Oceanside CA- The Oceanside Police and Fire Commission has recommended that the City Council accept $219,578 in grant funds from the California Office of Traffic Safety awarded to the City of Oceanside for DUI Checkpoints and Traffic Enforcement Programs.
In January of this year, the Oceanside Police Department submitted a grant application to the California of Traffic Safety (OTS) and the University of California Berkeley, Safe Transportation Research & Education Center for the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program and the Sobriety Checkpoint Grant Program. In May, the police department was notified that the grant application had been accepted for funding of $108,450 for the Sobriety Checkpoint Grant Program and $111 ,128 for the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program . The grant funds are to be expended during the grant period of October 1, 2013 through September 30, 2014.
The Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), funds sobriety checkpoints throughout California. The goal is to reduce the number of victims killed and injured in alcohol-involved crashes in participating cities. OTS awards grants on a competitive basis using several criteria including performance on previous grants, the number of alcohol-involved fatalities and injuries, and the value of the funding requested. Highly publicized enforcement’s during the NHTSA-specified Winter Holiday and Labor Day Mobilization periods are a priority for OTS and NHTSA. The Winter Holiday Mobilization period is December 13, 2013 – January 1, 2014; and the Labor Day Mobilization period is August 15 – September 1, 2014. In addition to conducting checkpoints during these periods, agencies are encouraged to request personnel overtime funding for additional checkpoints outside the mobilization periods.
The Oceanside Police Department will appropriate $112,450 to overtime, benefits and supplies for 10 DUI checkpoint operations and training. An additional $107,128 will be used for related DUI driver enforcement operations with general traffic enforcement operations also receiving a portion of those funds. Six DUI arrests have been made in the last three DUI/Drivers Licence checkpoints and 59 citations were issued.