In response to Beth Dieckhoff’s letter to the editor in the early June issue of the Fullerton Observer, I have two examples that may shed light on the reason why the Fullerton Police Department doesn’t make an attempt to enforce traffic laws to reduce the number of drivers running red lights in the city.
EX POLICE CHIEF DAN HUGHES
About 4 years ago I asked then-Police Dan Hughes to observe the morning student drop-off at Laguna Road Elementary School to witness how drivers did not obey traffic laws for speed & turning lanes that created (& continue to create to this day) a very dangerous situation on a daily basis. When I asked Chief Hughes why drivers were not ticketed for these & other violations in the school zone his response was “the city doesn’t make enough revenue from the tickets to make it worth our time”.
EX CITY MANAGER JOE FELZ
Another example occurred also during Chief Hughes’ tenure. While driving south on Harbor, I stopped in front of Big Slice Pizza because students were coming from the east side of the street in the crosswalk. A Fullerton motorcycle officer (regretfully, I did not see his badge) and I both watched as 3 cars driving north went right through the crosswalk even as the students were already crossing, causing them to jump back a few steps to the sidewalk. After we were able to drive on, the officer and I both ended up next to each other at the red light on Chapman. I rolled down my window & said “excuse me, don’t pedestrians have the right of way in the crosswalk?” He nodded, “yes”. I said, “you very easily could have made a u-turn and ticketed any or all of them then, right”? His response was “I never liked that crosswalk. I told the city it was a bad place for it”. Taken aback by his answer, I told him it was “irrelevant whether he liked it or not”. I said “they should have gotten a ticket, right?” He shrugged his shoulders, nodded his head yes and drove off.
I have never forgotten the quotes from either of those days. I thought our children’s lives were worth more than that but as you can see our Police Department felt otherwise. Their apathetic responses from the top brass on down speak volumes.
Susan Levinson Fullerton
#1 by Barry Levinson on June 27, 2017 - 10:25 am
In 2012, I had a meeting with Police Chief Dan Hughes and one of the questions I posed to him was about beefing up the traffic enforcement. His answer was in line with what he told my wife Susan. He told me that the amount of revenue to be gained by having more manpower giving out traffic tickets would not cover the additional cost to the City of Fullerton. I thought good law enforcement was about serving and protecting the law abiding public.
Question: Why is it that so often when the city government is against something because of the cost, it is something to benefit the citizens. But when they approve additional spending in the millions every year for things such as employee raises, people such as Jennifer Fitzgerald state they deserve the raises and she votes for them. Why does it seem that Ms. Fitzgerald makes our public employees a higher priority (approximately 90% live outside of Fullerton) than her constituents? Could it be that she gets a lot of campaign cash from the likes of the FPOA? I report, you decide!