A Republican state representative from St. Tammany Parish has pre-filed a bill that would make only motorists with vehicles registered within a jurisdiction that operates red-light cameras and speed vans liable for the citations issued as a result of that means of traffic enforcement.
Apparently oblivious to solid, empirical evidence that such programs do in fact reduce collisions — if Lafayette Transportation Director Tony Tramel is to be believed, and he’s a reputable fellow — Rep. Paul Hollis, R-Covington, characterizes programs like the Hub City’s SafeLight/Safe Speed program as a tax: “The proliferation of these revenue-generating devices has done nothing to enhance public safety but has only allowed local governments and third-party administrators to profit,” Hollis says in a press release announcing the legislation. “Governments are not in existence to make money, but to provide essential services. Automated traffic enforcement is not a service; it’s a tax.”
Hollis’ home parish does not employ such a traffic enforcement program, but he says he believes his constituents should, more or less, be allowed to speed in municipalities that do: “In St. Tammany Parish, automated traffic enforcement devices are not in use. If one of our citizens drives in another parish where these devices are located, they should not be subject to the penalties imposed by them. I don’t want to infringe on the will of local governments or the voters who support them, but I don’t want the rest of us to have to bow to their will, either.”
In that line of reasoning we encourage Rep. Hollis to file a bill making sales taxes applicable only to residents who live within the jurisdiction levying the tax.
Although it probably isn’t irony by the dictionary definition, it's worth noting nonetheless that Rep. Hollis’ page at the Legislature’s website lists his occupation as “numismatist,” AKA, coin collector.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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