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The unblinking eye of an automated camera at Coors Boulevard and Quail Road Northwest watches traffic on Albuquerque's West Side. Cameras at 20 city intersections will continue to operate, at least until mid-January, after City Council action Monday night.

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City Council President Brad Winter needed just a few blunt words to describe an attempt to shutter the city's red-light camera program.

"That fails miserably," he said Monday night of a veto override attempt.

Mayor Martin Chavez last week vetoed Winter's bill, which put a moratorium on issuing speeding and red-light tickets from the controversial camera program.

Winter needed six votes to override. He got two; himself and Councilor Michael Cadigan.

But while the bill that would stop collecting money from the traffic mitigation program failed, another measure that will direct the money to a new account passed unanimously.

The bill, sponsored jointly by Winter and Councilor Sally Mayer, redirects $5.1 million generated by the red-light camera program over the past two years from the general fund into its own isolated fund to be used for "nonrecurring public safety expenditures," Mayer said.

"This is something we can keep our eyes on, and it will be transparent," she said.

Mayer and Winter had criticized the Chavez administration by saying it had used the camera revenue to balance the city budget when it was intended for public safety uses.

Anna Lamberson, the city's chief financial officer, said it is impossible to tell exactly how the camera revenue was used once commingled into the massive general fund.

As a result, she said, the city will divert money from departments that did not spend all of their money into the newly created fund to make up the $5.1 million in excess revenue the red-light camera program was to have generated.

That didn't sit well with some councilors.

"I'm concerned we came up with $5 million in unspent diversion money when we have departments that are short of funding," Cadigan said.

All future revenue from the automated cameras will be sent to the new fund, minus the cost to administer the program and pay the officers who run it, Lamberson said.

Winter's failed override came after a 3-2 victory Dec. 3 on his bill to stop collecting camera fines until Jan. 15, when a Chavez-appointed task force is scheduled to present its report on the program's effectiveness.

Four councilors missed that meeting, but the majority questioned whether the program had succeeded in preventing accidents at the city's major intersections.

In his veto message, Chavez said he wanted to let the task force do its work before making a decision on the program.

The majority of the council agreed with him Monday.