In Lakeway (TX), a crusade against speed traps
Resident who displays warnings gets publicity, jail time - and vindication
By Eric Dexheimer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 12:20 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 26, 2010
Published: 6:42 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 25, 2010
Three years ago, when Lakeway resident Lance Mitchell launched his website, SpeedTrap-Ahead.org, he didn't hide his intentions.
"Not a lot of people flash their lights to warn others nowadays," he wrote. "But, I DO! And when I see a speed trap, I go back up the road a bit, and stand on the sidewalk, wearing my SpeedTrapAhead T-shirt."
The site was soon hosting discussions on topics useful to a certain type of driver: Was crossing over a white line technically illegal or merely not recommended? Does state law require that you produce a driver's license if detained?
Mitchell also started chronicling his own occasional acts of civil disruption, often accompanied by self-produced video.
"I saw a cop pull up in the parking lot of the old Lake Travis Elementary," he wrote in March 2008. "About 1,000 feet up the road, there was a perfect spot for me to set up. So, there I stood, holding my 2 x 2 hand held sign, waving my other hand and pointing at the sign."
With the determination of a superhero, he vowed to continue his crusade. "I'll be out again soon! Any time, any place I see a cop blasting out radar, I'll be not too far away, blasting out my message."
It was a message many Lakeway drivers were ready to hear. A fast-growing community of 14,000 in northwestern Travis County, the city has a reputation for its unforgiving radar traps.
"I've heard that," admitted Dede King of the Greater Lakeway Residents Association. "The police watch the traffic pretty well."
"I don't think we deserve the reputation," said City Manager Steve Jones. But, he added, "I think we're diligent in traffic enforcement. And it sends a message."
Mitchell's revolt hit a nerve. People began recognizing him at garage sales and the grocery store as the Speedtrapahead guy. Locals logged on to the website to support his crusade.
"I just saw you with your sign on Lohmans Crossing," Dave wrote. "Way to go! I commend you on your gallantry!"
And, from jbythelake: "I saw you today and we REALLY appreciate what you are doing! My husband got a ticket the day we moved to Lakeway. Thanks again!!!!!"
And, on April 22, 2009, from Beth: "Just saw you being handcuffed and arrested in Lakeway. I'd like to know what you are being charged with."
It turned out to be a complicated question.
Theory vs. reality
"People often ask if I was angry about getting a speeding ticket in my past," Mitchell, now 47, said. "But I've had one ticket in the last 25 years. I'm an excellent driver."
Mitchell said he and a friend in 2007 were brainstorming about websites to launch when he landed on the idea of something involving speed traps.
"My father was a truck driver, and he always flashed his lights to warn people of a radar trap, and I always did that myself," he said. "So it was just curiosity."
Eventually, he wondered if he couldn't also display a sign warning drivers of an upcoming radar trap as an interactive way to promote his site.
"I discovered while it was illegal to warn people of an enforcement action, that didn't apply to the traffic code," Mitchell said. "So I thought, 'Great! Now I can hold a sign!' "
(A researcher at the Texas District and County Attorneys Association confirmed his reading of state law.)
Mitchell commissioned a plastic, diamond-shaped orange sign emblazoned with "Speedtrapahead.org." In early 2008, he began staging speeding motorist interventions.
Mitchell figured he was performing the same public service as a real police speed trap, but at a significantly lower cost to the driver.
"People slow down when they see me," he said. "They pay attention."
Since there is no citation, "it saves money on tickets, insurance rates go down, people drive safer. And isn't that the whole purpose of the police being there?"
In theory, it is. In reality, local governments, especially in small towns, appreciate the money raised by traffic tickets.
Some towns welcomed it so much that Texas passed a law capping the revenue small municipalities may receive from speeding tickets at 30 percent of their total budgets.
Lakeway takes in about $600,000 annually from fines related to speeding tickets, less than 10 percent of its $8 million budget.
State government also benefits from lead-footed drivers by requiring municipalities to turn over a portion of every court fine collected. In 2007, that came to $215 million, according to a study by the Texas Municipal League.
Not everyone was sympathetic to Mitchell's mission, including a new Lakeway police officer named James Debrow, who'd joined the department in early 2008 after a 25-year career with the state Department of Public Safety.
(Debrow did not respond to messages left at his new job as acting captain for the Houston office of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.)
In April 2008, Debrow confronted Mitchell as he was holding his new sign suggesting there was a speed trap ahead.
"He did find a section of the transportation code I was unaware of," conceded Mitchell, who received a citation for violating a state law prohibiting the display of a sign that drivers might mistake for an official traffic-control device.
Mitchell, an amateur but enthusiastic student of the law, took the $400 fine as a temporary setback.
"I need to change my methodology," he recalled thinking. "Besides, I wanted to get away from the whole sign thing anyway. So I thought: I'll just wear it."
