KATHY POSNER CAN'T STOP SEEING RED
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RED LIGHTS ARE FLASHING
FOR CHICAGO'S KATHY POSNER
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RED LIGHTS ARE FLASHING
FOR CHICAGO'S KATHY POSNER
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Kathy PosnerOn Thursday both the Chicago Sun Times and Chicago Tribune ran tabloid-type “sensational” stories that I don’t think were sensational at all!The Sun Times story had the HUGE headline of “City workers beat red-light camera tickets” with a sub head of “More than half their tickets dismissed since Jan. 2007. “ The story includes a picture of a red-light camera that was captioned, “Nearly 70 percent of the red-light camera tickets issued to city vehicles over the last three years have been dismissed, records show.”Those words got my blood boiling until I read the facts.
(1) “2,685 red-light tickets issued to city-owned vehicles since January 2007, compared to 1.89 million for all motorists.” (Why would one compare how many tickets were issued to city-owned vehicles as opposed to issued to all motorists making it seem “suspicious” that city-owned vehicles got so few? It is good that so few tickets were issued to city employees. Because motorists cannot “talk” themselves out of a red-light camera ticket like they could do with a human traffic enforcement officer, what is bad about a low number? A low number is good. It means that the law is not being broken! Mathematically it works out to only 2 tickets a day for city driven vehicles compared to 1555 a day for regular drivers.)
(2) “1,830 of those city tickets dismissed, including emergency vehicles.”(Of course the tickets given to emergency vehicles should be dismissed. Emergency vehicles go through red lights! They are on their way to an emergency!)
(3) "689 of those tickets paid by city employees who apparently had no valid defense.”(So a city employee had no defense and paid the fine. Isn’t that what they are supposed to do? What is wrong here?)
(4) “77 tickets remain unpaid”- (So the 77 unpaid tickets equal 3% of the total tickets issued. Maybe the check is in the mail!)
By my math that leaves 89 tickets that were not accounted for in the story. Again, a small enough number to be no big deal. The story also includes the line that with 2,685 red-light tickets, “At $100 a pop, that should have generated $268,500. Instead, only $77,167 has been collected.” Hello! More than half were dismissed because they were issued to emergency vehicles. There never was $268,500 of revenue generated! The article does say that not all the emergency vehicles that got red-light tickets “were responding to emergencies with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Some police vehicles were working undercover. Some were vehicles assigned to city departments not typically considered emergency departments.” Or in this case, “One time, we had a situation where the inspector generals office was following an employee to make sure someone was living in the city," said Scott Bruner, director of the city's Department of Administrative Hearings. The employee made a right turn. By the time the investigator got to the intersection, the light was red, so he followed, got a ticket and talked to the Revenue Department about getting the ticket withdrawn because he was on official city business." City officials considered that a valid defense. I consider it a valid defense also and any reasonable person would too. So what is the sensational story here? I think what happened is that the Sun Times had decided BEFORE hand that there might be a story, did all the research and then did not want to “spike” the effort when nothing materialized. The Chicago Tribune exhibited their own brand of down-playing legitimate news in favor of an eye-catching headline with the,”Aldermen spend expense accounts on cars, relatives, consultants.” It was a full page article with half the page being devoted to a map of every ward and the amount each particular Alderman had spent of the $73,280 that was budgeted to their ward in 2009. City-wide that amounts to $3.66 million, of which $3.1 million was spent. The city’s budget for 2010 is more than $6 billion! The Aldermanic office expense accounts amount to one half of one percent of the entire budget or .0001 or one hundredth of one percent per Alderman. (A CPA who wishes to remain anonymous confirmed these numbers.) The spending of the money allotted to each Alderman is so miniscule it should not rate two lines of the Tribune, much less a full page! Where is the scandal? Some of the Aldermen spent allowance money on leasing a car! The shame! The horror! Aldermen have to attend meetings all around the city, so they lease a car. I have no problem with that. The city comptroller reviews the vouchers before making payments, and since the Alderman are given leeway in how to spend the allowance most vouchers are approved. The Tribune wrote, “Seventeen aldermen made payments to themselves, and in a few cases those payments topped $10,000. Ald. Eugene Schulter, 47th, who paid more than $24,000 to himself last year, said he was reimbursing himself for office expenses. "I pay all my bills up front because it takes the city such a long time to pay the vendors," Schulter said. "All of that is backed up with original receipts, and the canceled checks — all that good stuff." Good for Schulter! He has seen the embarrassment of state-wide legislators whose rent payments on their district offices are months in arrears. He wants to make sure that when ne uses the services of a vendor, they get paid. What a novel idea! Paying a bill on time yourself and then waiting for reimbursement; rather than making a vendor suffer. I have commented in blog after blog about real scandals that the Sun Times and the Tribune have uncovered. The red flags they threw up Thursday won't catch the eye of the Pulitzer Committee, it is just yellow journalism.
