Problems With Cary’s Red-Light Cameras Rightly Stirs Up Debate Again

They’re called false positives. That’s when you’re wrongly ticketed for running a red light by the automated camera system. That’s what has occurred in Cary, which has officials questioning the system’s use.

Councilman Don Frantz echoed those sentiments, saying the town could significantly modify its traffic-control system.

“We did it with the intention of public safety. Since then, the town has made some improvements to a number of intersections,” Frantz said. “A good question now is: Is the red-light camera system even needed anymore?”

Bingo. JLF’s Fergus Hodgson has blogged and written about red-light cameras several times,  including here.

Now There’s An Idea

Over at sister blog Squall Lines, Chad Adams posts a note about a movement for a privately funded baseball stadium.

Gov. Perdue Pushes Tax Hike And More Spending. Again.

In her latest budget proposal, Gov. Perdue advocates again for taking $760 million out of the pockets of North Carolinians via a sales tax hike, and putting the hard-earned cash into the state’s bank account to be spent on expanding government. Whether it comes from Perdue, or from the Orange County commissioners, the economic policy from liberal elites is consistent, as well as flawed: spend and tax, spend and tax, spend and tax.

Orange Commissioners Pushing Transit Tax Hike This Week

Get ready northern Orange County. The liberal elites who control the Orange County commission are pushing yet another tax hike. This one’s not a new idea — it’s a half-cent sales tax hike to fund rail, and it will most likely be put before voters  in November. This week’s meeting on the transit tax comes just six weeks after Orange County’s quarter-cent sales tax hike went info effect, and just a couple weeks following comments about the possibility of a property tax hike as well.

Add it up and the conclusion is inescapable: the leftists who  run the county will never be satisfied with the current level of taxation (and tax relief is unfathomable to them) or the level of government control and power over Orange residents. Their quest for other people’s money is simply insatiable.

It appears that only one commissioner is opposed to the transit plan and associated sales tax hike.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners is expected Tuesday to approve a $1.4 billion light-rail project for Durham and Orange counties and vote June 5 on a half-cent sales tax to fund the controversial transit plan.

“I think we have a majority of the board” that favors putting the issue before voters on a Nov. 8 ballot referendum, Chairwoman Bernadette Pelissier said May 4, a day after the commissioners met in work session to further refine a draft cost-sharing agreement with Durham County and Triangle Transit Authority. 

“We vote on the transit plan and then it’s up to the public to tell us whether or not they want to do this,” Pelissier said, acknowledging there will be differences of opinion among voters.

But what Pelissier called a historic “tension between urban and rural Orange County” guarantees the vote will not be unanimous.

“I do not believe we have the population density, nor do I believe we have the tax base to support [light rail],” Commissioner Earl McKee said. “I don’t think that it is the best plan for the current conditions. I think we need to look at expanding bus systems.”

“This plan focuses the great majority of the funds to a light rail system that will serve a very small percentage of residents of Orange County and an equally small percentage of the geography of Orange County,” McKee said.