Reddit Investigation - Red Light Cameras - Prop 3 Follow-up

I wanted to post some text here pertaining to the recent victory, and facts about the lights and their removal as they gain increasing publicity.

** READ LINK 5 FOR CHRON UPDATE 11/03/2010 **

City of Houston = CoH

• The lawyer who instigated the proposal is Paul Kubosh. He's pissed that their removal might not be instant [1].
• The cameras are leased from ATS and not owned, and we could potentially be in a lease [1].
• Mayor Parker might wait the full 120 days to terminate the contract. No mention of having provided written notice of desire to terminate, so the 120 days hasn't even started if this is the plan.[5]
• Costs
  • This will only cost the city 10mil a year (pocket change to municipality) in lost revenue [1].
  • "$44 million in fines and issued more than 800,000 tickets since 2006" [5].
  • The police department has been told to slim down proportionately by the Mayor [1].
  • A ballpark figure of the annual cost based on Nestor, ACS, and ATS is north of 2mil a year to keep the cameras running [2].
• There are 70 running cameras [1].
• ATS is likely to argue the action is illegal if such an action wasn't permitted in the letter of the city charter [3]. On that point, ATS is apparently pursing this with legal action -- and they started before the initiative went to the ballot. [4]
• CoH entered a 5 year contract May 2009 that requires 120 day notice of cancellation where the cameras remain in use and civil fines issued [5].

-- Sources --

• (1) Red Light Camera Tickets Still in Effect
• (2) Council may revisit red-light camera deal
• (3) Law suit 201055364 - 7 ATS v. Baytown
• (4) Group sues to block vote on banning red-light cameras
• (5) Red-light monitoring will continue as city weighs legal strategy
• (6) No immediate shut off of Houston red light cameras