(The Center Square) – Butts County Sheriff Gary Long and Norcross Police Chief Bill Logan told a Georgia Senate committee Wednesday they are both concerned about safety around school zones.
But the two veteran law enforcement officers have different opinions about traffic cameras that record speeders.
A Senate Public Safety subcommittee is considering House Bill 225, which would ban the cameras. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Dale Washburn, R-Macon, who has previously called the cameras a “money grab.” The bill passed the House 129-37 earlier this month. The cameras were greenlighted by a bill passed in 2018.
Logan told the committee the cameras reduced traffic accidents from more than 2,000 a year to 1,200 in the 6.2 square-mile city he oversees. The revenue is used in his department for a variety of things, including two full-time mental health clinicians.
Long called the cameras “taxation by citation.”
“Right now it’s just policing for profit,” Long told the committee. “They can get all they want and a private company makes it. It just don’t sit right with me and it doesn’t sit right with my community that I’ve talked to that we have private companies that’s capitalizing on a criminal code section.”
Long has personal experience with tickets from the cameras, he said. His son was cited by one in Henry County. The sheriff said he received notice about a ticket written for a truck he had sold five years prior to the notice.
Washburn said previously he received a ticket because of one of the cameras, but that’s not why he was sponsoring the bill. Macon-Bibb County Government has collected $6.5 million since the implementation of the cameras, resulting in about $1 million for the camera company, according to Washburn.
Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, said he appreciated the large crowd that attended the three-hour meeting that began at 6 a.m., noting some did not get a chance to testify due to time constraints.
“I think we now have about six hours of testimony on these particular devices,” said Robertson, who is a retired law enforcement officer. “I’ll be completing my report and getting it back to Sen. (John) Albers post haste.”
Albers, R-Roswell, chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee.
