An excerpt from the Margate News .net regarding Red-Light Cameras:
Red Light Camera revenues not what the city thought they would be Originally, the state wasn’t supposed to get a piece of a city’s red light camera revenues. But in July 2010 that changed when Florida lawmakers enacted legislation requiring Florida cities to fork over more than 50 percent of red-light camera fines to state coffers, leaving Margate and other cities with far fewer revenues than anticipated. For every $158 red-light camera citation Margate collects, the state gets $83.00. But that’s not all. Of the $385,000 in red light camera fines Margate collected in October 2011 – April 2012 (the first six-months of the program in Margate), the city paid the red light camera vendor (America Traffic Solutions) $240,000 in contract services; hired two community service aides at a combined salary of $67,400 to administer the program; paid out a combined $19,000 in operating and office supplies and $6,500 in court expenses.* Margate’s share: about $52,000.
So another Municipality acknowledges that the Red Light Camera’s were really a revenue stream and had little to do with ‘public safety.’
Now, how do we go about removing these things?