YOUNGSTOWN – Unstaffed speed cameras in Youngstown school zones, last used in June 2023, will be turned back on in September, and unpaid citations from last year are forgiven.

“We will start anew,” city Law Director Lori Shell Simmons said. “If you have unpaid citations, don’t worry about them. People will be happy about that. We want to be fair. Everyone thought it would be cleaner to start afresh.”

A Wednesday meeting resulted in a resolution to a longstanding dispute between the city administration and judicial branch over how to handle appeals of speed citations.

Shell Simmons said the meeting included representatives from municipal court, the clerk of courts, the police department, the law department and Blue Lines Solutions, the Chattanooga, Tennessee, company that runs the camera program.

“We’re ready to rock,” said David Magura Jr., court administrator. “It’s been a long process. I’m glad to have it over.”

Shell Simmons said: “It was a long time coming. It will make people slow down in school zones. We want to protect our children.”

The 2024-25 academic year for the Youngstown City School District starts Sept. 4.

The cameras will be turned on that day, but motorists will have a two-week warning period before citations start to be issued Sept. 18, Shell Simmons and Magura said.

A decision was reached in May to resolve the citation appeals issue with Wednesday’s meeting to finalize details and determine how the courts will work with Blue Line and how their computer systems will interface.

Donna McCollum, a part-time municipal court magistrate, will start in mid- to late October holding court once a month to hear appeals, Magura said. The court will reevaluate how often McCollum is needed for the appeals after a while, Magura said.

The cameras stopped being used in school zones in Youngstown when classes ended between May 18 and June 2, 2023. The city implemented the speed cameras in phases beginning Feb. 21, 2023. The speed cameras at 19 schools were supposed to be turned back on Sept. 18, 2023, when school began in Youngstown after a nearly one-month teacher strike was resolved.

But because of the disagreement between the administration and the courts, the cameras weren’t used at all during the last school year.

In the three months of enforcement, 22,424 speeding citations were issued.

City officials previously said about 300 of them were contested.

Because the program is starting over, Shell Simmons said, those who contested the speeding citations had their cases dismissed, and they don’t have to pay.

CITATIONS

The city collected $596,878 from the citations with more than $300,000 received since it became publicly known last September that the program was suspended and there’s no apparent penalty for not paying the citations.

The city gets 65% of the money collected with Blue Line receiving the other 35%.

Blue Line’s take of the paid citations is $321,396.

Cameras were in use on school days from the time children headed to class until 6 p.m. They weren’t used on weekends, during the summer and on days when class was not in session.

During the two hours in the morning that kids go to school, and the two hours when they leave, the speed limit in those zones is 20 mph. In between and after school ends, the speed limit is 25 and 35 mph depending on the location.

Motorists caught going at least 11 mph over the speed limit and up to 14 mph over it face a civil penalty of $100. Those going 15 to 20 mph over the limit face a $125 penalty and those traveling faster than 20 mph over the limit face a $150 penalty. They do not get points on their driving record for the citations.

Even at the minimum $100 penalty, that means the collection rate was about 41%.

In a Sept. 11, 2023, email to city administration officials as city council was preparing modifications to the speed camera ordinance, Magura wrote: “Rushing this process without due diligence could lead to unintended consequences and complications in our operations,” and the administration’s proposal “does not offer a comprehensive analysis of the potential ramifications on our docket and operations.”

City council made the minor changes Sept. 20, 2023, to the ordinance and it didn’t move the court to act.

In an April 4, 2023, letter to administration officials, Municipal Court Judge Carla Baldwin wrote, “In short, the city appears to have enacted these ordinances without in any way ensuring that there are appropriate procedures, resources or personnel necessary to carry out the appeals stated in the ordinance.”

City council agreed in March to have the court hire a part-time magistrate to hear cases from those contesting the speed citations in school zones. Blue Line had previously offered to pay for a magistrate to get the cameras operating again.

But, instead, McCollum’s salary for hearing the appeals will be reimbursed through the city’s citation funds.

Under state law that restricts the use of speed cameras, Youngstown can use its share of the speed camera citation collections for only school safety resources, such as improvements to school zones and crosswalks near those buildings.

The city has spent none of its citation money to date.

Also, last year’s state transportation budget included a provision addressing the use of a “traffic law photo-monitoring device.” The provision was first passed in March 2015.

The provision states, “A local authority shall use a traffic law photo-monitoring device to detect and enforce traffic law violations only if a law enforcement officer is present at the location of the device at all times during the operation of the device.”

The Ohio Supreme Court in July 2017 ruled it was unconstitutional for the state Legislature to require a police officer be present when cities with home rule use cameras for traffic enforcement. Youngstown is a home rule city.

The court ruled 5-2 in favor of Dayton, which brought the lawsuit, writing that a state law “which requires that a law enforcement officer be present at the location of a traffic camera infringes on the municipality’s legislative authority without serving an overriding state interest and is therefore unconstitutional.”

Have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.