Houston voters reject red-light cameras by wide margin

Houston Chronicle ^ | 3 Nov 2010 | By BRADLEY OLSON

[11th_VA]

Houstonians rejected the city's red light camera program in a hard-fought ballot contest, delivering an immediate $10 million hit to an already dire budget situation at City Hall.

With almost all votes counted, a majority of voters put a decisive end to the use of the devices, which had been used to issue more than 800,000 tickets and collected $44 million in fines since 2006.

"This is a victory for the people," said Paul Kubosh, an attorney who defends red light runners and collected more than 20,000 signatures with his brothers to get the referendum on the ballot.

"The voters said that they do not like cameras."

City Controller Ronald Green said the loss of the devices would amount to a $10 million shortfall in revenues, a sharp decrease that would greatly complicate efforts to close a shortfall that was already nearing $80 million.

"We're going to have to cut expenses," he said. "We need to really start talking about the fact that furloughs and layoffs may really be a potential option. ... It's now time for drastic cuts."

[11th_VA]

YES !!!

[scott7278]

A vote for freedom!

[FlingWingFlyer]

Good move. Those things are a joke. These red light camera companies are allowed to scam the motorists by promising to give the local government a cut of what they haul in. They all should be in jail.

[HushTX]

Good. I hate those damn things.

Seriously, I got TWO tickets from red light cameras for a right turn on red at a light where that is permitted.

I called to try to take care of the tickets and am STILL trying to resolve the issue. Not only are these a threat to liberty, thanks to the potential abuse, but the people who work for these companies are MORONS.

[thecabal]

Wish we would have had a chance to vote for that here. On second thought, it wouldn’t matter. People around these parts gladly put on their chains, then beg for more.

[ops33]

“...delivering an immediate $10 million hit to an already dire budget situation at City Hall.”

That statement proves why voters are against red light cameras, their purpose is not to promote driving safety but to generate revenue.

[Ron H.]

"We're going to have to cut expenses," .....

The words just about any lifelong bureaucrat absolutely shudders at having to say. In these austere times politicians and citizens alike had better get used to the concept. The pockets of tax payers aren't as deep as they used to be nor are they going to be for a long long time to come.

[a fool in paradise]

The election results reported Thursday evening did not include any of the 10,000 paper ballots cast county wide Tuesday, said Hector de Leon, spokesman for the county clerk's office.

How can this be?

I know that it would not have changed the outcome of this referendum vote, the opposition may have been even greater than stated.

I figured that surely they had to count all of the 10,000 paper ballots to determine the outcome of the referendum vote to tax churches, schools, businesses etc. That referendum was decided by 6,000 vote difference.

So if you are already tallying referendums, you can't note both?

[a fool in paradise]

The same Democrats who huffed when Perry plotted to sell our tollroad to a company in Spain are A-OK with 50% of ticket revenue going to private companies out of state.

[Jaded]

I have such a problem with this. Even if it doesn’t change the vote, ALL votes should be counted before a formal declaration is made.

[a fool in paradise]

“count all the votes”

that’s the mantra.

I agree.

Absentee ballots weren’t counted in many states.

That’s why I say that Al Gore’s claim of a 0.52% margin of victory in the 2000 popular vote is something that we will never know for certain.

3,000 Bush votes were approved by the Florida supreme court but not included in the certified tally (Katherine Harris held to her original tally which was sufficient for Bush to win).

Certified tallies don’t mean “all votes counted”. Really makes it hard to discern voter trends when every contested ballot is counted in some races and some blowouts stop counting when the lead is sufficient to eliminate any possible “flip” of the win.

More people apparently voted for the republican incumbent Lt. Gov than Perry as governor. I can understand this but it may not reflect ALL ballots tallied.