. The City could take grant money and pay up front on the purchase of the hardware. Right now that is not the preferred way to approach it, because we propose to use that same monies for the Park and Ride hub at that location.. Ms. Ayala said she was concerned that there is a minimum and no maximum and therefore it is to the company's advantage to catch more red light runners because the more red light runners are caught, the more money is made. Ms. McKeehan said that the company is not controlling that. The Police Department controls the number of citations. This is not developed from a revenue/expense standpoint. Those that are legitimate violations will be looked at and then how clear the evidence is, which is normal procedure. Ms. Ayala said that means there is a percentage that couldn't be used. Ms. McKeehan said that is correct. She addressed the minimum numbers needed. She said she would hope that the City would get to the point where we do not meet the minimum. Because if we have done that, it means the intersection is a whole lot safer than it is today. We don't approach traffic enforcement at all in Pleasanton from a revenue or expense standpoint. She receives calls periodically from individuals who will say, "I am really concerned because I got this ticket; Pleasanton must be making a lot of money this way." The City does not cover the cost of enforcement personnel through the cost of the ticket. They are dramatically more expensive than that and it is not the philosophy. We want the traffic index to get to a point where we are comfortable that we are doing the best job we can to make sure folks coming and going through town are as safe as they can be. She appreciated why Ms. Ayala was looking at it from a financial perspective, but that isn't the philosophy of what we do with traffic enforcement. Pleasanton City Council 17 04/17/01 Minutes