Taneytown approves RedSpeed contract for school-zone speed cameras on Trevanyan Road; two absent council members opposed

The Taneytown Mayor and City Council on June 18 approved a piggyback contract with RedSpeed to provide static speed-camera monitoring in areas allowed by state law, with the primary initial site identified as Trevanyan Road.

Why it matters: The contract delegates installation, maintenance and citation processing to the vendor and is intended to reduce speeding in a school-zone corridor while freeing police officers for other duties. State law limits municipal speed-camera use to school-zone areas; the council said Trevanyan Road is the primary qualifying location under the city’s enabling legislation.

The contract is a multi-year agreement the city is piggybacking off an existing procurement. The mayor noted that “there’s going to be stuff in the contract that does not apply to us” and reminded the council that the town’s enabling legislation covers only speed cameras, not red-light or stop-sign cameras.

Key terms and implementation details described in the meeting record include: - Installation, maintenance and citation processing are handled by RedSpeed; the vendor bears installation costs and charging for processing is part of the vendor model. - The vendor’s processing/administrative fee was discussed as approximately $14 per violation; an additional customer-service fee of $0.99 applies when a violator calls customer service, and a $2.99 flagging fee applies if unpaid citations are referred for registration-flagging. - The contract initial term is five years, with up to five single-year extensions; price increases on extension years must be considered upon request. - The council expects an initial warning period and trial phase; officials discussed a 30-day warning window in which warnings are issued before citations are enforced. “They will send warnings,” the mayor said. - The police lieutenant said final citation review by authorized officers should be quick: “reviewing one of them should take less than 5 minutes,” Lieutenant Bakker said. - The vendor’s RedCheck software will be installed for authorized police access, and the system can generate performance reports; officials discussed providing quarterly performance updates to council via liaison reports.

Revenue and uses: Council members noted revenue projections vary; prior studies projected an initial drop-off in violations after cameras are activated. Officials said any revenue from speed-camera citations must be used for public-safety purposes under applicable legislation; the mayor said, “any of those revenues will basically they have to go to public safety per, legislation.”

Legal and operational limits: The mayor reiterated that state rules confine municipal speed-camera placement to school zones and that other camera types or placements would require additional enabling action by the state or different authorities (for example, State Highway Administration for state-owned corridors).

Questions and concerns raised during discussion included whether mobile-camera language should be removed from the piggybacked contract (staff said removing items would negate the ability to piggyback), whether the contract signature should be by the mayor or the city manager (staff advised the city manager has authority under the charter for contracts below certain dollar thresholds), and who will be responsible for collection of delinquent payments (the municipality bears that responsibility if it pursues collections).

The council moved and seconded the contract; the motion carried. The mayor noted opposition from two council members who were not present: Councilmember McCarron and Councilmember Mead. The transcript records the mayor stating those members “are opposed to it.”