Comply or get into legal duel with DOT? Cedar Rapids faces traffic camera decision

CEDAR RAPIDS - To comply or sue is the question.

The City Council is scheduled to go into a closed session after its noon meeting Tuesday to decide if it will take the Iowa Department of Transportation to court or comply with its order for the city to change how it operates traffic enforcement cameras.

Mayor Ron Corbett said DOT Director Paul Trombino called him Monday and said the DOT is unable to agree to Corbett's request to wait five years for another review if the city decides to comply and turn off cameras at two spots at the S-curve on Interstate 380, keeping the cameras yet moving them at two other spots there.

Steve Gent, DOT director of traffic and safety, said in an interview Monday the DOT must follow its administrative rules on enforcement cameras, and those rules require cities with cameras to submit data to the DOT annually.

At the same time, he said the DOT isn't apt to order additional changes with the Cedar Rapids cameras after one year if the city complies with the DOT order.

'The reality is that any time we're looking at crash data, one year doesn't make a trend,” Gent said. 'So we would expect to look at more than one year” before making any changes.

Gent said the DOT has looked at camera locations at 36 different spots in cities around the state and has allowed them to stay in 24 spots.

'I think Paul (Trombino) gave the mayor a little comfort in how we do this,” Gent said. 'It's a process. Obviously, the intent of the rules is not to get rid of cameras.”

Last week, Corbett said he wanted to comply with the DOT order on cameras, at which time he proposed a five-year agreement so the city doesn't have to face moving the remaining cameras or shutting them off year in and year out.

Monday, Corbett pointed to a federal court ruling in Des Moines last week that rejected a call by anti-camera litigants to take cameras there down immediately while the litigants fight to win a claim that the cameras violate their freedom to use the highway.

Corbett said he and Cedar Rapids council members don't know if they should listen to the DOT or to the federal court, even if last week's ruling did not address all the issues a judge would have to sort out if the city fights the DOT in court.

Sioux City already is fighting the DOT in court, and Des Moines has said it intends to go to court.

Corbett said Cedar Rapids eventually could benefit from a court action even if it chooses now to comply.

He said the DOT director told him the city could continue to use cameras at two I-380 locations in which the DOT has told the city to stop - but not to issue tickets. The city would instead use them to monitor speeds to build its case for keeping them.