Red-light cameras are staying put in Los Alamitos and Garden Grove, the last two Orange County cities still using the devices.

The Los Alamitos City Council voted 5-0 Monday night to renew the city’s agreement with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., the company that provides the cameras, after the five-year contract was set to expire in September.

And on Tuesday, the Garden Grove City Council chose to keep its red-light cameras for now, opting not to terminate its contract with Redflex. The Garden Grove council, however, was unhappy with a statistical analysis of the system and asked city staffers to come back with a more comprehensive report. Garden Grove has had red-light cameras for 15 years.

Los Alamitos will continue to pay $4,576 a month per approach, which is one direction heading into an intersection, for a total of $13,728 each month. Garden Grove spends $2,900 per approach for a total of $31,900 every month to maintain the technology.

Council members cited safety, cost-effectiveness, and major traffic within Los Alamitos – considered a gateway city into the county – as reasons for their vote.

“I think every city has its own unique circumstances and for us it’s traffic and to financially balance our public safety needs,” Los Alamitos Mayor Pro Tem Troy Edgar said. “The cameras condition the behavior of drivers on major intersections, and once they are aware of where the cameras are it acts as a deterrent to limit the amount of unsafe and illegal accidents.”

Santa Ana ended its contract with Redflex in June, while other cities, like Huntington Beach and Laguna Woods, removed the cameras in response to growing complaints. Residents and others said the program encouraged rear-end collisions because cars stopped too abruptly, created a financial burden with steep legal and enforcement costs and interfered with safe driving as drivers focused less on the road and more on avoiding a ticket.

Edgar said the 24-hour cameras enable the Los Alamitos Police Department to better utilize its resources, instead of sending officers to the intersections of Los Alamitos Boulevard and Katella Avenue – where two cameras are set up – and Bloomfield Street and Katella Avenue, where one camera is employed.

The city launched the Red Light Camera Enforcement program in 2005. The number of red light violations has decreased by 33 percent since the first four months of the program, and the city has seen a 38 percent decline in the average number of traffic collisions since the program began, according to the staff report.

While Redflex pushed for a $30,000 cancellation fee if the city terminated the contract without cause, the city negotiated at the meeting to waive the fee.

However, Los Alamitos Mayor Richard Murphy acknowledged that the city would likely only remove the cameras if they were ruled illegal at the state level.

“The Police Department is convinced it does what it’s supposed to do safety-wise and the chief has a lot of credibility in our city so I think that’s really the persuading factor,” he said.

One attendee voiced his concerns against the cameras.

“Mainly, they don’t work,” said Jim Lissner, 69, of Hermosa Beach. “If you’ve lived in Los Al, you know where the cameras are so you’re unlikely to get a ticket. Most of the tickets are going to go to visitors.”

He cited what he considered to be exorbitant costs of the program, compared to neighboring Garden Grove, and questioned how the staff report determined the numbers that affirmed reduced accident figures.

In an email to the council, James Walker, executive director of the National Motorists Association Foundation, argued that the cameras damage the local economy since the majority of ticket fines go to either Sacramento or camera companies based outside of the state.

But Los Alamitos Councilman Warren Kusumoto said residents’ safety remains his utmost priority. He recalled outside the meeting how as a teen he was hit by a car that ran a red light and spent eight days in the hospital.

The driver was never apprehended, he said.

Register staff writer

Chris Haire contributed

to this report.

Contact the writer: neinbinder@ocregister.com