Monroe pulls the plug on ticketing cameras
December 31 shall go down in Monroe history as “Camera Emancipation Day.” Yahoo!
On Friday morning, I asked Monroe’s mayor and city council members by email if their obnoxious ticketing camera program had been ended or not (see below).
By Friday afternoon, the Everett Herald posted a great story about the cameras’ deactivation (Monroe deactivates its traffic-enforcement cameras, By Rikki King, http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20140103/NEWS01/701039887/Monroe-deactivates-its-traffic-enforcement-cameras-).
I’m proud to say that in every city where we forced a public vote with our local initiatives, the people rejected the ticketing cameras and the city took them down: Mukilteo (71% against), Longview (59% against), Bellingham (68% against), and now Monroe (68% against). In Redmond, after 6000 voter signatures were turned in, the city shut down the ticketing cameras EVEN WITHOUT A PUBLIC VOTE.
Citizens hate ticketing cameras – they just do. Liberals don’t like giving police power to a for-profit corporation, conservatives don’t like the sacrifice in civil liberties, and everyone dislikes Big Brother, especially when he’s spitting out ridiculously regressive $124 tickets.
The cities and red-light camera companies fought tooth-and-nail against these initiatives, going so far as to sue their own citizens to prevent the people from voting. Ultimately, we succeeded in forcing public votes and killing off cameras in those jurisdictions but they succeeded at getting the courts to prevent future local initiatives on ticketing cameras from going forward. That’s unfortunate.
The people hate ticketing cameras — the Legislature created this monstrosity, it’s long past time for them to reign them in.
Tim Eyman, ph: 425-493-9127, email: tim_eyman@comcast.net
From: Tim Eyman [mailto:tim_eyman@comcast.net]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 10:18 AM
To: gthomas@monroewa.gov; councilmembers@ci.monroe.wa.us; pcudaback@monroewa.gov; edavis@monroewa.gov; jgamble@monroewa.gov; kgoering@monroewa.gov; jkamp@monroewa.gov; khanford@monroewa.gov; jrasmussen@monroewa.gov; gbrazel@monroewa.gov
Cc: rking@heraldnet.com; north@heraldnet.com; editor@monroemonitor.com; editor.tribune@snoho.com; mlindblom@seattletimes.com; pjackson@heraldnet.com; me@richard.org
Subject: Monroe officials: was Dec 31 “Camera Emancipation Day” in Monroe?=
Friday, January 3rd, 2014
To: Monroe Mayor Geoffrey Thomas and Councilmembers Patsy Cudaback, Ed Davis, Jason Gamble, Kurt Goering, Jim Kamp, Kevin Hanford, & Jeff Rasmussen
From: Tim Eyman, ph: 425-493-9127, email: tim_eyman@comcast.net
RE: Monroe officials: was Dec 31 “Camera Emanicipation Day” in Monroe?
Monroe citizens hate ticketing cameras — they just do. Nearly half of active Monroe voters signed petitions. 68% voted against the ticketing cameras.
Was December 31 “Camera Emancipation Day” in Monroe?
It’s clear the citizens of Monroe don’t want them.
But will the current mayor and city council in Monroe — all of you — listen to your constituents?
Please let me and the members of the cc’d media know whether or not Monroe’s cameras are dead now.
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