City can't afford to pay back photo radar fines: councillor

The politician in charge of the Winnipeg Police Service says the city cannot afford to reimburse people who have already paid their photo radar tickets.

Coun. Gord Steeves, chair of the city's standing policy committee on protection and community services,said the hit to the city's revenue will be between $3 million and $10 million, depending on how many fines have to be paid back.

"We don't have the extra money in our budget to dorefunds," he said, adding that he doesn't have a clearunderstanding why the province has decided to review some 60,000 tickets issued through 2008 up until last month.

'We don't have the extra money in our budget to do refunds.' Coun. Gord Steeves

He would like a clear answer to whether the government is responding to legal advice on whether the tickets can actually be enforced, or if the decision has been prompted by politics.

Photo radar is unpopular with the public and Manitoba's Opposition Tories have been running advertisements putting pressure on the NDP government to refund the tickets. They are also running an online petition demanding the same thing.

"It is, in my assertion, inappropriate for one order or level of government to make unilateral decisions that have huge implications on the bottom line of another level of government, without consulting with them well in advance of making those decisions," Steeves said. "I just don't think that's right."

Steeves is also concerned about the city's five-year contract with ACS Public Sector Solutions, which operates the photo radar system. He isn't sure what will happen to that contract if the volume of tickets drops significantly.

The company is poised to earn $25 million over the contract, but the deal depends on a certain volume of tickets to cover costs, said Steeves.

Sign law solidified

Manitoba Attorney General Dave Chomiak met with Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz and police Chief Keith McCaskill on Friday to tighten the regulations governing speed-limit-sign laws in construction zones.

But it was the provincial government that decided to undertake the review of the 60,000 photo radar tickets handed out in construction zones to determine if refunds should be made.

'You can't just skeet shoot this issue. You have to think it through.' Premier Gary Doer

The review will begin in a couple of weeks, but it could be a long time before it's complete, Chomiak has said.

Premier Gary Doer said the government won't rush the decision. He also said it's unlikely every person who got a ticket will get a refund. In some cases, the speeding cannot be justified, he suggested.

"There's lots of dimensions to this," he said. "The Tories today are talking about all 60,000 and that shows you the difficulty: That would include someone going 100 miles per hour in a construction site. So that's why you can't just skeet shoot this issue. You have to think it through."

The government had suspended the use of photo radar in construction zones earlier last week before reinstating it on Friday. The decision was made in order to establish clear rules for the construction zone application of radar.

Hot topic since court overturned fines

The issue has been a hot topic of controversy since provincial court judge Norm Sundstrom dismissed nine photo radar tickets earlier this year.

According to provincial law, the temporary speed limit when passing construction zones is 60 kilometres per hour. Although the drivers whose tickets were dismissed had exceeded that limit, they were not going faster than the regular 80 km/h speed limit for that particular roadway, and there were no workers present.

Without the workers, there was no safety issue, so the regular speed limit should apply, Sundstrom ruled.

The province disagreed and was set to appeal until it realized it would likely lose on a technicality. A sign declaring the temporary speed limit must be set up at the start of a construction zone as well as at the end. A sign had only been placed at the beginning of the construction zones where the drivers had been photographed.

The sign problem has since been fixed and Chomiak, Katz and McCaskill agreed that photo radar will only be enforced when workers are present in the construction zones or if there is some other type of safety issue.

That information will be brought to motorists' attention through roadside signs.