Rio Rancho Governing Body gives Public Service Aides authority to enforce traffic code

The Rio Rancho Governing Body unanimously voted to allow public service aides to give parking tickets and other traffic citations.

The Governing Body voted 6-0 at its Aug. 22 meeting in favor of an ordinance to amend the Chapter 70 Uniform Traffic Code. The amendment allows non-sworn personnel to enforce traffic code provisions, such as parking and registration, through a written directive from Rio Rancho Police Chief Stewart Steele. The amendment aims to improve quality of life by addressing issues like disabled vehicles and public nuisances. This was the second reading of the ordinance with the first reading also passing 6-0 at the Aug. 8 Governing Body meeting.

The approved ordinance will go into effect Sept. 1

“We expanded their authorities to also be able to issue basically code enforcement violations,” Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull said. “So the PSAs work in conjunction, not only with the police department, but with code enforcement on cars that might be broken down and parked in the streets where they shouldn't be there and different things like that.”

According to the city of Rio Rancho, a 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 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 enforcement ability by non-sworn officers is similar to other processes within the city such as animal control and code enforcement. Other agencies such as Albuquerque and Bernalillo County have put this into place and have seen success in their PSA programs.”

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

As it previously stood, 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.