UPDATED: Duncanville keeps its red light cameras

by Brian Allen of Best Southwest Citizen

Ford knows he doesn’t have any support up from the rest of the city council, so he’s seeking it from the community.

After failing to get a measure passed that would grant jury trials to those with red-light tickets, Duncanville City Councilman Paul Ford will now attempt to have the cameras removed completely. Ford will introduce that ordinance at tonight’s council meeting.

I suspect it will get voted down by a 6-1 margin just as the jury trial measure did two weeks ago. So why bother? That’s what an elected representative that knows they’re in the minority on an issue has to do. Keep the issue at the forefront, keep debate going and perhaps, someday work out a compromise of some kind. Ford knows he doesn’t have any support up there, so he’s seeking it from the community. It’s his contention that a city of 38,000 issuing 45,000 red-light tickets is indicative of a problem and a lot of people agree with that.

What we don’t have an accurate gauge on is how many of those people are actually from Duncanville. City Manager Kent Cagle said only 13 percent of those tickets were issued to residents. That’s over 5,000 people. How many of those people live in Ford’s District 3 is another interesting question, and one we may find the answer to soon.

There’s no doubt in my mind Ford will lose this battle. What happens in the war remains to be seen. Duncanville politics have really made me consider hanging up my prediction hat. I didn’t think Ford would beat Anthony Skinner two years ago. I will really enjoy watching these proceedings unfold, and my conversations with my readers assure me I’m not the only one.

UPDATE: Shocking absolutely no one that has been following this issue, the Duncanville City Council voted 6-1 to keep its controversial red light cameras in place. And no, I don’t consider myself clairvoyant on this one. A measure to give those that receive red-light tickets a jury trial failed at the Feb. 10 meeting.

FOX 4 and the Dallas Morning News were present as this debate has become a huge story in the Metroplex. I couldn’t help thinking that while these reporters were probably entertained by these proceedings, this one was pretty tame by Duncanville standards.

We’ll get more in depth with this and some of the other council happenings tomorrow and look at some of the other exciting events going on in the Best Southwest. Those include a DeSoto town hall meeting that will hopefully generate honest, passionate debate about things going in on the area and the final weekend of The Importance of Being Earnest over at Duncanville Community Theatre. There really is never a dull moment.