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Dear Mayor and Councilmembers, My name is Jay Beeber, Executive Director of Policy for the National Motorists Association. I appreciate the opportunity to submit these written comments on Agenda Item 27, Councilmember Bacerra’s request to consider the use of speed cameras in Santa Ana. I have worked on the issue of automated enforcement since 2010 and have extensive experience in this area. Before considering a resolution asking the state legislature to amend AB 645 to allow the City of Santa Ana to participate in the speed camera pilot program, Council members should be aware of the following: Elected Officials Must Honor their Agreements The speed camera pilot program authorized under AB 645 was the product of extensive negotiations over multiple legislative sessions. Those negotiations produced a specific agreement: a maximum of six participating cities, each with a defined number of camera installations. Numerous stakeholder groups negotiated in good faith with the bill’s author, Assemblymember Friedman, and relied on those terms when deciding how to invest their time and effort during the legislative process. Even before the pilot program began, legislators approved an expansion to PCH in Malibu. Now additional cities, possibly including Santa Ana, are asking legislators to set aside agreements that were negotiated in good faith. That is a mistake. If legislators can so easily discard negotiated limits before the pilot is even underway, why should the public trust similar commitments in the future? Public confidence in our institutions is already dangerously low. When legislators walk away from prior agreements, that confidence erodes even further. The City of Santa Ana should not be asking the legislature to break the deal that made AB 645 possible in the first place.