(thanks to David Flanders)
In November, voters in St. Charles County, Missouri, banned red light cameras with a 73 percent majority — but city council members of several towns within the county are now suing to bring them back. “They’re suing their own residents,” said St. Charles County Councilman Joe Brazil, who supports the ban. Critics like Brazil have alleged that the lawsuit is a transparent attempt to increase city revenues, while the lawsuit claims that there’s no authority for voters at the county level to ban cameras within city limits. The lawsuit could take as long as several years to resolve.
I may come down on the naive side at times, but I’ve always believed the role of public servants was to…you know, serve the public. So, when voters by a 3-1 margin reject red light cameras (and who can blame them?), the only responsibility of public servants should be to implement the will of voters. Unless you live in St. Charles County, MO, of course…in which case elections only count if they yield results that local government wants.
Never mind that the spectacle of a government entity suing their constituents is prima facie absurd. Government exists to serve the will of the people, and while the people can sometimes be right morons, public servants owe their paychecks to taxpayers. If someone working in government can’t seem to grasp that they exist to serve the public, they’d be well advised to seek another line of work.
Red light cameras are supposed to be about public safety and enforcing traffic laws. When government begins to depend on revenues from traffic tickets in order to fund its continued existence, something is horribly out of whack. If anything, voters should be suing the city council for gross incompetence and mismanagement…or themselves for electing the idjits in the first place.
Welcome to today’s Facepalm Moment.
