Police-major proposes new traffic ordinance to simplify enforcement of citizen complaints

Major Locke, representing the police department, presented a three-page draft traffic ordinance to the Operations Committee and asked members to review it and return recommendations so staff can route the draft to the city prosecutor and city attorney for legal review. "This ordinance would cover all the complaints that you guys are receiving," Major Locke said, and described the draft as a modified version of another city's ordinance intended to simplify enforcement for officers.

Locke said the goal is to make enforcement straightforward so officers are not required to perform technical inspections in the field. "This is gonna make it a lot easier on the officers to enforce this particular ordinance versus others I've seen... I'm quite frankly we're not [mechanics]," he said. Committee members discussed a review path that would allow individual aldermen and departments to provide feedback directly to Major Locke, who would then forward it to the prosecuting attorney before returning a drafted ordinance to operations for consideration.

Members agreed the packet should be circulated to all relevant department heads (fire, ambulance district, parks, billing, economic development) for comment and that the committee would reserve time at a future operations meeting to consider edits and next steps. No vote was taken; the committee agreed to a review-and-comment process before legal drafting and formal introduction to the board.