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| Durel Photo by Robin May | |
The administration of City-Parish President Joey Durel will put the City-Parish Council on the spot Tuesday with a vote on a resolution that would authorize Durel to begin renegotiating consolidated government’s contract with RedFlex, the company that operates the red-light cameras and speed vans on city streets in Lafayette. The vote will be a barometer for the council’s willingness to scrap electronic enforcement of city traffic laws; three Tea Party-backed council members — Chairman Jared Bellard (District 5), Vice Chair William Theriot (9) and Andy Naquin (5) — sponsored but later pulled an ordinance that would let the RedFlex contract expire in June. A source tells The Ind the trio didn’t have the votes to pass the ordinance. The council in late March got an ad-naseum presentation on the benefits of the SafeLight/SafeSpeed program, a PowerPoint extravaganza that went until nearly midnight.
Durel tells The Advocate he simply wants some direction from the council; if the panel votes down the resolution — a signal that an ordinance letting the contract expire will be approved — then there’s little value in beginning negotiations with RedFlex. In this respect, the resolution serves as a referendum on the program, which some council members have signaled they’d like to tweak by, among other things, only ticketing motorists for running red lights, not issuing citations for speeding. The council will conduct a vote on May 15 on an ordinance for final adoption that would let the contract expire.
In January, Director of Traffic and Transportation Tony Tramel, whose department oversees SafeLight/SafeSpeed, issued a status report on the program demonstrating its success in reducing collisions and changing driver behavior. Among the data in the report was evidence that the program sharply reduced collisions at intersections where speed cameras are located. Tramel wrote at the time that “reduction of traffic crashes appears to reflect a significant positive improvement in reducing traffic crashes related to driver behavior, which was originally identified as the principal purpose of the SafeLight/SafeSpeed programs. This reduction in traffic crashes increases the efficiency of the traffic control and traffic flow efforts, and decreases the number of serious traffic crashes to which public safety agencies must respond at the expense of taxpayers, thereby contributing to the overall public safety of Lafayette and ultimately the citizens of Lafayette.”
The SafeLight/SafeSpeed program generated just over $2 million in revenue last through citations for speeding and running red lights. LCG and RedFlex roughly split the revenue. Some opponents of the program argue it is less about promoting traffic safety and more about generating revenue, a dubious claim in light of the fact that less than one tenth of one percent of the more than 60 million vehicles that have passed through the camera-equipped intersections has received a citation.
JUNE 17 If anyone ever wonders why Saints fans hate Atlanta with a capital H, here's a good indication. Radio "professionals" at an Atlanta station created an entire segment around making fun of former Saints player Steve Gleason, who is now paralyzed by ALS. Listen, nobody's ever accused DJs of being rocket scientists. But how could someone think it is amusing to pretend to ask a man with a degenerative, fatal disease if he will be alive next week? The DJs have been fired, and are now whining about how gutless their former bosses are. Wow.
JUNE 18 Here's the latest from the Advocate on the fatal hit-and-run accident allegedly involving the president of the Livingston Parish School Board. He's accused by police of hitting a 21-year-old man on a highway early Sunday and driving away. The man died at a hospital later. On Monday, police seized the president's truck and towed it away. But he's available for board meetings: apparently a $500 bond is sufficient for this type of thing over in St. Helena Parish.
JUNE 18 Former broadcast journalist Griffin Scott has posted this plea on his blog for financial assistance from his readers. Scott, who says he was fired after he wrote something fairly innocuous (for Facebook) on his wall, is suing a media giant for his job back. He's framed himself as David going after a bloated media giant, and he's probably not far off.
JUNE 18 Here's a fairly absurd column posted on DIG Magazine about the completely absurd practice of naming killer storms. Tornadoes don't have names. Blizzards don't have names. But hurricanes do, and there's a big process to bestow them, Jacques Cormery writes. He's right about the crazy assemblage of names -- this year, there's everything from Tanya to Humberto -- and his idea that we don't waste good names on killer storms is a good one.
JUNE 17 Political columnist John Maginnis has some advice for Louisiana Republicans: grow up. After the schism that occurred in this past session - fiscal hawks teaming up with Democrats to spank the Republican "majority" and hand Gov. Jindal his, er, aspirations for continued solon control -- they need to figure out how to get along with each other, Maginnis writes.
JUNE 17 Here's the Picayune's obit story for Dorothy 'Miss Dot' Domilise, the lady who made poboys at the uptown restaurant that bears her name. Miss Dot moved to New Orleans during World War II, where she met and married her husband Sam. When she passed away Friday she was 90, and had spent more than 60 of those years working at the restaurant on Annunciation Street.
JUNE 17 This editorial in the Advocate speaks in favor of the consent decrees that have federal judges overseeing police operations and the sheriff's parish prison in New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu and Sheriff Gusman can't get along, so outside forces, like the Inspector General and the judges, are needed to make sure things run right, the editorial opines.
JUNE 18 Here's a post from Manny Schewitz on Forward Progressives that is good for a chuckle. Manny had an epiphany back in November, and is sharing it with us today: he believes that Fox "News" is killing the GOP by pandering to right wing nuts. Now, don't get it twisted: Manny's not broke up about it. He says he enjoys watching the downward spiral with a shot of whiskey and "a schadenfreude chaser."
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GO PULL THE "VIOLATIONS" of the RLC.
You will find most "violations" are:
1. right turn on red
2. split seconds straight thrus that longer ambers solved.
3. stopping on or over the stop line.
COME ON I DARE YOU TO GO LOOK! The Vendors KNOW.
IN CA Loma Linda stopped getting reports on right turns just before they pulled the plug on redflex. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/33/3345.asp Quote: "Redflex held the deficit over our heads since the contract stated that they would forgive the deficit only at the end of the term," Mayor Rhodes Rigsby told TheNewspaper. "Redflex apparently stopped separating the statistics for straights, lefts and rights to prevent me from further reporting of their perfidious business model."
On another Vendor ATS. Their Survey showed most "violations" were RIGHT TURNS on ONE WA town! http://www.banthecams.org/attachments/1553_ATS Mukilteo survey.pdf
Don't buy hook line and sinker the Redflex PR machine (or for that matter their front group. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/37/3744.asp
www.motorists.org
www.banthecams.org
and camerafraud on Facebook!