Who’s kidding who? Of course it’s all about the money. There is no way we would even give a moments thought to installing red light cameras here in town if there weren’t some really handsome revenues at stake.
At Wednesday evening’s council meeting a certain Mr. Charles Callari, of American Traffic Solutions (ATS), made his case for Belmar to contract with his company to install and operate these evil devices. The mayor was kind enough to allow me to ask Mr. Callari some questions, some of which I presume were rather uncomfortable for him. In my opinion his responses did nothing to counter any of the objections I expressed. I hope I was able to persuade our mayor and council to drop the idea, as they did when first contemplating the use of these malevolent contraptions a few years ago when Ken Pringle was mayor.
Over the next few days, or possibly weeks, I will be discussing some of the many reasons why Belmar should not allow these God-awful machines to darken our town, and why we should stay away from these sleezy red light camera companies like ATS and their chief competitor, Redflex. But my primary objection is with the whole concept of punishing people for profit. Once we decide that government, in collusion with private companies, can turn it’s criminal justice system into a tool to enrichen it’s self, then the pursuit of justice will ALWAYS take a back seat to the pursuit of profits. As a matter of fact, justice won’t even be on the same bus as profits. It will be in the back seat of an old school bus 16 buses back from the stretch limo that profits is riding in. We hear a lot about “Wall Street greed” lately. But the greed of the people in the government makes the white-shoe boys on Wall Street look like Franciscan monks.
Speaking of Wall Street greed, it might interest you to know that ATS’s largest shareholder, at 30% ownership, is none other than top Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs.
Top Goldman executives carrying out a recent aquisition.
.
Post a Comment