This is Albemarle’s contract with red light camera vendor Redflex. See anything interesting in here? #
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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I see that it’s very long, thus I might not be the only one who has a hard time paying attention to every word.
I just paid my taxes to Albemarle. I better not get a Newport News tax bill in addition.
I’d love to know the substance of the numerous redactions in the margins of agreements 2 and 3. This governmental cloak-and-dagger stuff gets old very fast for me. It’s not an FBI report, for God’s sake.
Just the fact that everything is geared towards Newport News. But one of the first documents state replace NN w/Albemarle Co.. Lazy and unprofessional, but apparently legally binding.
Kind of strange they way they did it – but contracts that other organizations in the state can piggy-back on are common. I guest the ‘substitute for’ wording means fewer lawyer hours to review to make sure every dotted I, crossed T, comma and period are transcribed correctly.
Apparently state law allows jurisdictions to forgo their own rfps if another locality has already conducted a substantially similar one, thus Albemarle can piggy-back on Newport News’ arrangement with Redflex without jumping through all of the hoops necessary for a deal like this to withstand scrutiny. The thought being that anyone who would likely compete for the Albemarle contract would’ve bid on the NN one.
I like the fact that Redflex has anticipated ‘consumer feedback’ to the point that they’ve built their camera enclosures out of 19mm polycarbonate which they claim will withstand assault from shotguns and 9mm handguns. For the record, .357mag, .44mag, and virtually any centerfire rifle cartridge will defeat 19mm worth of such material, as will 12ga. slugs. Not that I’d advocate such measures.
Two other things I found noteworthy:
Though the cameras are set up to photograph offenders for multiple angles and record images of both a vehicles license plate and a driver’s face, photos of drivers are specifically not to be included with mailed citations whereas photos of license plates are. I can only infer from this that the interested parties want to minimize challenges from folks who’ve been ticketed for infractions while someone else was driving their car. To do so by intentionally withholding, at least initially, potentially exculpatory evidence doesn’t strike me as the manner in which I want my locality conducting business on my behalf. No one should be convicted for an infraction based on just a license plate photo.
I also found the profit potential interesting. In the typical example they provide, gross revenues of >$5M provide the locality with more than $4M profit after costs of approx. $1.1M. If that works out to be the case here, expect to see these things sprout up all over the county.
Y’all are finding some really interesting things in this contract!
Call me old fashion. Won’t claim to have read each and every word in these documents. Won’t say I even took a lot of time for an in depth analysis with all the text therein.
However, when stumbling across the term “Authorized Violation” somebody has just gotta ask, what could someone else have possibly been thinking there?