Cash Strapped Cities in Money Grabbing Modes

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In a cash hungry and money grabbing mode, Lake Worth is considering red-light cameras and parking pay stations downtown even though the City said "NO" to red-light cameras just 1.5 years ago. Even the Finance Advisory Board recommended the "concept" of red-light cameras. I certainly agree that we should ticket all drivers who break the law. PBSO writes a lot of tickets every month and red-light cameras would free up their time at intersections. Do you ever see the Sheriff at intersections?

We have the right to face our accuser per the Constitution and in this case the accuser is a camera. Often times cities play dirty pool and have shortened the Yellow light so that it can "capture" more offenders. Lengthening the yellow light time will ruin this golden goose opportunity.

Under the Bill that was signed by Crist and went into effect on July 1, only red-light camera systems or law enforcement officers would be authorized to give the traffic citations. Prior to this Law, only traffic officers could issue tickets for red-light infractions.

Lake Worth has suggested red-light cameras in its proposed budget that will generate $100,000 in revenue, which is three times less than the yearly cost of the cameras projected by American Traffic Solutions. But relying on a traffic camera alone, without an officer at the intersection, was "invalid" according to the Judge in the Aventura case. Now that Crist has signed this into Law, it moots the case.

An MSNBC report suggests that as drivers are aware of the red-light cameras, they slow down. In many cases, the cost of the camera is greater than the revenue and cities are shutting them down. As tondy cd said, "Red-light cameras are a criminal enterprise promoted by legislators who take payola from shady private corporations, and rubber-stamped by fellow legislators who lack the courage to face their constituents with the distasteful reality that maintaining public services in an economy of declining tax revenues requires a tax increase."

Tomorrow, the budget will be further discussed with a workshop beginning at 8:30.

The City will also be discussing parking station revenue that includes the downtown. One of the companies that answered the RFP, CTR Systems Parking, Inc., out of Davie Florida, says that each pay station will cost $11,684 with annual maintenance costing $9,474 as well as a cost for installation. This company will most likely give a payroll quote on what it will cost the city for three part-time workers working 20 hours each and if the number of workers projected by the City is even adequate.

If our City has no idea of the impact on our downtown businesses and all the neighboring streets, it should not even be considering this even if economic conditions were different.

They propose the following number of pay stations:

9 - Beach
1 - Old Bridge
1 - Boat-ramp
5 - Downtown