Denver City Council members balked Wednesday at a request for a six-month contract extension with the company operating the cameras to catch red-light runners after officials didn't have the document to give them.

The city attorney's office and Denver Police Department are still in negotiations with Redflex Traffic Systems to change some contract language for the half-year renewal.

At the same time, the city will advertise for other contractors to take over the system in August if the kinks with Redflex can't be worked out.

"If we're embarrassed by them, we shouldn't be doing business with them for even six more months," said Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz at a meeting of the council's safety committee.

Furthermore, Faatz and colleagues Doug Linkhart and Carla Madison said they couldn't act on a contract that isn't even drawn up yet.

The Rocky Mountain News has reported on problems with Redflex's lack of providing data on the program and the city's failure to monitor the contract over the first seven months the cameras churned out $75 tickets to run-light runners. The program brought in $480,215 to the city treasury from August through December, and $40,000 in one week in January.

Under the current contract, Redflex may owe the city nearly $28,000 in credits for the system's failure to capture a required number of the total violators. Redflex disputes that, and Deanne Durfee, an assistant city attorney, told the committee that negotiations will determine just how much should be credited.

Redflex is required to capture suitable video and photos of at least 98 percent of red- light runners detected by the system. It is supposed to credit Denver $25 for every detected incident it fails to capture below that threshold.