Traffic patrol in El Dorado Hills

Position paper paper #07-01 of the El Dorado Hills Citizens Alliance
Approved by Citizens Alliance board of directors 2/10/2007
Updated 8/1/2007 and 8/14/2007

Summary

El Dorado Hills has a compelling and unsatisfied need for traffic patrol in the interest of public safety. The most viable way to satisfy this need appears to be amendment of state law, to grant full authority for the El Dorado County Sheriff to enforce the California Vehicle Code on the surface streets of El Dorado Hills. We recommend prompt passage of legislation to do this.

Need

Traffic patrol is the most effective response to the most important public safety issue in El Dorado Hills.

An example of the value of traffic patrol is Redwood Shores, where the Redwood City Police are staffed at 1.25 sworn officers per thousand population. Residents typically see a patrol car on traffic duty two to three times per week, and driving habits are consequently much more prudent than is typical in El Dorado Hills. A radar speed survey on Redwood Shores Blvd. showed an 85th percentile speed of 37 mph where the posted limit is 35. In contrast, speeding and running stop signs are common in El Dorado Hills. The neighborhoods of Waterford and Sterlingshire have each clocked speeders on radar as fast as 78 mph on residential streets posted for 25 mph

El Dorado Hills is an actual city of about 43,000 people but is unincorporated, without its own police. It has experienced rapid growth, with its population tripling in about 15 years. Rising population and road congestion have brought increased rates of accidents, with visible consequences including property damage, injuries, and fatalities. Many accidents would not have occurred if drivers had exercised the degree of caution generally seen in areas with good traffic patrol presence.

El Dorado Hills law enforcement coverage is split between the California Highway Patrol for Vehicle Code enforcement and the El Dorado County Sheriff for general law enforcement. Because of its unincorporated status, only the CHP has full authority to enforce the Vehicle Code on EDH surface streets. The most important enforcement power in question is ability to perform traffic patrol, with units stationed at particular locations or cruising to watch for problems. Visibility of law enforcement vehicles on patrol is itself a very strong deterrent to dangerous driving practices.

Our problem is that the CHP has virtually no resources available for local traffic patrol. Its Placerville office is responsible for a system of almost exactly 1,000 miles of roads. The CHP beat that includes El Dorado Hills covers an area of about 250 square miles, the portion of El Dorado County from the Sacramento County line to Ponderosa Road in Shingle Springs. Peak daytime staffing on this beat normally provides only two units on duty at any given time. Minimum staffing goes down to one unit for the entire West Slope on graveyard shift.

Three homeowners associations in El Dorado Hills are securing limited patrol through Reimbursable Services Agreements, basically buying service from the CHP by funding overtime duty. Otherwise traffic patrol on surface streets tends to be limited to major arterials, and even that patrol presence is so episodic and scarce that it is difficult to quantify.

Law enforcement level of service comparison:
Sworn officers per thousand population*

*This graph will be updated when we quantitative information of the new level of service by the CHP in EDH.
Patrol LOS

Law enforcement level of service was an issue in the 2005 campaign for local Measure P, which would have incorporated El Dorado Hills as a city. Cityhood opponents repeatedly cited Folsom's level of police services as a desirable standard, 1.14 sworn officers per thousand population. Cityhood proponents agreed that this is an appropriate level of service. (The campaign arguments revolved around whether the desired level could more easily be reached as a city or as an unincorporated part of El Dorado County.)

To provide the same level of service capability would require 47 CHP officers dedicated to El Dorado Hills. Actual staffing for the entire West Slope area at this time this is written is 28 officers dedicated to incident response and patrol on about 1,100 miles of roads. El Dorado Hills surface streets constitute 121 miles of roads. In contrast, the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office most recently reported having 165 sworn officers for general law enforcement.

Comparison of EDH needs with actual level of service in incorporated cities of similar sizes is difficult because larger police departments have some degree of staff specialization. For example, a police department with 1.25 sworn officers per thousand population might have a unit specializing in traffic patrol, and that unit's size might correspond to a fraction such as 0.5 sworn officers per thousand. Other staff normally would not focus on traffic patrol, but are legally empowered to perform that function.


Possible ways to secure and support adequate traffic patrol

These are possible ways to gain traffic patrol in El Dorado Hills:
Past advocacy for state law changes

Since startup of the Citizens Alliance in 2006, the Alliance has advocated to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors that the most appropriate action would be for the County to seek the required changes in state law to authorize full Vehicle Code enforcement authority for the County Sheriff within the El Dorado Hills Community Region. The Board of Supervisors has not undertaken to do so and has not expressed an intention to do so in the future. In 2007 The Alliance contacted Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi's office with a request to introduce lsuch legislation. Assemblyman Nakanishi declined to do so.

The city police alternative

The easiest way under law to gain traffic patrol would be to incorporate as a city. This would combine enforcement authority for both traffic patrol and general law enforcement in a single agency, city police. This was in fact cited by CHP officers and by past advocates of incorporation as the most feasible way to obtain adequate traffic patrol in El Dorado Hills.

Incorporation of El Dorado Hills as a city was attempted and was defeated in the November, 2005 election (Measure P) by a margin of 56.3% to 43.6%. 98% of campaign funding to defeat Measure P came from development interests, the special interest group that has dominated El Dorado County politics for at least two decades.

Under state law (the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act) the earliest legally feasible date to incorporate as a city would be July 1, 2010. It is highly doubtful that incorporation is politically feasible that early: If incorporation becomes feasible by 2015 El Dorado Hills will have then grown to a population expected to be in the range of 60,000 to 65,000 people. The daily transient population of the 885-acre El Dorado Hills Business Park is expected to be 10,000 and the Town Center area in El Dorado Hills will add some thousands of vehicle trips per day as a regional center of commerce.

All of these growth factors increase the need for traffic patrol. The need already is compelling, it will be even more so in the near-future years.

Position

The Citizens Alliance should promote the most politically viable solution. At this time that solution is to encourage a very substantially higher level of service from the CHP.  The Alliance also should monitor changes in political acceptability of the most legally viable solution, incorporation as a city.