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MontCo.

re management, volunteers at odds over bill


By Rachel Baye
Examiner Staff Writer

COVER STORY
By Rachel Baye

LOCAL NEWS

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W E D N E S DAY, D E C E M B E R 2 8 , 2 0 1 1

More speed cameras coming to area in 2012


Examiner Staff Writer

A bill proposing changes to Montgomery Countys Fire and Emergency Services Commission has reignited years of tensions between the countys 19 volunteer re departments and county re department management. The commissions seven members two representatives from the volunteer departments, two from the career reghters and three from the general public review policy changes proposed by Fire Chief Richard Bowers and make recommendations, vetoing policies that dont meet the majoritys approval. If passed, the bill will eliminate the commissions veto, making it an advisory body. The move will allow Bowers to make decisions efciently, said Assistant Chief Scott Graham, spokesman for the Fire and Rescue Service. But the volunteers disagree, warning that the bill will strip the local departments of their independence and their inuence. Although the volunteers have a union-like organization in the Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association, their collective bargaining rights are not established in law the way other unions are, said County Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville and chair of the councils Public Safety committee. Removing the commissions voting powers would disproportionately hurt the volunteers, Andrews said. But Graham said that Bowers is responsible for the services provided by all of the countys re departments, yet hes the only department head whose decisions can be vetoed by his workers. The bill is the latest move in a yearslong battle between the volunteer re departments and county leaders that has been escalated by recent budget constraints. In preparing the current scal years budget, County Executive Ike Leggett cut $1.5 million from the local re departments, said MCVFRA Executive Director Eric Bernard. He also proposed cutting the MCVFRAs funding, though the council voted against it, Andrews said. The dispute that inspired the bill was about the local department chiefs take-home vehicles. The volunteers paid for the vehicles, so they should keep the titles in their names, Bernard said. But the county pays for the fuel and the maintenance, so the vehicles should be considered county property, Graham countered.
rbaye@washingtonexaminer.com

Drivers in the Washington area can look forward in the new year to more of the speed-enforcement cameras that have raised millions of dollars for jurisdictions around Maryland and the District of Columbia. Prince Georges County plans to add an average of six cameras every month at least one this week aiming for a total of 72 by July, said Maj. Robert Liberati, project manager of speed citation for the Prince Georges County Police. The countys cameras are brand new, with the rst one set up in August and the rst citations issued in September, Liberati said. In that short period, the countys 20 cameras have allowed the police to mail 93,425 citations, each carrying a $40 ne. Though Montgomery County has had speed cameras since 2006, the county is adding 10 new cameras in the coming months, which will bring their total to 78 cameras and six vans with speed-monitoring equipment, said Capt. Thomas Didone, director of the Montgomery County Police trafc division. As of Nov. 26, the county had issued 300,737 tickets in 2011, more than the 292,643 issued in all of 2010. The District of Columbia also expanded its program in the fall, adding 19 cameras in September. The cameras bring in more than $10 million a year for the District, The Washington Examiner has reported. According to law enforcement ofcials, the cameras are effective in getting drivers to slow down. Ive written thousands and thousands of citations, Didone said. These cameras have had far more effect in getting people to change their behavior ... than I have had in

EXAMINER FILE

Prince Georges County plans to add an average of six speed cameras every month through July.

Citations issued
2009 Montgomery Co. 545,790 Pr. Georges Co. Not applicable Chevy Chase Village 59,932 Rockville Not available 2010 2011 292,643 300,737 (through November) Not applicable 93,425 (Sept. 21 - Dec. 21) 55,410 35,746 (through October) 39,985 40,507 (through October)

25 years of writing speeding tickets. f iti di ti k t Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger pointed to declining numbers of citations over the last few years as evidence that drivers are changing their behavior. In scal 2011 which ended June 30 329,646 citations were issued, far below the 505,368 issued in scal 2009. In Rockville, drivers are still speeding, but theyre not going as fast. Police caught drivers going more than 40 miles over the speed limit in 2009, while in 2011 no one was caught going more than 20 miles over, said Maj. Robert Rappoport, who oversees the photo enforcement program for the Rockville Police.

B t l But even as d i drivers slow d down, the programs continue to earn millions for the jurisdictions that operate them and for Maryland. Though Didone did not know how much Montgomerys program has earned, at $40 a citation, the county had the potential to bring in more than $13 million. Baltimore, whose program is the most protable in the state, has earned $12.5 million so far this scal year, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman John Townsend. According to Maryland law, jurisdictions are not permitted to keep revenues from their speed programs that exceed 10 percent of their gross

revenue. For places like Chevy Chase Village, where speed-enforcement cameras on Connecticut Avenue earn about $2 million a year, that means giving up all but about $500,000 a year, said Chevy Chase Village Police Chief John Fitzgerald. After some revenue pays for the program, the rest goes to the state. As a result, Maryland has earned at least $2.2 million so far this scal year, Townsend said. And in some places like Connecticut Avenue drivers arent learning their lesson. Though drivers who know where the cameras are will slow down as they approach them, Connecticut Avenue sees a lot of non-local trafc, said Fitzgerald, making the decline in citations year after year only slight. Were not trying to trick anybody, Fitzgerald said. I really dont feel bad at all when somebody goes 12 miles over the speed limit and gets ticketed.
rbaye@washingtonexaminer.com

T H E WA S H I N G T O N E X A M I N E R

Occupy DC planning major January demonstration


By Aubrey Whelan
Examiner Staff Writer

As the Occupy movement heads into its fourth month in the District, protesters are preparing for a major demonstration on Capitol Hill in midJanuary. Dubbed Occupy Congress, the planned Jan. 17 protest bears some similarities to Take Back the Capitol, a labor union-backed protest that included a camp out on the National Mall in early December. But this protest has been embraced by Occupy DC, which has taken the lead in organizing it and plans to host thousands of protesters who they said would converge on D.C. on the day Congress returns to work. Occupiers want to tell Congress

that our elected ofcials are no longer representing the people and protest the prevalence of money in politics, said participant Mario Lozada of Philadelphia. Participants plan to host sit-ins at congressional ofces and are applying for a permit that would allow up to 10,000 people to march on the Capitol. At the Occupy DC camp in McPherson Square, protesters say the Jan. 17 action will be similar to the K Street protests of early December in which Occupiers blocked several downtown intersections, stopped trafc for hours and were arrested in droves. Mark Smith, a member of Occupy DCs action committee, said the camp is expecting busloads of protesters from as far away as Oakland and

Miami. Originally, organizers had called for protesters to erect a tent city on the National Mall, but that idea was shot down because, Lozada said, the Mall has limited resources to stage a large-scale tent protest. Occupy DC is expecting 2,000 additional protesters to arrive from across the country, Smith said. He said Occupy DC, which has tried to distance itself from the labor unions that have provided support for the protesters, decided to support Occupy Congress once we found out it wasnt union. Lozada said the movement is still working out details on specic actions for Jan. 17 because most of the events planning has taken place on Twitter and list-servs that police and others outside the movement can

GRAEME JENNINGS/EXAMINER

Occupy DC is preparing for a major demonstration on Capitol Hill on Jan. 17.

access. Its hard to ever be able to successfully have a direct action without police trying to stop us, Lozada said. Well have ash actions sort of a surprise, so the police cant stop us. He said the days protests will be absolutely peaceful demonstrations.
awhelan@washingtonexaminer.com

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