The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) won a unanimous appellate court ruling on July 20 against motorist Leslie Keith Kaufman, affirming a lower Van Nuys trial-court decision. Kaufman’s vehicle was photographed by a stop-sign camera in an MRCA park for failing to come to a complete stop, and he received an administrative citation in the mail and was fined $175. At the administrative hearing, Kaufman denied he was the ‘driver of the vehicle, and testified that there were no photographs taken, or produced, which show any driver, let alone the defendant, in the vehicle at the time the alleged moving violation was alleged to have taken place.’ Kaufman argued that sections of the MRCA ordinance, which states that the motorist is responsible for his car regardless of the driver, is in opposition to the California Vehicle Code. Superior Court Appellate Judges Patti Jo McKay, Anita H. Dymant and Joseph Karlin wrote in their six-page decision that the legislature authorized agencies such as the MRCA to regulate traffic within their districts as long as the regulations are not in conflict with state law. ’We find no conflict between the general law and that section of the MRCA ordinance challenged by appellant,’ the judges said. Kaufman also argued that his right to due process was violated because there was no photographic evidence identifying him as the person who violated the MRCA ordinance. The judges wrote, ‘Appellant’s constitutional argument is perfunctorily asserted without any discussion of constitutional principles or citation to authority. Under these circumstances, we treat this contention as forfeited.’ The judges also noted that the defendant’s citation carried none of the penalties normally associated with an infraction’he was required to pay a fine with no collateral consequences to his driving privileges’and added that the identity of the driver was not an element of the violation. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the MRCA over its stop-sign cameras, which were installed in 2007 in Temescal Gateway Park (at two locations), Franklin Canyon and at the top of Topanga Overlook. An August 21 L.A. Times story reported that ‘roughly one-fifth of the revenue [from camera fines] was used to defend the traffic cameras against legal challenges,’ according to Jeffrey Maloney, the authority’s staff counsel. Another current case is in Los Angeles Superior Court with Judge Carl West, who ruled last December that a case against the legality of the MRCA’s use of stop-sign cameras could proceed. At stake in that pending trial is whether the MRCA must follow the California Vehicle Code on park roadways, on which cameras are barred. That case was originally filed as a class-action lawsuit against the MRCA by attorney Michael Braun of Braun Law Group, for Gareth Estwick, Jodi Bice and Phillip Robbins, Jr. on September 14, 2010. Estwick and Bice received their tickets in Temescal Gateway Park. According to Dash Stolarz, an MRCA spokeswoman, the MRCA took in about $1,182,721 in fines (or about $98,560 per month) in 2009. From January 1 to June 30 this year, $1,086,341 was paid in fines, minus $184,800 to Redflex (the stop-sign camera company) and $134,041 for internal administrative costs. The net revenue for six months was $767,500. According to Stolarz, ‘All revenue generated by citations is put back into the parks, including for purposes such as fire training, fire prevention, fire patrol, safety training, signage, striping and trail and road maintenance to make the parks safer and better for the thousands of visitors who come to our parks every day.’
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