Giving traffic cameras a green light would be remiss
Sunday, October 5, 2008 11:46 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleCommentary by Bob Gregory
For The Daily News
I am surprised at your editorial board’s apparent lack of concern and understanding of the city’s current financial situation in suggesting that the city move forward with traffic camera enforcement in spite of Initiative 985 being on the November election ballot.
The Daily News recently covered the city’s mid-year financial analysis which depicted reduced revenues due to the economic downturn as well as the impacts that increases in fuel prices and other costs have had on our operations. I suspect The Daily News is experiencing some of the same issues since you have increased subscription rates recently.
In your most recent editorial on the subject, you try to portray this as a simple issue: “It is all about safety, so city, move on.” We do agree that this technology is all about safety, but so is the entire mission of our police department, and when the city has to evaluate this particular concern against that of other serious crime and police responsibilities in Longview, benefits and costs have to be considered.
Red light running and school zone speeding traffic camera enforcement is a new program that we would like to consider; but, unfortunately, our current financial position prevents us from implementing new general fund programs unless there are new revenues associated with them or we make corresponding reductions in other services and programs.
If the language of Initiative 985 had allowed for the recovery of the capital and operating costs of the technology and then any “profit,” as it is described in the initiative, be placed in the “reduce traffic congestion account,” we might have been more inclined to move forward with this program right now. As it stands, our police department cannot afford to reduce staff to free up revenue for this technology, and with our current economy and having cost of services for existing programs exceeding current revenues, this program cannot move forward without reducing programs somewhere else in the community.
As the The Daily News editorial board considers its position on I-985, please keep in mind how these monies might go into a state account for future distribution. My experience with other state accounts is that there is no guarantee that local governments in Cowlitz County would see any of these revenues trickle back to us. To assume that it will fully fund signal synchronization in the urban areas of the state and all of the other state congestion relief policies is simply not realistic. To this end, I would have suggested that the initiative require all local governments to set up their own individual congestion relief accounts with stipulations for use of the so-called “profits.”
I hope that The Daily News will not be so quick to jump on this initiative’s bandwagon and would consider the impact of this new program on other city services before you offer further opinions on this particular topic.
Bob Gregory is the city manager of Longview.
fencepost wrote on Oct 8, 2008 7:05 AM:
turkeyhunterman wrote on Oct 9, 2008 12:21 AM:
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