Red light cameras continue to be a source of controversy in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and they have never been popular in most places. New Orleans is reducing the number of cameras, and Baton Rouge has extended its contract for only one year.

Sulphur had an experience with speed enforcement vans. The City Council voted in 2008 to contract with Redflex Traffic Systems to man the vans used to monitor motorists in school zones and areas where speeding had been a problem.

The program didn’t last long. For the first time in Sulphur, an ordinance passed by the council was brought back to the ballot in 2009 for voters to decide the fate of the vans. The vote to repeal the ordinance was overwhelming — 86 percent for and only 14 percent against.

Red light and speed cameras, except for the Sulphur experience, haven’t been a major issue in Southwest Louisiana. Opponents say the cameras are only money-making propositions. Advocates insist they do reduce traffic violations and improve safety.

Jefferson Parish had red light cameras from 2007 to 2010 and had to pay back $7 million to drivers who were ticketed, according to a report in The Advocate. It added that a judge also ordered Orleans Parish to reimburse $27 million in fines the parish collected over the initial three years of its program.

Lafayette’s red light traffic cameras were shut down in June of 2017 when its contract with Redflex expired. They had been in operation since 2007. More than $10 million in fines went uncollected. Residents there voiced the same concerns motorists have been making for years.

“I never liked the traffic cams,” one resident told KLFY-TV. “I think they were kind of a way to just make money.” He said you could always protest the ticket, but if you lost you had to pay the court costs plus the cost of the ticket.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans announced in January that 20 of its 31 cameras had been deactivated. Cameras operating in school zones can only ticket motorists Monday through Friday from 7-9 a.m. and 2:45-4:45 p.m.

Cantrell during her campaign pledged to remove cameras that cannot demonstrate they contribute to public safety. She was asked during a meeting with the NOLA.com/TheTimes-Picayune editorial board how she could replace the $5 million to $6.5 million in revenues.

“We’re doing that,” she said. “We feel we’ve been prudent across the board, and we’ve found the revenue to fill the gaps, but also reduce the burden that’s on the backs of residents.”

The city said it will continue to evaluate school zone traffic and may relocate some of the deactivated cameras to active school zones. The cameras were expected to generate $21 million in net revenue in 2018, and the 20 cameras shut down would reduce that by $6 million.

The East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council decided to keep its cameras operating, but only for that one year. Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome included $3 million in revenue from the cameras in her 2019 budget, and the police chief said they are useful in hit-and-run investigations and some homicide cases.

A pending lawsuit challenging the red light camera program’s legality is a major concern of some council members. They don’t want to end up having to pay back motorists like Jefferson Parish and New Orleans had to do.

The Baton Rouge lawsuit estimates the city-parish has collected approximately $10 million in $125 fines from the more than 80,000 citations issued over the life of the program. Attorneys who filed the lawsuit have argued the company isn’t authorized to issue citations under the parish’s home rule charter.

Darryl Gissel, the city-parish chief administrative officer, said the lawsuit doesn’t have much validity because of how the red light program is set up compared to those in Jefferson and Orleans parishes.

“In our case, a police officer reviews every piece of footage to make sure the citations are done correctly,” he said. “We also have an appeals process, and I don’t think that was the case in some of the other cases.”

One council member suggested cutting the renewal contract for one year instead of making it a multiyear contract. The vote to do it was 7-5.

Legislators tried for years to prohibit cities and towns from using red light and speed cameras, but decided it was a local issue in which they shouldn’t get involved. However, they did pass a law that said any municipality that operated red light cameras had to post signs within 500 feet of the camera warning there were cameras ahead.

Those Baton Rouge red light cameras worked for me while covering the Legislature for many years. I tried to play it safe, but occasionally drove through a yellow caution light and always wondered if I was going to get a ticket in the mail. I lucked out.

 CAMERA CONTROVERSIES — Red light cameras continue to be a controversial issue in East Baton Rouge and Orleans parishes in Louisiana.

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