Red Light Cameras: The Next Lawsuit Nightmare for St. Pete Beach

Like many St. Pete Beach residents, I am pleased and relieved that our city has enjoyed a few months respite from the caustic and divisive rhetoric about condo canyons and the Right to Vote.  We deserve a break.  We need a break.  And with any luck, the present state of relative tranquility will become the New Normal in St. Pete Beach.


The staggering legal costs of the St. Pete Beach development war has taken a huge toll on our city's resources.  The last thing we need is a whole new issue that will cost the city even more legal fees.


That's why I was more than a little disturbed when I saw this morning's May 22, 2011 St. Pete Times Story about the rising number of successful and costly legal challenges to Red Light cameras.  This story reveals that clever lawyers are successfully challenging Red Light Camera fines/tickets, and are causing cities that have installed those cameras to incur substantial legal fees defending those fines/tickets.  As a result, city legal fees relating to red light cameras are increasing, cities are being forced to hire additional personnel to review the camera videos, and the increased number of legal challenges is taxing city resources and causing a backlog of unprocessed tickets, which leads to more tickets subject to legal challenge, which leads to more lawyers and lawsuits, which leads to more legal fees....


It is my understanding that Red light cameras have been marketed to the St. Pete Beach Commission as not only a means to reduce accidents, but also as a source of revenue from the traffic fines the cameras generate, and that the last city commission approved an ordinance allowing the installation of red light cameras in our city.


I was not able to attend the commission meeting when this ordinance was debated.  However, I'd bet my fiddle that the commission wasn't aware of the alarming trend of increased legal challenges and legal costs associated with the implementation of Red Light Cameras.


I think the new commission needs to thoroughly examine the potential for increased legal fees and expenses before taking any action to install and implement Red Light Cameras on St. Pete Beach.  Otherwise, we may be adding Ted Hollander to the list of lawyers who make their living suing our beautiful city.