Serious about signs
"We take signage very seriously in Lakeway," said Shannon Burke, director of Building and Development Services. "So much of a community's character is perceived through its aesthetics, and so much of aesthetics is perceived through signs."
City ordinances allow no neon. No signs on towers, no illumination, no scrolling and no moving signs. Logos were reluctantly permitted only in 2009.
Strings of white lights are prohibited outside of specific holiday seasons. "We did allow a little festivity," Burke said, "but not out of control."
In short, "It's got to be tasteful. No Las Vegas. No Times Square."
Yet even Burke conceded he was unfamiliar with using Lakeway's sign ordinance to prohibit T-shirts with writing on them.
"I haven't had any experience in that type of violation," he said. "I've had no occasion to interpret it that way."
Early on April 22, 2009, Mitchell spotted a Lakeway police cruiser set up inside a school zone with a radar gun. He set up his warning station up-road, pointing enthusiastically at his speedtrapahead.org shirt whenever a driver passed. His truck, which also sported a decal of the website address, was parked nearby.
According to Mitchell's video account of the event, a black police cruiser soon arrives. Mitchell asks if he is being detained.
"We're doing an investigation here," Debrow says. "We'll let you know."
A bit later, Debrow consults with a code enforcement officer who shows up. Another officer takes photos of Mitchell and his truck.
A few minutes later the group approaches Mitchell; an officer asks for his ID.
When he hands over a card with his name, address and birth date, Debrow demands his driver's license. As Mitchell begins to explain how, technically, that is not legally required as he was not driving, Debrow abruptly orders Mitchell handcuffed and placed under arrest.
During the 13 hours he was detained, Mitchell eventually was informed he was being charged with violating Lakeway's sign ordinance by displaying a sign on his shirt and a speedtrapahead.org decal on his truck.
City officials said they were unaware of police handcuffing and arresting anyone else for sign violations.
Irritating — but legal
When he heard about Mitchell's case, "I said, 'This is ridiculous,'" recalled Malcolm Greenstein, the Austin attorney Mitchell hired to defend him.
Still, the city doggedly pursued its sign violation charges against Mitchell.
"There was more than just a T-shirt," pointed out city prosecutor Scott Taliaferro. "There was also a truck involved."
Lakeway police even tacked on two additional charges against Mitchell: engaging in construction operations that produced noise disturbances. The charges seemed to baffle even the prosecution, and they were dismissed before the trial.
In testimony, the Lakeway officer who wrote the tickets, Hector Almaguer, insisted he was simply following orders from Debrow, who'd instructed him to call if he ever saw Mitchell exposing a speed trap. He also said Debrow told him the local judge had issued a standing order to have Mitchell arrested.
"I about jumped three inches out of my chair when I heard that," the municipal judge, Kevin Madison, recalled. "That is absolutely not true."
At the June 2009 trial, the code enforcement officer who'd been summoned to the scene testified that Debrow had directed him to come up with some violations against Mitchell because, Debrow told him, "This is getting personal."
"Everyone just kind of fell back in his chair," Madison recalled.
Madison found Mitchell not guilty on all counts. In his explanation of the verdict that day, Madison summoned the image of Leslie Cochran, Austin's cross-dressing icon.
"Mr. Mitchell, his behavior is a little eccentric — I think some people could say that — and irritating to some," the judge said. "However, in the city of Austin, Leslie, who walks around in a thong, is irritating and eccentric to some. ... He walks a very fine line, especially when he wears things like a jockstrap downtown exposing his buttocks and not his genitals."
Madison continued: "I don't think the intent of the city is to outlaw the wearing of a T-shirt. If we outlaw T-shirts, what happens next? If you have a tattoo on your body, does that become a sign?"
A month after the trial, Mitchell filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Lakeway, Debrow, the code enforcement officer and Almaguer complaining that he "was arrested, jailed and prosecuted ... and deprived of his First Amendment rights merely because he wore a shirt and sported a decal on his truck with a message that reads speedtrapahead.org."
Debrow left the department in January. Lakeway Police Chief Todd Radford said he left for a better job at the beverage commission.
Last month, both sides reached a confidential settlement.
"I don't have to worry about working for four or five months," said Mitchell, who is currently unemployed.
He also said he's ready to get back to warning Lakeway drivers to slow down.
His website, which he'd left dormant during his legal battles, is once again live. Mitchell said he earns about 15 cents a day off of the venture.
Jones, the city manager, said Mitchell will be treated fairly. "If he breaks the law, he'll be cited. If not, we'll leave him alone."
Mitchell said he'll be careful. "Apparently," he said, "they can arrest you for anything."
edexheimer@statesman.com; 445-1774
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/in-lakeway-a-crusade-against-speed-traps-1146294.html
