Rio Rancho public safety aides could soon issue traffic citations

The Rio Rancho Governing Body took the first step toward allowing public safety aides to give parking tickets and other traffic citations.

The Governing Body voted 6-0 at its Aug. 8 meeting in favor of an ordinance to amend the Chapter 70 Uniform Traffic Code. The amendment will expand the duties of PSAs, which will allow sworn police officers to focus on other higher-priority calls for service. This was the first reading of the ordinance.

The second reading of the ordinance will take place at the Aug. 22 meeting. If approved, it will go into effect 10 days after.

“This allows us to pull these PSAs into the realm where they can also issue citations on some other stuff,” Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull said. “It basically gives us a higher use of those individuals who are working for the community.”

According to the city of Rio Rancho, the PSA position was created in 2018 within the Rio Rancho Police Department to augment department resources and to create an introductory pathway for those interested in pursuing a law enforcement career as a sworn police officer. Currently, the department has six funded PSA positions. The PSA job duties include a wide variety of tasks that include responding to traffic-related calls, serving civil paperwork and writing reports.

RRPD Capt. Richard Koschade told the Governing Body at the Aug. 8 meeting that in the first six months of 2024, PSAs have responded to 1,153 calls. That includes 512 calls for disabled or unattended vehicles and 29 public nuisance calls for service.

“With the adoption of this amendment, we would hope to mitigate some of these future calls for service and increase the quality of life within the city of Rio Rancho,” Koschade said.

The proposed ordinance would allow the RRPD Chief of Police Stewart Steele to authorize PSAs to enforce parking laws, registration violations, and unlawful advertisement and sale of vehicles. That authority would be revocable by the police chief at any time.

As it stands now, when a PSA encounters or witnesses a citable infraction, a sworn police officer must be called to the scene to issue a citation, which reduces proactive time for law enforcement officer patrols and negatively impacts response times to other calls for service. The authority and prosecution processes for a non-sworn officer issuing citations would be similar to those of animal control officers and code enforcement officers. The city of Albuquerque and the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department both have programs that allow PSAs to issue citations for similar violations.

Koschade said RRPD PSAs have been trained specifically on “how to testify in court and how to deal with the appropriateness of citing versus warnings.”

District 3 Councilor Bob Tyler, a retired law enforcement officer and former PSA, raised concerns about unarmed PSAs being put in confrontational situations while issuing citations but encouraged them to perform their new duties allowed by the amendment.

“I want them to go out and, if there's parking violations, write citations,” Tyler said. “They’re doing what they need to do because we don't have parking enforcement. And if they have downtime, they have free time, there's plenty of things out there for them to write tickets on. Go for it. Have fun with it.”