Charles City Council approves speed camera agreement

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Council approved a contract to install automatic traffic cameras at entrances to the city, during its regular meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 5.

The three-year contract will see Altumint Inc. install cameras at select points along the major roads coming in and going out of the city. Highway 14, Highway 18 and South Grand Avenue will be the first locations for the cameras, placed to monitor the speed of traffic near bike trail intersections.

Discussion among police and City Council members focused on curbing excessive speeding rather than catching everyday drivers.

The city will be able to set the cameras to only flag violators going a certain amount over the posted speed limit. A resolution will have to be passed to set the exact limits, but right now the city is planning on setting the cameras to only photograph vehicles going 10 mph or higher above the speed limit.

Altumint will provide the Police Department with photos or video of alleged speeders, along with contact information of the registered owners or lessees, identified by the vehicles’ license plates.

Once manually reviewed by a police officer, a civil infraction citation rather than a criminal ticket will be mailed out.

“Nothing can go out to violators without going through the city,” said Police Chief Hugh Anderson.

Anderson said the cameras help with speed limit enforcement in heavy traffic areas while allowing officers to attend to other calls.

Altumint will install and operate the cameras at no cost to the city, but will collect 30% of the revenue generated from the citations.

With the contract approved, the next step will be for the city to write and pass a new city ordinance. Once that is complete, the speed cameras could be installed in early winter.

In other business, the council approved a street closure request from Tessa Weber on behalf of Derailed for its upcoming tractor show on Saturday, Sept. 16.

This is the second year of the show and it will be held at the same location as last year, with a request to close down the street from the end of the Derailed building to 13th Avenue from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Moving into business discussed at the previous workshop, the council approved, after a review from City Attorney Brad Sloter, updates to the Foster Grandparent Policy and Procedure Handbook.

The council also set a public hearing date for the next phase of the city’s Tree Removal Project.

The city is currently in the midst of Phase 1 of the project, with selected dead or dying ash trees marked by a green circle. Phase 2 will remove another 200 trees, marked with pink triangles, by July 24 of 2024. The final phase of the project will remove the remaining trees, marked by white squares.

Bids for the second phase of the project will be let on Sept. 28 and a public hearing for the bids will be held during the Oct. 2 meeting.

In another city overhaul project, the council approved an agreement with ROI Energy to replace the city’s remaining high-pressure sodium lights with more energy efficient LEDs.

Replacing 280 lights across the Parks and Recreation Department, Streets and Water Department, Fire Department and Water Resource Recovery Department, the project cost comes out to $62,193.

After receiving $22,433 in incentive rebates from MidAmerican Energy and with an estimated energy savings of $9,808 per year, the more energy efficient lights will effectively pay for themselves in a little more than four years, MidAmerican and city officials estimated.

Finally, the council reviewed a change order request for the underground Clearwell water storage project. Due to an oversight when ordering materials, the project ended up short on steel and had to allocate some reserved for a different portion of the project. The repurposed steel now needs to be replaced at a cost of $5,598.

The council discussed the error with SEH Engineering’s Rustin Lingbeek, who explained how the oversight happened and assured the council that the repurposed steel wouldn’t compromise the project.