Park too close to a Montclair crosswalk, and the first sign of trouble could soon be an envelope in your mailbox: photos of your car, taken by a camera on a waist-high post and reviewed by a town employee, with no officer in sight.
The council has set aside up to $50,000 for a 90-day pilot of the cameras. The company supplying them told the council towns come out ahead from day one. So the Montclair Pod asked the township what the $50,000 is for.
How do Montclair parking cameras work, and when do they start?
The cameras, called SafetySticks, are gray, solar-powered posts about waist high. Radar detects a car parked in a restricted spot, and a camera inside photographs it. The manufacturer, Municipal Parking Services (MPS), is based in Austin, Texas. In Boonton, which began its pilot in July, each camera takes three photos: the empty space, the car arriving and the car leaving, Police Chief Christopher Petonak told PIX11.
A municipal employee reviews the evidence before any ticket is issued. A confirmed violation is mailed to the vehicle’s registered owner, who can contest it in Municipal Court like any other parking ticket.
Montclair’s council adopted an ordinance in November 2025 allowing the cameras at fire hydrants, bus stops, crosswalks, drop-off zones, special parking zones and loading zones. Belleville has used them since August 2025. Parking Superintendent Manny Germano first pitched them to the council in September 2025, Montclair Local reported. On Aug. 11, the council authorized a contract with MPS for a 90-day pilot “to evaluate the effectiveness” of the system, approving up to $50,000.
No start date has been set. Responding to a public records request from Montclair Local, Germano wrote that there is no timeline because there is no contract. Officials said the contract will return to the council for approval before the pilot begins.
Why does Montclair need $50,000 if the cameras pay for themselves?
Ken Wollins, MPS’s director of sales and business development, told the council last year that towns pay a license fee based on the number of violations, which keeps them “cash-flow positive from day one,” according to Montclair Local. In Boonton, the cameras cost the town nothing, and MPS collects 40 percent of violation fees, PIX11 reported. Montclair has not published its terms.
Matthew Amaral, the township’s communications director, told the Montclair Pod the money is not for the cameras. “The $50,000 authorized in the resolution is not for the purchase or installation of the Safety Sticks,” he wrote. MPS covers installation and data costs and is paid through a share of enforcement revenue.
Instead, Amaral said, the $50,000 bridges a timing gap. Fines arrive slowly, especially when drivers pay late or contest a ticket. And fines collected through Municipal Court go into the township’s general budget, not to the Parking Utility, which runs meters, lots, decks and parking enforcement. Because the utility is the one that owes MPS, the $50,000, money formally reserved for that bill, lets it pay the vendor on schedule without waiting for fines to flow back.
The township says permit and meter revenue, not tax dollars, pays for the Parking Utility. Amaral’s statement does not say what happens to any unspent money, or what share of each fine MPS will receive in Montclair. Those terms will come with the contract.
Could Montclair put parking cameras anywhere in town?
Germano has suggested as much. He told the council the devices could eventually cover drop-off and loading zones, the crosshatched areas on Bloomfield Avenue “or anywhere in town,” Montclair Local reported.
The grace period before a ticket varies. Belleville allows 90 seconds. Wollins said MPS typically applies 90 seconds and has extended it to as much as three minutes. Montclair has not announced one, and the number will matter most in drop-off and loading zones, where a brief stop is the point.
Every photo also captures a license plate. “License plate information will not be shared with Flock or other agencies,” Amaral told Montclair Local. Flock makes cameras that scan the plates of passing cars for police. Citing Germano, Amaral said the data won’t be shared even with the police department. The ordinance itself says nothing about sharing. MPS told PIX11 it does not store photos of vehicles that aren’t in violation and keeps violation photos until a ticket is paid or decided in court.
The cameras arrive as the town is already debating plate data. The township operates four fixed license plate readers at two locations, and in September, residents urged the council to adopt safeguards around them. A written retention and sharing policy in the parking camera contract would put the township’s verbal assurances on paper.
Do parking cameras work, and why not speed cameras?
In nearby towns that have reported numbers, violations fell. In Belleville, they spiked when the cameras went up in August 2025 and dropped by October, police told Montclair Local. In Boonton, Petonak told PIX11, average daily violations in the camera zones fell from 18 to three in two months.
That creates a tension: the vendor is paid per violation, so a program that works shrinks the tickets that fund it. Boonton officials have said the point is safety, not revenue.
Parking is also as far as New Jersey lets cameras go. State law bars automated speed enforcement. The state’s red-light camera pilot ran in about two dozen towns for five years and expired in December 2014. In 2012, the state suspended dozens of those cameras over concerns that yellow lights weren’t properly timed, CBS New York reported. Declan O’Scanlon, then an assemblyman and the program’s chief critic, said more than $4 million in tickets were refunded.
Sen. Troy Singleton has introduced a bill, S3218, that would allow speed cameras in school zones only, ticketing drivers going at least 10 mph over the limit on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fines would top out at $75, with no points, and all fine revenue would go to a state fund for pedestrian safety near schools. The bill also bars paying the vendor based on how many tickets it issues or how much revenue it collects, the opposite of how Boonton pays for its parking cameras.
What Montclair drivers should know now
- No start date has been announced for the pilot.
- The pilot runs 90 days, with up to $50,000 approved. The vendor is MPS.
- No contract is in place, and officials say it must return to the council for approval.
- Tickets are mailed to the vehicle’s registered owner and can be contested in Municipal Court.
- Questions go to the Montclair Parking Utility on the township’s website.
