Red light cameras turning into a “nightmare” for Oldsmar
In the summer of 2012, the City of Oldsmar entered into a five-year agreement with American Traffic Solutions, allowing the Arizona-based company to operate four red light cameras in the city at a cost of roughly $19,000 per month.
But thanks to a number of lawsuits that have challenged the legality and constitut-ionality of red light cameras, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri stopped pro-viding staffing for some area RLC programs, including Oldsmar’s, last December.
With its status in limbo, the Oldsmar City Council decided during a workshop in July not to include an appropriation for the RLC program in the FY 2015/16 budget, effectively suspending its contract with ATS until the lawsuits are settled.
And while officials said they believe the City is on solid legal ground in regards to the decision, they cautioned that ATS doesn’t share the same viewpoint.
“No vendor will go quietly into the night upon the termination of a contract,” acting City Attorney Randy Mora told the council prior to the first reading of the proposed budget last Thursday.
“Should you decide to adopt a budget that doesn’t include funding for this program, ATS doesn’t agree with the position, ‘Adios, it’s been nice knowing you,’” City Manager Bruce Haddock added.
In fact, not only does ATS believe the city should continue to honor the contract, the company contends Oldsmar owes roughly $100,000 in back payments, according to Mora.
“If the City chooses not to appropriate any funds, ATS…is of the position that the city is in arrears to them, owes them money, and would see the non appropriation as further indebtedness,” Mora said.
Mora said he doesn’t believe the dispute will wind up in court, but he cautioned the matter could eventually go to arbitration.
In order to try to avoid that, he said ATS came up with a proposal to lower the monthly cost and put a finite date on the end of the contract if the Council agreed to appropriate the funds.
But the suggestion was quickly shot down.
“If we approve a budget that doesn’t appropriate money for that (program), we have a least drawn a line in the sand,” Mayor Doug Bevis said. “If we don’t appropriate, our stance is that we have the contract that supports that.”
“We really don’t have any choice but to not appropriate,” Council member Eric Seidel said. “Whether we do this or we don’t do this, they’re going to make a claim that we owe them that money every month anyway for the term of the contract.”
Following a lengthy discussion on the subject, one council member summed the situation up thusly:
“It sounds like we’re in a nightmare, and we can’t get out,” Dan Saracki said.
The council later approved the FY 15/16 budget, minus the RLC appropriation, by a vote of 4-0 (Vice-Mayor Gabby McGee was absent from the meeting.)
The second reading is scheduled for Tuesday, September 15.
Afterwards, the mayor explained the reasoning behind City’s decision.
“The red light camera program, as it is now, is not the same program it was in 2012, for a variety of reasons,” Mayor Bevis told Oldsmar Connect. “It’s like when the girl you dated isn’t the same girl you married.”
RLC contracts are easy to get into, but they really are a trap for cities too. They are the drug of cities and when the cities realize that RLC are NOT about safety (as most “violations” are right turns on red and split seconds (that longer ambers have dramatically reduced http://www.wtsp.com/story/local/2014/02/03/2053572/
“In Tampa, the yellow lights on E. Hillsborough Ave. (westbound) at N. Nebraska Ave. were adjusted from 3.9 seconds to 4.8 seconds on Dec. 3. The result was an 79 percent drop in citations — 52 violations issued in December, compared with a 259/month average through 2013’s first 11 months.
Additionally, Tampa’s camera at N. Florida Ave. (southbound) at W. Busch Blvd. was averaging 192 tickets issued a month through October 2013.But the light was extended from 3.0 seconds to 4.8 seconds on Nov. 1, and the city issued just 10 tickets total in November and just 12 tickets there in December.The drop at that one intersection represents nearly $30,000 a month in fines.”)
the vendor will do almost anything to keep the city in the web of the rlc scam. ATS is notorious for not only suing to stop citizens votes in many states, they have been busted even rigging data too! http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/40/4078.asp
Read more on the RLC scam:
http://www.motorists.org
Ban the Cams on Facebook
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This is normal. ATS, Redflex, Sensys, GATSO, and the other red light camera companies are in the business for MONEY – nothing else. Expect ATS to use every trick in or out of the book to get their “pound of flesh”. Short of the cameras becoming totally illegal to use in Florida with a change in state law, ATS wants money, more money, and EVEN MORE MONEY.
The entire red light camera program was set up as a racket, a scam to fund the state budget with 52.5% of the camera fines, then pay the camera companies their typically outrageous fees of $4,000 to $5,000 per month per camera, and last give a few financial crumbs to the cities that let themselves be suckering into using the cameras. The fact the first OPPAGA report showed the cameras INCREASED crash rates at cameras intersections by about 12% was irrelevant to the state and the camera companies. The first, last and ONLY reason for having cameras was to send them millions of dollars.
Many Florida communities and those in other states are waking up to the fact they have been suckered by the camera companies and it may cost them huge penalties to end the contracts. Many groups like the National Motorists Association warned cities it was all a scam, but many did not listen and now find themselves literally being “held up” by the greedy camera companies. We tried.
James C. Walker, Life Member – National Motorists Association
Money hungry morons. You should have thought about his before you heaped this giant scam onto the citizens. Those scam cams are an illegal attack on the tax payers, and do process. Your greed got everyone into this mess.
Instead of paying out 4 to 5k for the service per camera come up with keeping the money in the city or county the cameras are in. Not paying a company in Arizona or another state that gets more then half the revenue. Keep it in house.