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light violation: the red light and the car going through. Therefore, you cannot sit across the street somewhere and see your light turn green, watch a car go through the intersection, and write the red light citation. This creates the situation where by film or by video the police can actually issue the ticket. A small percentage of the actual video images that they capture are prosecutable cases. The police officer or representative reviews those and based on local standards, decides whether it be prosecuted or not. Ms. Ayala said she wanted to go back to the first device, the radar gun. Has that program proven to be beneficial? Captain Radford said that the police department doesn't yet know if it is. There are a few people signed up that are working the radar in their neighborhood and the first group of letters went out today to speeding violators. Mr. Van Gelder said that he has seen the program in other areas, as had the Police Chief. In Seattle the traffic engineer wrote the letters, rather than the Police Depl~uhnent, which gave it a slightly different flavor. It was extremely useful to Pleasanton because we do get a small percentage of extremely concerned residents and by offering this program they get to participate in helping to solve the problem. If the residents stand on the comer with a radar speed meter, they can see the people they thought that were going by at 40 or 50 miles per hour were really only going about 25 or 30 miles per hour. It is an educational tool to help the citizens feel more comfortable about their neighborhood. He thought about 90% of the requests he received to implement the program, when the resident found out that it was going to take some effort on their part to work it, the problem wasn't nearly as bad as it was before. We solved the problem by just having the program that we offer. Ms. Ayala said she would feel better if there were more information in front of her that was saying these elements that we have added are helpful and these are statistics. She said she is tom because the extension of the red light makes sense to her but the "big brother" aspect is probably going to make her not support this. Ms. McKeehan said she could appreciate where Councilmember Ayala is coming from because there is a similar type of debate about the radar gun program. But there is a distinction between the two. One, the neighborhood radar program is actually almost like the check-out done at the library. It is an opportunity for folks in their own neighborhoods to take a tool that we have and use it, as opposed to the photo radar, which does get a little closer to "big brother" in the sense that the Police Department is not there. You can actually see a person with a radar device in the neighborhood and then we send out letters that are not traffic violations. The letters say you were seen driving fast in your neighborhood or clocked at a certain speed by way of radar. Actually, many folks may not know this, we will even send letters just if someone sees someone driving fast in town, we will sometimes send those letters to kids, and to parents letting them know their children were seen driving fast. It has an impact. In one case you are actually able to see a body with a radar gun that it out there and is an educational tool. The photo radar is a Pleasanton City Council 21 04/17/01 Minutes