Council approves double fines for speeding on residential streets
The legislation was introduced by Councilman Sam Melden in July and includes streets with 25 mph speed limits.
By Kate Snyder / The Blade
Tue, 11 Aug 2020 20:50:32 GMT
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Toledo city council voted Tuesday to double speeding fines on the city’s residential streets.
The legislation introduced by Councilman Sam Melden in July applies to streets with 25 mph speed limits. Initially, the proposal also included double fines for speeding on “through” streets with 35-mph limits, but that part was pulled after discussions with city lawyers because the definition of “through” streets is less clear.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Mr. Melden said.
His plan includes short-term and long-term goals to curb speeding throughout Toledo, including a citywide analysis of speed limits, improving signs, and building safety features and speed reductions into street design.
A year from now, he said, he would like to review the legislation passed Tuesday and see how it’s working. He also said he will push city officials to think of creative ways to curb speeding in residential areas.
“When we slow down traffic in our neighborhoods, we make our neighborhoods stronger,” Mr. Melden said.
During the meeting Tuesday, council also authorized the receipt of a $500,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Health for lead remediation in 20 Toledo properties.
Rosalyn Clemens, who leads the city’s department of neighborhoods, said the properties will be referred by the ODH and would include beneficiaries who are on Medicaid or have children under age 19. The work would be done by construction staff from the city’s existing lead contractors and would need to be completed by July 1, 2021.
Council also approved a $280,000 payment to switch body-camera footage storage from the Toledo Police Department’s own servers to a cloud service.
By having Getac, the company that sold body cameras to TPD, store the department’s footage, it frees up space in department servers and would mean that if a server failure occurred, the footage would still be safe, police officials have said.
The cloud agreement with Getac is for five years and for the first year would be funded from from the Law Enforcement Trust Fund. In subsequent years, provided the funds are available, the money would be paid out of the city’s general fund.
Members of council also discussed recent violence in Toledo, including multiple people shot over the weekend and several reports of shots fired overnight.
Councilman Cecelia Adams referred to a shooting Monday in southwest Toledo’s Winterfield Park and suggested the need for greater communication between police and parks officials for more security.
“There’s concern about making sure we have safety and security in our parks,” she said.
Councilman Chris Delaney emphasized the number of gunshots tracked by ShotSpotter and suggested Toledo could benefit from additional ShotSpotter coverage.
“I think some investment in more of those would be worth its weight in gold,” he said.