Politico
If I were Mayor of Canton, Ohio (yikes)
First order of business as Mayor would be to reduce city expenses, without detrimental impact to services.
I would immediately take a pay cut for the first term in office. Placing the money back into the City General Fund, or using it to help pay for certain initiatives mentioned in this post, or later on. I have not looked into how much the Mayor of the City of Canton “earns” per year, but I know that I get by on significantly less than $50,000 a year. Whatever the pay is, I’d be more than happy to give half, or more of it back to the City. IF I did a good enough job to be re-elected, perhaps I’d take 2/3 of the full pay in the second term, and I’d work extra hours researching all sorts of ways to improve the City, balance the budget, and bring jobs to Canton throughout my tenure as Mayor. If the people were happy with the results of my leadership, I would then take the full salary as a reward for a job well done in a theoretical third term, and as incentive to keep improving the quality of life for all the people of the City in a .
I would get rid of all but the most essential government Vehicles, and all Cell Phones. Every vehicle is an expense, they depreciate, they need costly maintenance, and allowing employees to take them home? Unless they are leaving from their home to go inspect a building or something on their side of town… no taking the cars home. Only when there would be mileage and/or gas savings. Logging mileage would be required, stop or deter theoretical abuse of the system. For cell phones, I would perhaps look into a discount plan, but the workers would pay for their own plan, then perhaps the city would kick in the difference for the “unlimited minutes” or whatever. Probably some good savings to be had there.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/government-workers-face-car-cuts-or-not/
$6200 per car per year! yikes!
I would also require that every employee in the City Government, from the upper ranks such as the Traffic Engineer down to even the Street Department Workers, Police Officers, and even Meter Maid(s) come up with at least 1(one) idea in every calendar month for saving money, or improving the quality of life in the city. More efficient patrol patterns, reducing paper usage, increasing recycling, entering a collective supply ordering cooperative with other cities in the region, etc, to get discounts (if not already done). Perhaps paying bonuses of 10% of the amount of money saved, we’d have to wait and see.
Then as far as I could manage, no layoffs and no firings (you know, within reason). I would keep all current employees as long as they were good workers and willing to work hard with me regardless of differences and cared deeply for the City and its residents. There are many, many unemployed people out there that NEED a job, ANY job, and a lot of them have college degrees, and might be able to help turn the city around. I would not hire or give contracts to friends or colleagues (sorry guys and gals), let alone political donors. Unless they were somehow world class geniuses and would work cut-rate for the City (and even then I’d still have plenty of oversight on myself to guard against any improper influence in either direction).
On top of that, I would work with City Council, to do what’s best for the people of Canton. No political fighting, no name calling, I would not promise them anything, except to work my hardest in cooperation with them at making the City a better place. No trading votes for each others’ proposals, or political deal making. Find out all the facts on an issue, and then make the best decision for the citizens. If City Council refused to cooperate in helping pass the much needed improvements, I would go directly to the voters and argue my case, explaining it in detail, and implore them to lean hard on their council members. Many of the proposals I’d put forth would be common sense, and easy to understand, so I wouldn’t anticipate any argument or dragging of the feet from City Council at all.
All of the employees would be subject to at least one twice-yearly review, be given clear objectives, and the support, oversight, and most importantly, freedom to meet those objectives. Whether it be reducing delinquencies on tax and other bills, or providing more efficient and necessary services to the community, continuous verifiable improvement would be the mission. All of the workers would be held personally accountable, all the way up through the ranks.
I would investigate how to get a program(s) or Grant to get started and help guide people through the process of founding their own small businesses. Because 10% of this country can’t just sit around and wait for something to be done. We all have to try to do something positive to help our friends and neighbors get back on their feet. Jobs can be grown from our most precious resource, our people and their ideas!
Everyone wants their street repaved, but that would not be happening. Needs most gets first. Triage for the City’s main arteries, then we work on a comprehensive plan to get everything that’s been neglected back into shape by age and deterioration, as well as traffic load figured in. For safety and efficient traffic flow improvements, we’d definitely look into synchronizing more traffic lights, extending yellows in dangerous intersections (even a half-second can result in decreased violations and accidents, and these results do NOT revert back to dangerous conditions “once people learn the new light timing”, as well as using the motorcycle cops to chase down egregious red light runners at the worst intersections). The best way to do this may be by using discreet cameras (concerned citizens could volunteer to record and identify the worst intersections for violations using their own equipment, after the amber signal adjustment of course) and then tally the violations, and submit the footage, and we would start enforcing the law. Deploying mobile speed bumps in neighborhoods where people speed and cut through is one idea, as they pop up if a motorist is going too fast in a residential neighborhood.
