Marni Pyke- Local Hero

The Daily Herald slowly picked up steam on the scheming by RedSpeed and the Red Light Camera industry, and this weeks article by Marni Pyke shines the brightest light yet on the calculated for-profit ploy to use government and our safety officials-the police themselves-as dupes in their scheming.

Choice quotes:

RedSpeed credits its lobbyists, who include former elected officials, for its legislative successes. But it recognized the opposition was fierce and blamed voters in an April update.

“Most DuPage County senators are still having serious reservations about voting yes,” the update states. “Many constituents have been pressuring them to vote against the speed bill. It would help if they heard from police colleagues and friends on the importance of passing this bill.”

And more:

RedSpeed is sensitive to negative publicity. Following a critical radio interview by Duffy, RedSpeed e-mailed police chiefs, mayors and village trustees stating the senator “made several inaccurate statements about your (red light) programs, using this misinformation as a platform for his position.”

The e-mail offers talking points for local leaders.

For example, to offset arguments that cameras are installed for revenue reasons, the e-mail notes that “if drivers do not break the traffic laws, they do not receive a ticket and subsequent fine.”

Duffy shot back that RedSpeed has donated more than $39,000 in recent years to legislators to promote its cause while collecting millions of fines from Illinois citizens and urging lawmakers to ignore the voices of the public.

“The facts remain the same. The majority of tickets are issued because motorists roll past the white line when turning right on red. If turning right on red is a safety issue, then why don’t legislators make them illegal?” he said.

Read her whole story and more here.

For her efforts to investigate and expose the scam and how it has attempted to infiltrate Illinois, Marni Pyke has been shut out by RedSpeed officials, who refuse to return her calls and answer her questions.  Additionally, RedSpeed company attorneys have attempted to block Daily Herald FOIA requests for email records of their lobbying and marketing campaign, claiming the request for public records violated personal privacy and trade secrets exemptions provided by law.

Townhall meetings IL style: Shakowski has the health care brown shirts salt the mine.  FAIL

Required reading.

From the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Click on image to go to document.

“In our opinion, this would be an invitation to a lawsuit based upon an equal protection violation under the Illinois Constitution,” Korey said in an e-mail to village officials. “In effect, the village would be penalizing one violator $50 and another violator $100 for the same violation.”

- RedSpeed Attorney Martin Korey, quoted in the August 10, 2009 Tribune story Red-light camera company open to two-tiered ticketing- Rolling right turns may net lower fines, flatly rejecting the idea of two tiered fines, a higher tier for running red lights, and a lower tier for rolling-right-turn on red, explaining that residents have a constitutionally protected right to pay $100 for a ticket instead of $50 for a lesser infraction.

He did not say whether the law suit would come from residents demanding a flat $50 for all tickets, or from RedSpeed demanding a flat $100 for all tickets.

I’m beginning to think a Sandack type of overhaul of SB99’s Ethics and Nepotism Policies may be in order.  As you may recall, Current Mayor Ron Sandack ran with overhauling and tightening village ethics a platform issue, and upon election immediately wasted no time fulfilling that pledge to voters.  One part: no more campaign contributions from people or groups that do business above a certain level with the village.  It reflected aspects of ethics legislation the state General Assembly pursued in response to Blago’s (and Ryan’s) abuse of power.  That hasn’t had any deleterious effects here so far, and doesn’t look like it ever will.  If anything, some local companies have sighed relief they are barred from having to play that game.

Here are the sheets of the current Nepotism Policy for SB99.  This is not the policy for the District, this is for the School Board.

Page 2 of instructions for implementing Nepotism Policy

Page 1 of Instructions for implementing Nepotism Policy

Page 2 of instructions for implementing Nepotism Policy

The District 99 Nepotism Policy was changed in January to keep track with changes made to the School Board Policy.

I could not get these to post right at DGreport.

Check this recent write up on the Reporter.

Overdue, the public is beginning to smell the rat that is Red Light Cameras.

Today the Trib finally woke up to the nightmare of private for-profit companies that deploy traffic cameras and enter into contracts to ticket for “civil” traffic offenses committed by vehicles, and collect money to make their profit.  Red Light Cameras was the first manifestation of this scurrilous abuse of consent of the governed.

Read the Tribune article here.

The Trib also lays out the major players in the unfolding RLC rip-off.

Read the Trib article on the players here.

Pennsylvania teaches a lesson Illinois refuses to learn.

More revenue, lower taxes, education funding.  All lies sold in years past every time politicians want a taste of back room money and power, want to cement campaign donors to a steady diet of cash kickbacks to keep those in office, in office as long as they wish, not as long as the electorate wishes.

Money wins election in Illinois, and the gambling industry delivers that cash.  In return, IL lawmakers turned the spigot wide open with HB255, a disaster for Illinois that will change our state.  For the worse.

I have several friends who say “What’s the harm of playing a little video poker at the Moose?”  What about at the convenience store next to the school?  The gas stations at every corner?  Grocery stores?

Any place with a license to sell alcohol will be eligible to install video gambling machines.  They will become part of the fabric of society here in IL.  Try teaching your children to be fiscally responsible when video gambling entices them with the lie of easy riches.  Every day.  Every time they go in for a slushee, or a candy bar.  Every time you take them grocery shopping.  Expanded gambling will expand two things in Illinois we least need: greed, and corruption.

Get ready for an onslaught of politicians expanding programs for the poor that will be the hardest hit by video gambling. Those who barely have the means to keep their heads above water, which here in Illinois is topping 22% of the population (10%+ unemployed, 12% in working poverty) are the specific victims of advertising campaigns that cajole and convince them that the winning is easy.  And the desperate want to believe, so they gamble.  And lose.

But IL pols don’t care about that.  They care about money.   And if the poor get poorer because the politicians take their money, well, they’ll just tax the rest who do have money.  More welfare, more programs, more help-help needed because the politicians stole what little the poor have.

Read about how well this has all worked out for Pennslyvania here.