The New London Public Safety Committee heard a vendor presentation Monday on a proposal to deploy automatic traffic enforcement safety devices (ATESDs), commonly called speed cameras, and received multiple public comments opposed to the plan.

The discussion centered on whether the devices would improve safety in high‑speed corridors and on questions about data handling, program cost and fairness. The committee did not take a vote; presenters said the next steps would include engineering studies, public hearings for specific camera sites and a permit from the Connecticut Department of Transportation before any citations could be issued.

Why it matters: proponents say cameras can reduce high‑speed incidents when combined with other traffic‑calming measures; opponents warned the system could collect broad vehicle data, impose costs on low‑income residents and route traffic onto residential streets.

Public commenters urged the council to reject the proposal or proceed cautiously. Anna Stefanski said she opposed the cameras and asked how the data were acquired and whether crash or pedestrian‑injury counts supported installation. "I am opposed to the speed cameras," Stefanski said during public comment. John Perkins, who identified crash timing and aggressive driving as the primary causes of accidents, told the committee the proposal had "two fatal flaws": recurring vendor costs and equity concerns. Perkins said a five‑camera deployment would require "$150,000 recurring vendor fee annually," a figure he said the chief had quoted, and argued the city should instead invest in low‑cost physical measures such as repainting lane markings and adding speed bumps.

Leonard Lowe, John Booley and Marla Lowe — residents of Pequot Avenue — described persistent local speeding, near misses and past crashes and urged physical traffic calming such as asphalt speed bumps and elevated crosswalks rather than cameras. Sarah Turner asked whether cameras might simply reroute traffic and whether tickets would primarily affect residents or nonresidents.

The vendor representative who led the presentation (identified in the transcript as Glenn) and Paul Collete, described the company's software and the adjudication process. The presenters said their software vendor is Dacra and their hardware partner is Traffic Logics. They described a multi‑step program that begins with public hearings, an ordinance, procurement, state DOT permitting, installation, a public warning period and only then the limited issuance of citations.

Key vendor statements included that Connecticut law imposes limits designed to restrain costs and vendor fees: the presenter said state statute sets base fines at about $50 and $75 for a secondary offense and caps vendor processing fees at $15. The vendor also said their conservative practice is to delete raw image data after 30 days, although they acknowledged statutory ambiguities about repeat‑offender records and said they follow the most conservative interpretation.

The presentation described the technical and operational approach: advance signage is required (for example, signage at about 1,000 feet and additional school‑zone signing when applicable), rear‑projection images are taken (the vendor said the images do not show vehicle occupants), and the system routes captured events into a processing workflow in which retired law‑enforcement reviewers and the city's designated team decide whether to issue a warning or a citation. The vendor said municipalities control enforcement decisions and that the city would not send any money to the vendor beyond what is permitted by statute.

Concerns expressed in the meeting included data privacy and security, potential for data resale or misuse, economic burden on low‑income residents, whether the cameras would actually change driving behavior citywide or just at camera locations, and how certification and calibration of devices would be verified for court use. Councilor Hart and others asked about due process and remote access to hearings; the vendor said the system allows appeals and that violation packets can include certification records for camera calibration.

No formal motion or permit application was approved at the meeting. Presenters and some council members said additional public hearings and a formal ATESD permit to the state DOT would be required before any camera site could be activated.

What happens next: the matter remains in the discussion phase. Any future step identified by presenters would include a public‑notice warning period, DOT permitting for cameras on state rights‑of‑way, and a further council action to adopt an ordinance and set program details such as warning length, violation thresholds and whether the city issues warnings only during an initial period.