Frederick Police Chief's Response

Frederick Police Chief Kim Dine's response to a letter written by Patrick Muldowney is reprinted below, with formatting edited slightly:

Dear Mr. Muldowney:

Thank you for your email and for taking the time to express your concerns about growing traffic issues in the City. Obviously you are correct in that the City and its challenges continue to grow - all positives in most respects. With that growth, traffic issues and concerns continue to grow as well. We are extremely cognizant of that fact. We meet with residents across the City monthly (in our Neighborhood Advisory Council (NAC) meetings and other neighborhood meetings) and hardly a meeting goes by where traffic concerns do not come up as part of the discussion. I certainly appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns as it is this kind of interaction that we want to foster and nurture. Quite often, it is through emails and interaction and feedback from the NAC meetings where we learn where the most egregious traffic issues (as well as other concerns) are taking place.

While I am also glad you have not been involved in our enforcement efforts, I am a bit surprised that you have not seen them in action. In fact, some folks think we are too aggressive in terms of our traffic enforcement. Regardless, I can tell you that they are on-going and very aggressive, as well as multi-faceted in terms of the City's approach to these issues. They include:

1. application of traffic calming efforts by the City engineer, to include speed humps, traffic circles, etc.
2. use of electronic speed signs by the FPD, to slow traffic and provide statistical data
3. implementation of our Red Light Photo Enforcement Program, which we started about 5 years ago, and through which hundreds of violations are issued monthly
4. and lastly, what we call traditional enforcement by our officers, which includes radar use, traffic stops, etc., which actually is very aggressive.

Some statistics for moving violations issued by our officers, not including the Red Light numbers I mentioned above:

• 2005 -- over 10,000 moving citations
• 2006 -- over 10,000 moving citations
• 2007 -- over 11,000 moving citations
• 2008 - year to date -- over 9000 citations

Since 2005, we have issued over 41,000 moving citations to folks driving in Frederick. We engage in these efforts all over the City. We will continue these efforts and will also continue to interact with our residents on a constant basis to learn about their concerns. Aggressive traffic enforcement not only obviously addresses traffic issues, but has shown to be a very effective crime fighting tool as well. We have also done a number of things inside the agency to facilitate and enhance our responsiveness to each neighborhood. For example, if you go on the City website or our police website, you can directly contact supervisors we have assigned to each NAC, to immediately facilitate problem solving efforts.

I hope this at least somewhat addresses the issue you raised. If not, I am very glad to meet and/or discuss further. Thanks again for taking the time to email me and discuss your concerns.

Thanks.
KCD

Kim C. Dine
Chief of Police
Frederick Police Department
Frederick, Maryland
100 West Patrick Street
Frederick, Maryland, 21701
www.cityoffrederick.com/police
telephone:301-600-2106
email:kdine@fredco-md.net
facsimile: 301-600 -2720