MONROE — Just days after talking about staging an advisory vote on traffic-enforcement cameras, city officials on Friday filed a lawsuit against the people who sponsored an initiative that would enact new rules for the cameras.
The city of Monroe brought the civil case in Snohomish County Superior Court. The lawsuit asks a judge to find that Monroe Initiative No. 1 “in its entirety is invalid because it is beyond the scope of local initiative power, and therefore null and void.”
The lawsuit names as defendants the anti-camera groups who gathered signatures from Monroe voters: Washington Campaign for Liberty; Seeds of Liberty; Bancams.com and VotersWantMoreChoices.com.
The latter group is run by Mukilteo initiative activist Tim Eyman. “It is really an extraordinarily arrogant thing to do to sue your own citizens for exercising their constitutional right to initiative,” he said. “It is a total waste of city revenue, (which) they claim they don’t have a lot of, but they seem to have plenty to hire a lawyer.”
Monroe officials have said that they are paying attention to legal arguments raised against similar initiatives. In Wenatchee, for example, a judge ruled a similar initiative invalid, and blocked backers from even collecting signatures.
Eyman noted that Monroe had options. In Bellingham, city leaders this week decided that an initiative with language mirroring Monroe’s must be put to a vote.
A Snohomish County judge last year ruled a similar camera initiative in Mukilteo should go before voters. Given the chance to decide, Mukilteo voters weighed in 71 percent against using enforcement cameras. The state Supreme Court recently heard arguments on whether that initiative was legal. Its decision is expected later this year.
Even though it is now suing to stop the camera initiative, the Monroe City Council on Tuesday staged a lengthy discussion on options for allowing voters there to have some voice on the future of traffic enforcement cameras, perhaps as early as the November general election.
The council is scheduled to continue discussion next week.
There are differences between what the council is considering and what Monroe Initiative No. 1 would accomplish, Councilman Tony Balk said.
Initiative No. 1 is stricter, and likely would force cancellation of the enforcement-camera contract that Monroe already has with Arizona-based Redflex Traffic Systems, Balk said.
He worries that could open the door to more litigation.
Depending on how the court rules on the legality of Monroe Initiative No. 1, it is possible that initiative and some sort of city-sponsored advisory vote could wind up together on the November ballot, councilman Tom Williams said.
“If the judge says it’s legal, I’ll happily put in the ballot,” Williams said of Initiative No. 1.
Mayor Robert Zimmerman had no comment Friday afternoon.
Eyman said it is unclear how much money initiative backers will expend defending the initiative in court. Lawsuits are costly and the city has more money, collected from taxpayers, for resources, he said.
Meanwhile, he and others already are putting their energies into support for proposed Monroe Initiative No. 2, which would require advisory votes on enforcement cameras in the city every municipal election cycle for as long as the city has camera contracts. Eyman called the second initiative an “advisory vote on steroids.”
Monroe now has cameras up at three spots — two school zones and the intersection of North Kelsey Street and U.S. 2. The school-zone cameras were scheduled to be turned off for the summer after the school year ended in June.
Monroe Initiative No. 1 seeks to remove enforcement cameras that already have been installed, to reduce fines levied from camera-generated tickets and to require voter approval before any more enforcement cameras can be installed.
Alejandro Dominguez, 425-339-3422, adominguez@heraldnet.com
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
