PHOENIX — Kiss Arizona's new photo-radar system goodbye — maybe.
A House panel on Thursday voted to shut the cameras off, forgoing the money they bring in and opening the door to taxpayers having to pay the contractor millions of dollars in damages.
HB 2170 repeals a provision of last year's budget bill directing the state Department of Public Safety to hire a firm to set up a statewide system of speed enforcement cameras. The 5-3 party line vote in the Republican-dominated Transportation and Infrastructure Committee sends the repeal to the House floor.
The legislation was offered by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, chairman of the committee and a foe of photo enforcement.
Biggs said there are a host of legal and ethical problems with having speed laws enforced by a private company and allowing DPS, which determines at what point the cameras are triggered, to effectively set speed limits on state roads.
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The simplest solution, he said, is to scrap the program.
That, however, has financial implications. Former Gov. Janet Napolitano, who pushed the plan, projected the state would net $90 million in just nine months of operation.
And Rep. Eric Meyer, D-Paradise Valley, pointed out that cancellation penalties could put the total price tag of yanking the contract now at somewhere between $50 million and $100 million.
Faced with a choice between gun rights and property rights, a House panel on Thursday picked guns.
On a 6-2 vote, the Judiciary Committee approved legislation prohibiting business owners from refusing to let people drive into privately owned parking lots with loaded weapons in their vehicles.
With bipartisan support, the bill now goes to the full House.
The measure is being pushed by the National Rifle Association, which has gotten lawmakers in some other states to approve similar measures. Lobbyist Todd Rathner said people have a constitutional right to be armed.
If someone carries a gun for self-defense, he is not able to exercise that right if he takes his gun to work. That's because most companies and property owners don't have lockers or other places to store their weapons while workers are on the job.
More than the right to be armed is at stake, Rathner said.
"People should have the right to privacy in their own vehicle. If they want to keep their firearm there, they should be able to do that," he said.
But Marc Osborn, who lobbies for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said HB 2474 ignores the rights of employers to keep their properties free of weapons. While the bill doesn't require companies to let workers bring guns into their buildings, and even requires that a weapon "remain out of plain view," he said having weapons easily accessible to workers, even in a parking lot, can be dangerous.
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Even if the state photo-radar system gets shut down, photo radar is not going away. Tucson has been operating photo speed and red-light cameras for more than a year and has indicated plans to expand the program. Pima County also recently approved its own photo enforcement system. And if you head north, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and a host of other Central Arizona cities will continue to use photo radar.
