Anyone who willingly gives up an income stream is, in some cases, to be admired. That’s because many people spend whatever new money they get, thereby creating a new baseline for what they need. Governments are the same, which is why it is so hard to get rid of a tax no one likes, the business and occupation tax.
The same goes for revenues generated by red-light cameras. In Lynnwood the police chief admitted that if the program, which creates $4 million a year, were eliminated he’d have to eliminate officers. (By “eliminate” in the first reference I mean “get rid off.” In the second reference I mean they would no longer be police officers, not “eliminated” in the organized crime sense.)
It’s Friday (officially a municipal day off since you all stopped spending so much money in Bremerton.), so I couldn’t get full numbers from Bremerton on the income stream here. The cameras issue $124 tickets and the city pays RedFlex $4,000 a month per camera if those tickets add up to $4,000 or more. Plus there is the cost of having an officer review each infraction and whatever it costs to hear them in municipal court. The bottom line is I don’t know what the city nets from these cameras.
Nobody is really calling for the cameras to be eliminated anyway, so essentially I’m just sayin’.
Why not try to get the dirty details from the city of Bremerton? I’d also like to know what the city is raking in from the cameras, and if eliminating the cameras would mean jobs were eliminated.
I’d also like an objective analysis done of the timing of the lights where there are cameras, versus what “normal” timing is and what studies have shown is the most effective timing for the yellow lights. I’m betting the yellow lights are not long enough and that the powers-that-be will be able to justify why they just can’t increase the timing, instead of having the cameras there, if they are really so concerned about safety.
Meant to say *won’t* be able to justify…
Couldn’t wait until Monday and post with the facts relevant to Kitsap County and Bremerton readers could you? This is the ‘net, and getting something, anything, posted is more important than the facts.
VERY disjointed article, leaving MUCH to the imagination. If you don’t know the answers why write the article? Get with the program and do some responsible reporting for a change!
On Friday I’m left with a choice. Do I let people know what was concluded in Lynnwood, or do I let them know nothing because I don’t yet have all the information from Bremerton?
A lot of times what we do on the blog is point you to articles from elsewhere. That’s what I did here.
Would you really have preferred I not post it? I can and will still get the information, and if I were writing a piece for the newspaper I would have at least tried. But a blog is different. Despite your comment Derek, there were facts here, just not all the facts. I admitted as much.
And Madelyn, I thought the news stories I did write Friday about the shooter getting charged in court and the death of a Mason County commissioner were responsible.
Steven Gardner
Kitsap Caucus
So how about a follow up? How much revenue does Bremerton take in from these automated infraction cameras? Does the city of Bremerton even know? After all it is Redflex Inc. that collects the money and then distributes it to the city minus their cut. The last “parking” audit showed a million dollars of mis-accounted red light tickets.
As a reporter would you not want to report on these things? Why not do a follow up on you’re article “Bremerton not sweating red light ruling” ? bremerton should be sweating because these tickets are being signed in Arizona under the penalty of perjury, It was taken to court in Spokane and that was proven to be against the law. Also as a reporter would you not want to investigate the written policy to exempt off duty officers that run red lights? or how about judge Docter who hired a unsworn, unqualified person to wear his robe and judge these automated infraction cases? As a reporter would you not want to look into these matters?
“Nobody is really calling for the cameras to be eliminated anyway, so essentially I’m just sayin’.”
i guess i’m a nobody because I am calling for the scam cams to be eliminated, but better yet adjust the yellow light time and then see what happens. It has been proven time and time again that increasing yellow light time reduces red light running. If the cams are truly about safety, then why does the city of Bremerton refuse to adjust the yellow light times properly?