BELLINGHAM - Unwilling to settle for a partial victory, American Traffic Solutions has asked the Washington Court of Appeals to reconsider its Tuesday, Sept. 6, ruling that a citizen initiative to block installation of traffic enforcement cameras can remain on the November ballot.
In the earlier ruling, the three-judge appeals panel - Marlin Appelwick, Ronald Cox and Michael Spearman - agreed that the citizen initiative has no legal force because it infringes on the city's authority to install the cameras. Bellingham has that authority under state law approved by the Legislature. But the judges also denied an ATS request for an injunction to knock the measure off the November ballot. Since the initiative has no legal power, it cannot harm ATS or undo the firm's contract with the city, and therefore poses no threat of harm to ATS, Appelwick wrote on the panel's behalf.
Bellingham traffic camera initiative not legally valid, appeals court says
Because Whatcom County Auditor Shirley Forslof says noon Friday, Sept. 9, is the deadline for getting the ballot to the printer, ATS attorney Vanessa Soriano Power has asked the court for an emergency reconsideration of the injunction issue, with a final ruling before the printing deadline. It was not clear whether the court would grant that request. In a motion filed with the court on Wednesday, Power argued that in past cases, state appeals courts have acted to keep initiatives from the ballot when they were found to be legally invalid. "If an injunction is not entered, the people will be asked to participate in an illusory vote," Power's motion says. "Citizens will be asked whether they want to 'enact new law' that in reality has, as the court has already ruled, no legal force. ... An injunction would preclude such an illusory vote." The Bellingham City Council has scheduled a closed session for 12:30 p.m. Thursday to discuss the situation. State law allows a closed session to discuss pending court cases. Mayor Dan Pike said he did not support the last-ditch effort by ATS to keep the initiative off the ballot. "We want to let it go forward and let the community have a voice," Pike said. ATS officials have asked the city to join them in the effort to get the initiative off the ballot, Pike said, but he doubts that the City Council will agree.
Pike also said he thinks there is a chance that a majority of voters favor the cameras, and the vote on the initiative will reflect that, but "the actions of ATS have made it less likely."
Pike declined to discuss what legal steps the city might be able to take to get out of the existing contract with ATS, if the anti-camera initiative stays on the ballot and gets overwhelming support. "Let's go ahead ... and see what the outcome of the vote is before we contemplate any further steps," Pike said. "I'm not advocating that we abrogate that contract."
Among other things, the contract would obligate Bellingham to pay Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions $4,750 per month for each traffic-enforcement camera, a total of about $342,000 per year for the six cameras envisioned, according to the contract the city signed on May 6. Traffic ticket revenues from the cameras were expected to be well over that amount, and Pike and a majority of council members contended that the deal with ATS would provide much-needed revenue for the city while improving traffic safety. But a citizen group, the Transportation Safety Coalition, argued that the safety benefits were dubious, and cameras could not determine who was driving an offending car. They gathered thousands of signatures to meet the legal requirement for an initiative measure intended to force Bellingham to remove any traffic-enforcement cameras, although none have yet been installed. The measure also would have required voter approval of any plan to re-install them and limited the fines imposed under the program to the equivalent of the lowest-cost parking ticket, currently $10.
Reach JOHN STARK at 715-2274 or john.stark@bellinghamherald.com . Read his Consumer Protection Blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/consumer.Read more: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/09/08/2174287/ats-still-seeking-to-kill-bellinghams.html#ixzz1XMgr6ax2
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