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Oregon rejects hand-held speed camera program Oregon’s Safety Committee recently rejected a proposal to implement a handheld speed camera program for the police department. Councilman Tim Zale, chairman of the safety committee, said Blue Line Solutions, which operates the program, approached city officials. “They wanted to meet me and City Administrator Mike Beazley to present their program to us,” said Zale. “I felt obligated to present it to council and the police department. I didn’t necessarily agree with it. We had a safety committee meeting on it. No one was in favor of it. I’m fine with that.” The Toledo Police Department has a hand-held camera program. “It’s kind of a neat program, but Toledo kind of ruined it for everyone,” he said. Police are supposed to be visible to motorists when using the device. But Toledo has come under fire with allegations they are hiding when using the camera. “There are officers hiding, giving people multiple tickets in a week when they never saw a police car. It’s really not an excuse because if you’re speeding, you’re speeding. But I get it,” he said. In addition, Zale said the city doesn’t need the program because there are few areas with speeding issues. “I don’t know if there are areas in the city that are so difficult for us to do speed enforcement without a tool like this,” said Zale. “I know there are very busy parts on Navarre Avenue and very busy parts on Woodville Road. Sometimes it’s extremely difficult for police to get violators without risking their own necks or anybody else on those roads. That’s the advantage of this.”
Tornado hits Oregon
An EF-1 tornado touched down in Oregon last Tuesday causing damage to homes on Brown Road and Coy Road before traveling to Point Place. Pictured, Dave Herrera stands next to a large tree that came down on his N. Coy Road home. Herrera and his wife Cindy were with their daughter and grandchildren who were visiting when the tornado hit. (Press photo by Ken Grosjean)
Money grab He also doesn’t want to give the public the perception that “this is nothing but a money grab.” Last year, the program in Toledo generated nearly $2.5 million in revenue. “It’s really never designed to be a money grab,” said Zale. “But it’s hard to stop.
Wood County Commissioners
Funding boosted for infrastructure By Larry Limpf News Editor news@presspublications.com The Wood County commissioners are transferring $2.1 million to a fund that will provide additional revenues for replacing and repairing roads and bridges. The commissioners announced last week they will transfer $1.8 million from
the county building and inspection account and shift $300,000 from the conveyance fee that funds the county office of economic development. In addition, the commissioners agreed to earmark $200,000 of revenue from the county sales tax annually to the new road/ bridge fund for five years and Cindy Hofner, clerk of courts, has committed $100,000 by transferring revenue from the auto title
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fund. After the commissioners held two public hearings in May and heard a presentation on the condition of roads and bridges by John Musteric, county engineer, they approved a $5 increase to the vehicle license fee. The increase is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2019 and is estimated to gen-
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...I don’t think things have changed that much in the streets in Oregon. We have been able to handle speed enforcement without having that kind of thing.
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By Kelly J. Kaczala News Editor kkaczala@presspublications.com
Because if you use this in a certain area, and an officer is going to be running his camera, just clicking off people violating at the speed parameter that we set, of course there would be multiple tickets versus one, two or three that he would normally do in a certain area. We don’t need the money, so we don’t need to do that. There were some pluses. But I favored the minuses. The vote was unanimous against the proposal.” Among the advantages: “It was at zero cost to us. It wouldn’t have cost the city one penny to have this program. They would have even covered the hours that the officer would be using their hand held gun. So it was at zero cost, and we would have gotten 60 percent of the proceeds,” he said. Zale was most opposed to the way Toledo has used it, he said, in a manner that was not visible to the motorist. “Toledo ruined it for other communities. People in Toledo are up in arms about the way Toledo Police have used the camera, hiding, with motorists not seeing a police car out in the open. You need to see the police car to think, ‘Uh oh. They’re running radar here.”’ In the end, the program just wasn’t needed, he said. “From my experience, I don’t think things have changed that much in the streets in Oregon. We have been able to Continued on page 2
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If legislators listened to working class families the way they do special interests, we would have seen serious action long ago.
State Rep. Michael Sheehy See page 5
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Call Brad Sutphin 419-345-5566 email: brads@realtor.com