The installation of cameras on school bus stop arms may be enforced sooner rather than later, Mercer Island School Board and City Council members discussed at their joint meeting April 7 at City Hall.

The school district would use a camera system created by American Traffic Solutions (ATS), which would install cameras that take pictures of vehicles and their license plates when passing a yellow bus with its stop arm out. Digital pictures and video of the violation would be sent to the police department, which would then authorize ATS to print and mail a violation notice. Fees would be collected by ATS.

Superintendent Dr. Gary Plano said Mercer Island Police Chief Ed Holmes was supportive of such a system. Data provided by the school district showed that 96 percent of violators did not receive another violation.

Dean Mack, school district CFO, told the board in March that the district experiences stop-arm violations daily. He said cameras would be installed on five buses and moved around to routes experiencing stop-arm violations. He also stated neighboring districts in Bellevue, Kent, Redmond, Highline and Issaquah are moving in a similar direction to combat stop-arm violations.

“Each violation is the potential of a tragic accident,” Mack said. “We know that we need to take some kind of action to decrease that kind of behavior.”

The state fines violators $394 for failing to stop for a school bus stop arm. ATS would deduct $69 per violation to cover operation costs as well as the installation and maintenance of equipment. The district estimates $25 to $45 will go to the city to cover the costs of the police department, prosecutor’s office and court services. Approximately $280 would go to the district to improve safety in school zones, with pupil transportation and students in school bus loading and unloading areas.

Plano said if in the first six months the number of violations is high, ATS may add more cameras for the district to use.

The school board still needs to provide authorization for the superintendent to sign a contract with ATS for the camera system, and a contract has been negotiated by the King County Directors Association. The city and school district would develop an interlocal agreement, and the City Council would need to pass an ordinance to allow the implementation of the system.

School district officials discussed a 30-day warning period for violators following the system’s implementation, which Commander David Jokinen with Mercer Island Police said ATS recommended.

“Oftentimes there are glitches and problems,” Jokinen said. “You don’t want to roll out your system and be giving out citations or tickets. All you have to do is look at what happened with 405 earlier this year, when people were getting bills for tolls that they didn’t do.”

City Council members expressed a desire to forego the grace period and implement the system with full regulation sooner rather than later, with Councilmembers Benson Wong and Dan Grausz both stating their opposition to a potential grace period.

“I don’t think any of us can live with the idea that on Sept. 15, some kid gets killed and we said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, that was a grace period,'” Grausz said. “It doesn’t work that way, you don’t get a grace period in this type of business.”

Final City Council action on the interlocal agreement and ordinance is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 1. The superintendent plans to implement the camera system before the beginning of the 2016-17 school year.