Legislature takes aim at White/Hurtt traffic cameras
http://www.bloghouston.net/item/479

The Chronicle's Ron Nissimov reports that the White/Hurtt plan to boost municipal revenues via automated citation-dispensing red light traffic cameras may not outlast this session of the Texas legislature.

Democrats and Republicans alike seem determined to kill the practice:

State Rep. Gary Elkins of Houston, a Republican who led opposition to camera enforcement of red lights in the 2003 Legislature, already has filed a bill to kill the ordinance council passed this week. At least two Democratic lawmakers, Sylvester Turner and Garnet Coleman, also oppose it.

Elkins said he is worried that vendors of camera systems, who are frequently paid a portion of ticket revenues, will manipulate the timing of traffic lights to issue more tickets and maximize profits.

Such accusations were leveled against vendors in California lawsuits that led to the dismissal of hundreds of tickets.

The Democratic legislators voiced privacy concerns.

"There's been a proliferation of cameras to monitor people, particularly by cameras controlled by the government," Coleman said. "What (state) legislators make decisions on and what the city makes decisions on are totally different. We as state legislators look out for things like privacy rights."

Mayor White responds as follows:

"If the people in Austin don't want us to use technology, then we'd be happy if the state gave us more money to hire more officers," White said.

As we frequently point out here, HPD's manpower problems have been nowhere on Mayor White's list of priorities. It's not a matter of funding from the legislature. The Mayor and his Council have found ways to fund a big Taser purchase, and have found ways to boost municipal revenues by expanding meter coverage and hours downtown (they've also spent time on a new Central Park and an African American Museum). In other words, they've found ways to spend money on questionable priorities, and they've found (questionable) ways to raise new money.

Mayor White would like new revenues from traffic lights, yes. That's the priority here, under the rubric of the "threat" posed by red light runners. One doubts that Mayor White is going to convince the legislature the reason he and his council have thus far neglected to fund new HPD cadet classes has anything to do with red light cameras.

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