CANTON: City Council has rejected a request from Mayor William J. Healy II to have an Australian firm install traffic cameras in the city.
Councilwoman Mary Cirelli was part of the seven-member majority that defeated the measure Monday night.
“I believe this is quite unconstitutional,” she said of the plan to have cameras catch speeding and red-light violations.
“I have no way to cross-examine that camera if I want to take it to court,’’ said retired union manager Daniel Fonte of Dawnridge Circle.
“You are guilty until proven innocent,’’ said Councilman Kevin Fisher, who joined with Cirelli, James Griffin, Gregory Hawk, Edmond Mack, John Mariol II and Frank Morris in opposing the measure.
The proposal from Redflex Traffic Systems had support from council members David Dougherty, James Babcock, Joseph Cole, Chris Smith and Thomas West.
The intersection of Market Avenue North and 12th Street is among the most hazardous in the state, said West, a resident of 12th Street Northwest. He said motorists would improve their behavior if they knew traffic laws would be enforced.
“People slow down and they respect the law in North Canton,” he said.
West noted that the mayor had introduced automated traffic enforcement to help offset a projected 2013 budget shortfall.
It is preferable to put the burden on people who break traffic laws, he said, than to make average citizens pay higher income taxes, which has been mentioned as one alternative for raising revenue.
Smith said she gets a lot of complaints about speeding in school zones, one proposed target of the enforcement scheme.
She also cited a case in which a camera mounted on the street helped to identify men who beat another man to death in the city’s northeast section.
“We’ve been having a lot of shootings and stuff,” said Rod Pisani, president of Summit United Neighbors, an association in the northwest section. He expressed the hope the cameras would help fight crime.
Although the cameras were not to be used for general law enforcement purposes, their tapes could have been reviewed for evidence in a hit-skip accident, Law Director Joseph Martuccio said.
Mack objected to terms of the proposed contract with Redflex, which required the city to work “diligently” to collect fines to be shared with the company.
If the city were found in breach of contract, Mack said, it would have been required to pay the company’s legal fees — potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“They slapped a $4.5 million demand on the city of Albuquerque,’’ said Mack, an attorney. “I don’t know if we should get into a partnership with people who treat their partners that way.”
The council rejected a similar proposal in 2009.
Nancy Molnar can be reached at nancymolnar2002@yahoo.com.