If you are closely following the debate over traffic-enforcement cameras in Snohomish County the attached transcript from a Bellingham courtroom last week is worth a read.
If you couldn’t care less about the camera issue, however, it is still worth spending a few minutes poring over Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Ira Uhrig’s ruling.
Uhrig’s intelligent and vigorous defense of the right to petition government is that good — seriously — regardless of how you feel about the cameras.
The transcript is from an Aug. 17 hearing during which Uhrig ruled that Bellingham voters will get to decide on an initiative that would restrict traffic-enforcement cameras there. Among other things, Uhrig held that Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions, Inc., didn’t have standing to challenge the initiative.
ATS operates enforcement cameras in Lynnwood. Monroe and Mukilteo are embroiled in legal controversies somewhat similar to Bellingham’s.
A Snohomish County judge in September (no date has been set) likely will decide whether Monroe voters can weigh in on the city’s enforcement-camera rules. Mukilteo, meanwhile, is awaiting the state Supreme Court’s ruling on the legality of an anti-camera measure voters approved in 2010.
The transcript comes courtesy of Tim Eyman, who has pressed the anti-cam initiatives around Washington.
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