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“Orange you glad to see me clocking you doing 65?”
Good ol’ Florida. That’s where you’ll find the city of Gulf Breeze which, earlier this year, decided it wanted to put up one of those camera setups that tags speeders. The state attorney general told the city this was a bad idea as it would violate state law. Specifically, Florida has a law which says that local municipalities cannot enact ordinances that touch on certain matters covered under state law without express approval from the state lawmakers. The City of Gulf Breeze told this legal objection to bugger off and put the camera up anyway, overlooking a highway intersection from a local high school.
Then the state Department of Transportation got into it, pissed off about the fact that the camera was put on land that is part of the DOT’s right of way. The city ignored the DOT’s repeated letters, which argued that the camera was illegally placed without a utility permit from the Department, claiming that it had already spent two years unsuccessfully trying to get that permit. So to avoid the DOT’s continued legal objections over the land use, the city decided to move its toy further from the road, onto land that unquestionably belongs to the school.
That’s where this debacle of city and state politics rests at the moment. But since the move doesn’t appear to touch on the attorney general’s objections, one would think that this is not the last fight Gulf Breeze will have over this camera. You gotta’ love Florda, where a little thing like the law doesn’t stop the local cities from taking steps to make a little extra cash ensure the safety of its citizens.
Comments
aaaahhhhh....Florida, land of the 35mph speed limit.
Posted by B | May 23, 2006 1:29 PM