Read More From Planet Posner Here....
(1) “2,685 red-light tickets issued to city-owned vehicles since January 2007, compared to 1.89 million for all motorists.” (Why would one compare how many tickets were issued to city-owned vehicles as opposed to issued to all motorists making it seem “suspicious” that city-owned vehicles got so few? It is good that so few tickets were issued to city employees. Because motorists cannot “talk” themselves out of a red-light camera ticket like they could do with a human traffic enforcement officer, what is bad about a low number? A low number is good. It means that the law is not being broken! Mathematically it works out to only 2 tickets a day for city driven vehicles compared to 1555 a day for regular drivers.)
(2) “1,830 of those city tickets dismissed, including emergency vehicles.”(Of course the tickets given to emergency vehicles should be dismissed. Emergency vehicles go through red lights! They are on their way to an emergency!)
(3) "689 of those tickets paid by city employees who apparently had no valid defense.”(So a city employee had no defense and paid the fine. Isn’t that what they are supposed to do? What is wrong here?)
(4) “77 tickets remain unpaid”- (So the 77 unpaid tickets equal 3% of the total tickets issued. Maybe the check is in the mail!)
By my math that leaves 89 tickets that were not accounted for in the story. Again, a small enough number to be no big deal. The story also includes the line that with 2,685 red-light tickets, “At $100 a pop, that should have generated $268,500. Instead, only $77,167 has been collected.” Hello! More than half were dismissed because they were issued to emergency vehicles. There never was $268,500 of revenue generated! The article does say that not all the emergency vehicles that got red-light tickets “were responding to emergencies with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Some police vehicles were working undercover. Some were vehicles assigned to city departments not typically considered emergency departments.” Or in this case, “One time, we had a situation where the inspector generals office was following an employee to make sure someone was living in the city," said Scott Bruner, director of the city's Department of Administrative Hearings. The employee made a right turn. By the time the investigator got to the intersection, the light was red, so he followed, got a ticket and talked to the Revenue Department about getting the ticket withdrawn because he was on official city business." City officials considered that a valid defense. I consider it a valid defense also and any reasonable person would too. So what is the sensational story here? I think what happened is that the Sun Times had decided BEFORE hand that there might be a story, did all the research and then did not want to “spike” the effort when nothing materialized. The Chicago Tribune exhibited their own brand of down-playing legitimate news in favor of an eye-catching headline with the,”Aldermen spend expense accounts on cars, relatives, consultants.” It was a full page article with half the page being devoted to a map of every ward and the amount each particular Alderman had spent of the $73,280 that was budgeted to their ward in 2009. City-wide that amounts to $3.66 million, of which $3.1 million was spent. The city’s budget for 2010 is more than $6 billion! The Aldermanic office expense accounts amount to one half of one percent of the entire budget or .0001 or one hundredth of one percent per Alderman. (A CPA who wishes to remain anonymous confirmed these numbers.) The spending of the money allotted to each Alderman is so miniscule it should not rate two lines of the Tribune, much less a full page! Where is the scandal? Some of the Aldermen spent allowance money on leasing a car! The shame! The horror! Aldermen have to attend meetings all around the city, so they lease a car. I have no problem with that. The city comptroller reviews the vouchers before making payments, and since the Alderman are given leeway in how to spend the allowance most vouchers are approved. The Tribune wrote, “Seventeen aldermen made payments to themselves, and in a few cases those payments topped $10,000. Ald. Eugene Schulter, 47th, who paid more than $24,000 to himself last year, said he was reimbursing himself for office expenses. "I pay all my bills up front because it takes the city such a long time to pay the vendors," Schulter said. "All of that is backed up with original receipts, and the canceled checks — all that good stuff." Good for Schulter! He has seen the embarrassment of state-wide legislators whose rent payments on their district offices are months in arrears. He wants to make sure that when ne uses the services of a vendor, they get paid. What a novel idea! Paying a bill on time yourself and then waiting for reimbursement; rather than making a vendor suffer. I have commented in blog after blog about real scandals that the Sun Times and the Tribune have uncovered. The red flags they threw up Thursday won't catch the eye of the Pulitzer Committee, it is just yellow journalism.
Read More From Planet Posner Here....
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