Tennessee AG opinion spells trouble for Bluff City

Jim Bollinger was on his way to the Johnson City Golden Corral restaurant for an early afternoon dinner Aug. 5 when he saw the bright white light atop Bluff City’s speed camera flash across his rear view mirror.

“We were trying to get there by 4 p.m. to catch the senior rates,” Bollinger said Thursday as he explained why he was going too fast through the 45-mph-zone on U.S. Highway 11E that the camera has patrolled since January 2010. But rather than pay the $50 speeding ticket when it showed up in his mailbox, Bollinger did some Internet research and discovered a recent opinion issued by Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper regarding a new set of traffic camera regulations that went into effect July 1.

That legal opinion, which Cooper’s office released Aug. 8, contradicts a key interpretation both Bluff City officials and Northeast Tennessee legislators had of the new regulations when the law was being crafted this past spring.

Cooper’s opinion – and a protest from Jim Bollinger – prompted the city to temporarily shut down one of its two traffic cameras amid concerns the device might have illegally been issuing tickets to hundreds of drivers for the past 2½ months.

“They’ve got one hell of a mess going on there in Bluff City,” Bollinger said as he looked back on what’s happened since he Googled “Chapter 425.”

Chapter 425

Between Jan. 1, 2010, and May 31, 2011, Bluff City’s speed cameras issued 39,923 citations to drivers who were going too fast through a 45-mph-zone on U.S. Highway 11E that the city took over in 2000 as part of a bitter three-way annexation battle involving Bristol, Tenn., Johnson City and Sullivan County.

The sheer number of tickets the two cameras – one monitoring the highway’s northbound lanes and the other southbound – issued during that 17-month period and the $1.6 million they netted the city sparked an instant controversy that went straight to the state legislature.

Responding to the complaints and similar concerns about red light cameras used by cities including Kingsport and Johnson City, the state legislature adopted a series of regulations that became Public Chapter 425 when Gov. Bill Haslam signed them into law June 6. Among the new regulations is a rule barring cities from issuing camera-based citations to drivers who make a right turn on red even if they do not come to a complete stop as they enter the intersection.

Another rule bars cities from setting up speed cameras within one mile of where the speed limit drops by 10 mph or more – something that causes problems for Bluff City because its speed camera is only three-tenths of mile from where the speed limit on U.S. 11E’s southbound lanes drops from 55 mph to 45 mph.

The understanding

City officials knew they’d either have to move their speed camera or extend the city’s 45-mph-zone to comply with this last regulation. But they also thought they’d have plenty of time to take those steps because of a little known clause in the Tennessee constitution.

“We can’t break contracts by legislation,” Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, a Republican who represents Bluff City in the state Senate, said as he explained what the constitution’s contract clause entails. “We were told in committee that we can’t break or interfere with an existing contract through legislation.”

Because the new rules contained in Public Chapter 425 could somehow impact the contract a city has with its camera system operator, Ramsey said, many state legislators including himself believed the new rules would not apply to individual cities until their contracts expired – including Bluff City.

Under this interpretation, Bluff City would not have to take any action to comply with the law until Jan. 1, 2025, the expiration date for its contract with American Traffic Solutions, the Arizona-based company that manages the system and supplied the cameras.

“We can’t change an existing contract,” said state Rep. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, who shares Ramsey’s interpretation of the constitution’s contract clause. “We don’t have that authority.”

But while Lundberg agreed with Ramsey about the contract clause, he also questioned whether making Bluff City extend its 45-mph-zone or move its speed camera might also interfere with the camera-company contract.

The opinion

Local officials in Red Bank, Tenn., also thought the new regulations contained in Chapter 425 would impact the contract they had in place with their camera company. So they asked one of their legislators, state Rep. Richard Floyd, R-Chattanooga, to seek a formal opinion from Cooper’s office.

“Per the opinion request,” the attorney general wrote as he explained Red Bank’s situation in his Aug. 8 opinion, “there was an understanding that a minimum number of traffic citations would be based on right-turn-on-red violations.”

City officials worried that forcing the town to stop issuing these right-turn-on-red citations, which is what happened when Public Chapter 425’s new rules became effective July 1, could unlawfully impair their contractual relationship with the camera company and potentially open them to a breach of contract lawsuit.

“It didn’t matter to them,” Floyd said, adding that despite these concerns Red Bank officials stopped issuing the right-turn-on-red citations July 1. “They just wanted to make sure they were doing it right from the start. They wanted to make sure they were abiding by the intent of the law.”

Even though he hadn’t seen a copy of their contract, Cooper argued in his opinion that Red Bank officials did exactly what they should have done when they complied with the law, because “compelling arguments can be made that Chapter 425 does not impair any contractual relationship.”

The attorney general then listed three exceptions to the clause he felt applied in this situation – the new law was remedial in nature, represented a legitimate police action and was reasonable in relation to its purpose – sending a snowball of legal questions heading straight to Bluff City’s front door.

The challenge

Bollinger took a copy of Cooper’s opinion and Chapter 425 with him when we went to the Bluff City Town Hall on Tuesday to challenge his speeding ticket, which he claims is invalid because under his interpretation of the law the new camera restrictions apply to Bluff City’s case.

“That camera’s illegal,” Bollinger said, admitting he would have had no problems paying the ticket if he was pulled over by a police officer or he felt the city’s speed camera wasn’t in violation of the new law.

But rather than invalidate his ticket then and there, the city employee he met with told him he could only challenge it when he’s scheduled to appear in the city’s municipal court Oct. 5. Still, his complaint prompted a review by city officials and the mayor’s decision temporarily shut down the southbound camera.

“I was told that we were grandfathered in,” Interim City Manager Judy Dulaney said Wednesday when asked why she shut the camera down amid questions about its legality. “I’m not going to take a chance on that. The city wants to do what is right.”

Ramsey praised Dulaney’s suspension of the southbound camera and subsequent declaration that any citations issued since July 1 were “under review” during a Friday afternoon interview. He also said Cooper’s opinion has caused some confusion across the state.

But Ramsey said the attorney general’s opinion is just that, an opinion, and the legal uncertainties surrounding Bluff City’s situation will likely remain in question until somebody – the camera company or someone who has received a ticket – takes them to court and gets a judge to issue a ruling.

“I hope they challenge that,” said Floyd, a camera system opponent who hopes somebody who got a ticket takes the city to court. “I hope they challenge that and I hope they win.”

gmclean@bristolnews.com
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