With mayor opposed, council endorses automated speed cameras

Sault Ste. Marie city council voted tonight to endorse a plan to triple the number of speeding tickets issued in the city using four city-leased automated speed cameras.

Notably opposed to the initiative was Mayor Matthew Shoemaker.

"I don't support this," Shoemaker said. "I think that it's a lot of effort to enforce one of the provisions in the Highway Traffic Act exclusively."

The plan requires a substantial investment by the city in the hope of making money, but makes no allowance for the cost of having public works staff setting up the cameras after they are vandalized, the mayor said.

"Speeding is an issue. It should be enforced, I think... through police services."

The cameras will be installed in community safety zones and school zones.

They're expected to generate 20,000 new speeding tickets a year in Sault Ste. Marie, on top of the 10,000 already issued.

That's more than the Provincial Offences Act office at the civic centre is able to handle, so the city is proposing to set up a secondary tribunal system.

Automated speeding tickets are issued to the registered plate holder of the offending vehicle, who may not have been driving at the time of the offence.

For that reason, demerit points aren't applied to these infractions.

Also concerned about the city's move into law enforcement was Ward 1 Coun. Sonny Spina, a former Sault Ste. Marie Police Service officer.

"From my perspective," Spina said, "the city's role in reducing speeding in the community is through environmental design, through engineering through the building of streets in certain ways that can help to reduce the opportunities for vehicles to speed.

"And I think the enforcement of speeding lies with the police service, which we've just given the largest budget in history – nearly $40 million.

"I find it hard to want citizens of the community to pay more to enforce speeding when we already have an organization that is supposed to be enforcing speeding. I think we should leave the enforcement up to that organization," Spina said.

"I think we leave enforcement up to the enforcement agency, design up to the design agencies."

Spina said if our goal is to reduce speeders, he finds it hard how we can achieve that by punishing vehicle owners who might not even be aware that their vehicles were being used improperly.

Ward 5 Coun. Corey Gardi said immediate steps are needed to deal with the Sault's speeders.

"I'm of the opinion that we can't deploy things fast enough to deal with the speeding issue in our community," Gardi said.

"I think something like this could nail somebody who wasn't necessarily driving their car. It makes the community more broadly responsible for the way that they drive....

"I'm not going to argue with you about the police budget. That being said, we also know that our police service is challenged by some other things that take up a lot of their time. So I'm really in favour of this," Gardi said.

Ward 3 Coun. Angela Caputo agreed with Gardi.

"I drive around the Sault and people fly. It's like everyone is driving a rocket ship and I don't know where everyone is trying to get to so quickly. But if everyone would just slow down, that would be wonderful," Caputo said.

With all the agreements that must be struck for the new cameras and enforcement tribunal, city officials say it will be a couple of years before automated speed enforcement is up and operating in Sault Ste. Marie.