Although they've been in American cities for over a decade, the issue of whether or not cities and counties should install red light cameras at specific traffic intersections seems to becoming a bigger issue all the time in Florida.
In Tampa, it took a couple of tries before a reluctant City Council voted 4-3 back in April to approve installing such cameras, even though several council members said they only wanted to do so if they could insure that those funds would be spent specifically on improving the specific street corners where they would be installed.
That's still an issue for councilman Frank Reddick, who after hearing the city's finance director Sonya Little discuss how the city is earmarking $2 million from expected revenues from those cameras to patch a part of the city's $34.5 million budget deficit, asked again on Thursday if that money would go directly to improving those areas where the cameras are going.
Members of both the Iorio administration and with Buckhorn's team already said that could only happen when they were negotiating the budget – well, those negotiations are about to begin (Those 19 specific areas are listed below).
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2011.