KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s stop and go with the red-light cameras in Kansas City. Two weeks after the Kansas City Council suspended enforcement of the program because of a court ruling, the city introduced a new — or should we say old — ordinance at Thursday’s city council meeting.
The cameras are still running, but no tickets for running red lights are being issued as a result of what the cameras capture. The minor tweak included today grants the ability to hold the driver and not the owner of the car responsible for running a red light. Attorney Howard Lotven said the city thinks that may put them in the clear.
“They think that will get them around this current decision in the Eastern District, which I completely disagree with,” Lotven said.
He said the minor tweak doesn’t change the part of the ordinance that was deemed unconstitutional by the Eastern Court.
“The part of the law that creates it as a ‘no point’ or ‘non-moving violation’ is what was deemed unconstitutional, saying state law says they are moving violations, a city cannot change that,” Lotven said.
The city says it suspended the program voluntarily and the Eastern Court’s decision has no bearing on Kansas City’s red-light program.
Lotven said it’s only a matter of time.
“So the longer they draw this out, the more they can still collect on the monies until such a time that a court specifically tells Kansas City, ‘Stop these traffic tickets, stop these cameras, you can’t do it, it’s unconstitutional,’” he said.
The city cites a report by the Kansas City Police Department showing that the red-light camera project has reduced the number of people running red lights, therefore reducing the number of “T-bone” accidents at intersections.
Lotven said the program makes the city between two and four million dollars a year. The red-light camera ordinance will be debated at the next city council meeting on Monday.