Well, crap, I don’t wanna get carried away and shoot all my ideas out at once. That’s a wrap for today, check back tomorrow or Monday for whichever issue I decide to recommend action on next. Should be interesting.
Redflex, Canton Ohio, and red light cameras uncensored
Warning! Graphic accident footage. Not for the squeamish, may be NSFW!
The above video was taken at the last informational meeting for the city of Canton, OH’s proposed Redflex Camera Initiative. The pedestrian, which was crossing on a don’t walk signal, was pronounced dead at the scene, but was later revived, so there were no fatalities in this accident.
I attended the first meeting of the four they held in Canton, as well as the last, where I filmed that clip. I had called ahead to make sure I would be allowed to attend the first meeting, especially as I am not a city resident. They are probably regretting allowing me to attend and ask questions by now.
A few things I want to make clear. I acted, probably more than a bit, like an ass at that first meeting. I’d like to sincerely apologize here, and I had already half-apologized to Mayor Healy, and Mr. Rosenberg, the Redflex salesman in the comments from the newspaper article I was quoted in.
Secondly, I do not have any children of my own, the ones I was quoted as being worried about were my brother’s three beautiful kids, that love to hang out with their “Uncle Nick,” and also enjoy riding in the ‘way-back’ jumper seats in my station wagon(s). I will admit that I became more than a little emotional, and I increased my volume to try not to let my voice crack when I yelled that ‘any increased accidents and injuries would be their fault.’
Thirdly, I was utterly negligent in accusing the Redflex representative of his company and employees committing various crimes such as deleting ticket violations for the CEO or other executives. Never happened. The article I read basically stated that ‘Redflex and ACS ticketing systems have the ability to make sure their employees are not issued violations.’ I will be linking these, and many more articles in this blog soon.
I would like to point out that I did attend the final informational meeting at the North Branch of the Stark County Library. At no point did I interrupt the meeting. I didn’t make any speeches, or try to get myself on WEWS Channel 5 News, which was there covering the meeting. I was not permitted to speak, as there were plenty of extremely concerned residents attending, and I fully understand their reluctance to let me do any more damage to their cause, ESPECIALLY since I had thrown around such unfounded allegations before. I may have made some snide comments directed towards the ears of the persons seated around me, but I’m sorry, it’s hard for me to hold my tongue in the face of outright deception.
Well, since then, I’ve done the research I should have completed before the meetings on these systems, and I have no excuses to offer other than laziness, and procrastination, for my previous mistaken allegations. I have found concrete, verifiable problems though, and proof that Redflex blatantly violated State and Federal laws. As any company would be severely remiss not to send Cease & Desist letters to any website or newspaper that reported anything untrue about them, lest their image be irreversibly tarnished, I believe the sources I’ll be using are completely trustworthy, and reporting the full truth of the matters of Red Light Camera Systems.
Now, at the conclusion of this editorial I wrote for TTAC, I stated that I’m starting a petition to put the red light camera issue before the voters. It is due by August 20th of this year (2009), but I hope to file the signatures much earlier than that.
I will be dissecting the arguments made by Canton, and Redflex in this, my personal blog, as well as updating the status on the efforts to get a petition filed so that the voters can decide whether or not they need these types of systems in Canton, OH.
There is also another Canton Red Light Camera Blog. I do not know the gentleman who is currently running that website, but I am glad that others are now giving the issues some of the attentions they deserve.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am going to confess that I, Nicholas Cincinat, have had red light and stop sign “violations” in the past. Each and every one of these was paid for, by me, and while I may have groused about them a little at the time, I admitted my mistakes, and owned up to them. A couple of the violations I have perfectly reasonable excuses for why I absolutely HAD to ‘run the red light,’ and for the rest, I have nothing but explanations. The city of Canton, OH, Redflex, or some pro-camera citizens group may try to use these against me in a smear campaign to try to paint me as a “dangerous driver” or “scofflaw,” so I wanted to get this out there now, for everyone to see that I have nothing to hide. I have only ever been in one accident in the past, which I was not at fault for. Also, even Mr. Rosenberg admitted to having red light or speeding violations in the past so let’s keep things on the real issues which are the Company and the Cameras.
Anyway, I hope that the citizens of Canton Ohio will be permitted to decide this issue, based on the facts, for themselves. Thanks to both of the people who got lost and ended up here for reading this.