BELLINGHAM - A traffic-enforcement camera company is suing to keep an anti-camera initiative off the ballot, and city leaders want to remain neutral, the mayor said.
The City Council on Monday, Aug. 1, held a closed-to-the-public executive session in which council members discussed the lawsuit with the city attorney. Afterward, council President Stan Snapp said that, in the session, council members provided direction to staff, but he didn't specify what that direction was.
Mayor Dan Pike, in an interview, said the city won't fight or aid the lawsuit against the initiative.
Read the lawsuit filed by American Traffic Solutions (PDF). "We're not going to take a side either way. We're not going to support it or oppose it," he said. "Any other way we go we have a liability issue." Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions on Friday, July 29, filed the lawsuit in Whatcom County Superior Court asking a judge to block the initiative from reaching the ballot. The initiative would require the city remove any cameras, and it would require voter approval if the city wanted to re-install them. It would also limit the fine amounts. ATS and the city signed a contract for four red-light cameras at intersections and two speed cameras in school zones. The company's lawsuit, filed by Seattle-based attorneys at the firm Stoel Rives, says traffic cameras are outside the scope of initiatives. The company's argument: State law reserves decision-making on the cameras with the City Council, and the initiative would interfere with that power. It involves matters that are administrative, not legislative, and thus not subject to initiative. Lastly, the initiative unconstitutionally interferes with an existing contract. "If passed, the proposed Initiative would likely have the effect of forcing the City to terminate its binding contract with ATS," a legal filing states. "ATS would not only lose the value of the Contract, it would also be harmed by having to uninstall equipment and take other related actions, all without the direct ability to recoup its costs as budgeted over the life of the Contract." Johnny Weaver, member of the group backing the initiative, said "we're dealing with a corporate bully that's taking us to court." His group, Transportation Safety Coalition, helped establish a site where people can donate for their legal defense.
"Seven thousand people signed that thing, so it's not like we're just going to give up," Weaver said. Initiative activist Tim Eyman, who is supporting the initiative, said his group is stretched fighting for similar initiatives in other cities, and it can't afford to donate to Weaver's group for legal defense. But he said he'll direct donors to the group. "On the grass-roots side, these guys never ever raised any money or spent any money to collect an extraordinary number of signatures," he said of the group. The company's "huge shock and awe, last-minute lawsuit" leaves Weaver's group with very little time to organize a legal defense, Eyman said. After the county auditor confirmed the initiative had enough valid signatures, the City Council on July 11 voted 7-0 to inform staff that it intended to take no action on the initiative, sending it to the November ballot. The city could have filed its own lawsuit seeking to keep it off the ballot. In a letter Friday, attorney Vanessa Soriano Power, who represents ATS, said she intends to present a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to the court at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 3. Court documents show that a hearing on the motion has been scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 17. It's been assigned to Judge Ira Uhrig.
The case number is 11-2-01991-4.
Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/08/02/2125395/lawsuit-seeks-to-keep-bellingham.html#ixzz1XMkZ20d7
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