Imagine you’re driving down the road when all of a sudden you see lights and hear sirens behind you — a signal you’re being pulled over by the police — a feeling of dread hits you. Now imagine you’re a single mom or an unemployed dad, and instead of receiving a citation for that broken taillight you couldn’t afford to fix, the officer who pulled you over gives you a voucher to fix the light for free. That feeling of dread turns into relief and gratitude — a potentially negative encounter into a positive one.

That’s what the Lights On! program offers, and California’s San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office recently joined the program.

San Mateo Sheriff Christina Corpus shared at the time she spoke to The Municipal that her department launched its program two to three months prior, so at the end of the year 2023. However, the sheriff’s office was in talks with the program coordinators several months prior to that.

“I read about it in an article about building community. I was intrigued, so I contacted them and we assigned one of our managers to look into it. I was pretty much sold by the experiences other law enforcement agencies across the country were experiencing,” she said.

“We signed on, and it’s been nothing but positive for us,” she said. “The premise behind it is to have positive interactions when you pull someone over because their light is malfunctioning. Historically, they’d get a citation and court costs are added to the cost of the ticket, but instead, they’re given a voucher to get their light fixed for free.

“That premise is why I thought it’d be a great idea for us, for community building, but it’s also keeping people safe and the deputies have the opportunity to, when they pull someone over, give a voucher instead of a citation, and they can take that to an auto shop to get it fixed for free.”

She added, “In the experiences we’ve had so far, the people we pulled over who thought they were getting a ticket and learned they were getting a voucher were extra appreciative — it turned them from being fearful and nervous into so grateful we helped them because they’re in need.”

Sheriff Corpus shared that people sometimes have to choose whether to pay rent or feed their family versus getting the light fixed, so it’s a good thing to take the pressure off them. “At the same time, it’s also helping keep our highways and freeways and roads safer — especially at night because their lights are malfunctioning.”

Auto shop partners

Once San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office started the process with Lights On!, “we asked our sergeants on patrol to go and see which auto body shops might want to be a partner with us and Lights On! When they said yes, we provided the information to the Lights On! program,” Sheriff Corpus said.

She noted there’s always room for more auto body shops to sign on to be a partner, and the department now has some shops spread out throughout the county.

“So it’s easier for our residents to have a shop either closer to their home or place of employment — we’ve tried to make sure they’re (located) in different parts of the county, so they didn’t have to travel far,” she said.

The department has received positive feedback from the partner shops. Sheriff Corpus said, “The feedback we’re getting from the shops in the program is that the people coming in are so grateful about getting the voucher because they were so filled with a lot of anxiety about the difficulty to pay, and instead, it turned the whole circumstance around to something they’ll never forget and they’re thankful (for).”

Deputies response

The sheriff was asked about the response of the deputies when they first heard of the program.

“At first they were surprised. They were like, ‘What? Wait — you mean, I can give someone a voucher to get it fixed?’ For them, it’s trying to evaluate based on their interactions with the individuals if it would be a financial burden on them,” she said. “They’re coming back and saying to me, ‘Can we keep doing this?’ Because of the response — instead of people (being) not happy with them, they leave now with people shaking their hand and being so surprised — turning the interaction where a person pulled over was probably feeling, ‘Oh no, I’m going to get a ticket’ to ‘Wow, I’m surprised and it’s not going to cost me anything!’”

Deputies don’t inquire about anyone’s financial state, with Sheriff Corpus stating, “But if someone’s driving a Lamborghini, they’re probably not going to get a voucher. Based on the interaction the deputy has and the vehicle they’re driving and their conversations with the person, they can feel confident about giving a voucher; based on their experience and the person may have shared that they weren’t able to get it fixed.”

Even though the program was initially started in Minnesota because of a traffic stop gone bad, Sheriff Corpus said that wasn’t really a problem in their area.

“Whenever those incidents happen across the country, it affects everybody. For us, it wasn’t based on an incident, but we make a lot of effort with community engagement and building trust and rapport, and that’s really why we joined because there’s always room for growth and for us to build trust with the community,” she said.

Besides Lights On!, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office does several other community initiatives, including Shop with a Hero, where the department partners with the Marine Corps, the district attorney and social workers to take the kids shopping before having a “winter wonderland” experience.

She said they purposely look for opportunities where everyone — law enforcement included — can feel good about their interactions.

“Nitty Gritty”

The Lights On! program’s details are based on population. Corpus said Mateo County’s population is 760,000, but that number includes municipalities with their own law enforcement. There are pockets within some of these municipalities where the sheriff’s office covers, plus it has contracts with other cities within the county that may have had a police department at one time, but now depend on the county.

The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office has 700 employees — 400 of whom are sworn officers. The sheriff’s department pays a part of the cost for the Lights On! program while the national Lights On! organization fundraises and gets private donations for the rest. The cost is based on the population of the municipality.

“For a smaller law enforcement agency, the amount the police department would pay would be less than a larger police department since it’s based on population.”

For San Mateo County, she didn’t remember the amount but said it “didn’t meet the threshold” of her to go to the board of supervisors for approval. She said every year the department reevaluates what it needs or doesn’t need anymore.

“We didn’t ask for any extra funding for this program; we created savings by cutting elsewhere,” she said.

San Mateo County started with 80 vouchers and has already given out almost all of them, so it is looking to expand the program to get more vouchers.

Sheriff Corpus would definitely recommend other agencies check it out. “I can tell you, since we launched, other municipalities in the county have called us inquiring about it. I think there will be other cities within the county that will be doing it.” She noted, “It’s been extremely positive for us. If you are looking at building community and trust in your policing efforts, this program is well worth it.” She concluded, “I would encourage other departments to at least take a look at it; do it on a trial basis in your own community. With all the feedback we’ve received in the short time we’ve been doing, it has been extremely positive.”

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