Drivers will soon face fines of up to $100 if caught using a mobile phone while driving within Española city limits.
With no public involvement, hardly any debate and a third of the City Council absent, the city unanimously approved an ordinance at a June 10 public hearing that forbids drivers from using cell phones to engage in calls or to send or receive text messages. The ordinance will become effective Saturday, Acting City Manager Veronica Albin said.
The ordinance also forbids any other activity that may interfere with safely operating a vehicle, such as carrying an animal or other person on the driver’s lap, and operating a vehicle’s lights or horn in a way that distracts other drivers.
The ordinance applies to Española Police officers except while they handle an emergency, Albin said.
“Many other cities have adopted this type of ordinance for safety purposes, and I think we should follow suit,” Mayor Pro Tem Alice Lucero said at the meeting.
The ordinance includes an exception allowing drivers to make emergency calls, including calls to police, doctors, paramedics and fire departments, while driving. It also allows drivers to make any type of calls by using hands-free equipment.
Police may cite drivers simply for holding a phone close to their ear while driving, but they may be cleared of a citation if they can prove they were not engaged in a call, the ordinance states.
Public Safety Chief Julian Gonzales said the texting provision in the ordinance follows a recently-passed state law that forbids reading or sending text messages while driving.
The Streets Department is soliciting quotes to post signs at all entrances to the city informing drivers of the ordinance, Acting City Manager Veronica Albin said.
Before voting in favor of the ordinance, District 1 Councilor Alfred Herrera asked whether the Council could approve the ordinance, given that it was the first time the governing body considered it.
The Council in the past has held up to three separate hearings for new ordinances. Acting city attorney Paula Maynes said neither state nor city law requires more than one hearing for new ordinances. City code calls for at least one public hearing to pass an ordinance.
Councilors at the meeting all voted for the ordinance. Mayor Joseph Maestas and District 1 councilors Danielle Duran and Dennis Tim Salazar were absent for the vote. Maestas would have only voted to break a tie.
No members of the public attended the hearing, which Albin told Councilors had been advertised on the KDCE radio station but not published in any newspaper.
State law requires the city to advertise ordinance hearings in the city’s newspaper of general circulation at least two weeks before the hearing. Ordinances that are not properly advertised can be contested in state District Court, the law states.
A state District Court ruling in the 1970s held the SUN is the newspaper of general circulation in Española after Rio Arriba County attempted to post legal advertisements only in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Maynes said Tuesday the city did advertise the hearing, but only in the Albuquerque Journal. The city was unable to provide evidence that it properly advertised the ordinance hearing, though administrative assistant Jessica Martinez did provide a copy of a hearing notice she said she faxed to the Journal May 27.