Police chief, city officials at odds over speeding policy

HAYDEN LAKE — Hayden Lake Police Chief Ron Pumphrey said Mayor Jim Ackerman ordered him to implement a zero tolerance policy for speeding violations of 32 mph or more.

“The city has placed non-discretionary sanctions on their police officer to write tickets at 32 mph in a 25 mph zone,” Pumphrey said in a public service announcement he distributed. "Tickets will be written for any speed exceeding the posted speed limits by seven miles per hour or more unless a valid defense exists under Idaho or federal law.”

Where the city speed limit is posted at 15 mph, tickets would be mandated for anyone traveling 22 mph.

Pumphrey said he has ethical objections to the order, but city attorney Pete Bredeson told a different story during a City Council meeting Tuesday.

As part of the police chief’s contract, which was signed in June, the city is required to give the police chief directives, Bredeson said.

“We came up with some draft directives for his feedback,” Bredeson said. “And before I had a chance to talk about his feedback on the directives with the council and the mayor, he started distributing this public service announcement.”

In the early draft, the city asked the police chief to enforce speed limit violations, because traffic has been an ongoing concern since a traffic committee did a study in 2018.

The chief was asked to “focus on reducing speeding in the city with tickets being written and minimizing the use of warnings. Tickets are to be written for any speed exceeding the posted speed limit by seven mph or more unless a valid defense exists under Idaho or federal law,” the city wrote in the early draft.

The city attorney is working to schedule a meeting with council members and the police chief to discuss changes to the draft.

“This screams revenue motivation by four times the difference; for one mile an hour,” Pumphrey said in the announcement. “These types of performance ticket writings aren’t considered community-oriented policing approach measurements.”

According to traffic data gathered over seven months from 1.3 million vehicles traveling in Hayden Lake, people traveling at speeds between 33 mph and 35 mph account for just 3.3% of traffic. But people traveling between 30 mph and 32 mph make up about 18% of traffic.

The zero tolerance order would affect roughly 21% of travelers through Hayden Lake, likely causing a spike in citations.

“Eleanor Elliott felt the previous councils have been remiss in not taking this traffic problem seriously,” wrote then city clerk Lynn Hagman in the minutes for a meeting in August 2018. “Elliott stated she does not walk on Lakeview Drive any longer due to the speeding traffic.”

Multiple residents commented during that meeting on a report from a traffic committee. In the same meeting, Hayden Lake resident Pat Walters asked for a 15 mph speed limit to slow traffic at Lakeview Drive, and another resident, Craig Tedman, agreed.

Councilman Tommy Frey had suggested then to add speed bumps as a possible solution to ongoing traffic problems around Strahorn and the golf course.

The city’s current clerk, Tina West, said traffic problems are still a concern to residents. Speed control could be one part of the solution.

“There isn’t a viable safety-supported construct for a single officer forced by elected officials making mandatory orders to write tickets,” Pumphrey wrote in the announcement. “Surrounding seven months of data of uneventful traffic flow problems and with no real problems to speak of.”

The state speed limit in Idaho is 35 mph in any residential, business or urban district, unless otherwise posted, but Hayden Lake’s City Code has capped speeds at 25 mph since 1975. Bredeson said the limit is grandfathered in for Idaho statute Title 49-207, which limits city’s ability to curb speeds without traffic studies, engineering reports, or to align with the neighborhood character.

Pumphrey is the only officer on staff at the Hayden Lake Police Department, and implied in his service announcement that “failure to perform zero tolerance order faces potential failure to perform dismissal,” Pumphrey said.

The police chief did not attend Tuesday's meeting, but Bredeson said he is still employed.

“We have gone through so many police people, chiefs and officers over the last year, and when I hear that there is maybe some lack of communication between the council and the police chief, I’m just a little concerned about it given the record of not being able to get these people to stay,” Hayden Lake resident Paul Rich said.