Several
random thoughts were on my mind today; what was for dinner tonight, Hurricane
Irene, which episode would be on Family Guy tonight, you know the usual. While
these thoughts swirled around, I couldn’t help but revisit the whole I-traffic
issue.

You will
recall, the premise used to smooth that bitter pill down was increased safety
on the interstate. I have commented on that briefly in the past and I thought
for the sake of the City Council and Mayor Hodges, I would break it down into bite sized pieces.

I find their comments disingenuous. Disingenuous - disinˈjenyo͞oəs
- Adjective: Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less
or more about something than one really does.

If feel
their plan and their arguments for this plan to be a specious argument. Specious
- spēSHəs – Adjective: superficially plausible, but actually wrong: "a
specious argument".  Misleading in
appearance, esp. misleadingly attractive.

Now that we have had our remedial English lesson, let’s get down
to brass tacks. The basic premise was that they would increase safety on I-95
and at the same time increase revenue for the city coffers.  Now, that was a grand plan and it had all the
basics needed to sell someone a broken down useless used car.

First and foremost I have often wondered what would happen when
some knuckle head would rip through our little slice of I-95 at a 100 mph. The
vaunted I-traffic system would capture it for all to see and the car would (without
slowing down) rip right into Hardeeville. This vehicle proceeds to cause a
major accident. No mechanism was in place to actually slow down traffic, rather
I-traffic simply circled like a vulture and cherry picked its victims. Had a
uniformed officer, with blue lights stopped him and ticketed him, the chances
are far greater they would have slowed down and stayed slowed down.

The bottom line, the I-traffic model, was never primarily about
safety as it was billed, it was primarily geared towards a money grab and in
distant second and purely by accident, safety.

Now, knowing this is a private enterprise and no, not a nonprofit,
why were city employees paid from our tax dollars to support it? Those who
input tickets, the postage costs to mail out notices and let us not forget the sworn
Ridgeland Police officers who manned the thing while in operation. Who paid
their salaries, insurance, the gas for Police vehicles they used to get back
and forth, the gas used by the RV. The list goes on.

Now if the system was not turning a profit how could they have repaid
the city for the costs incurred? My guess is they did not. Now, we have the
front end costs for the startup of this private enterprise and then we have the
tail end costs to shut it down. I heard that they were still out there snapping
pictures fully 1 month after they were told to cease and desist. Who is footing
the bill to refund the tickets paid, that’s right us, the tax payers. We are
being penalized for every ticket written, refunding the entire amount paid even
though the state is not giving back the share of the fees they were paid on
each one. Then, remember the postage to send them out, the employees to input
refunds and process refund checks and on and on and on.

I have yet to see sworn officers making my sub at Subway, bagging
my groceries at the Pig, they never even asked if I wanted to supersize my
order at Burger King. Why in the name of the almighty were they being used for
a private business enterprise operating for a profit?

People we were sold a bill of goods and the payments haven’t stopped.
So the next time you hear about how some lawyer jerked around the system, just
remember the system was flawed from the beginning and should never have been implemented.

The Ridgeland City Council and Mayor Hodges pushed this thing through
and allowed it to happen. I don’t think we need to "just wait until November" to
let them know how we feel. I think they need to be reminded each and every day
of the fiasco the have gotten us into.

My new election sticker will read “a vote for any setting Council
Member or Mayor Hodges is a vote for the next I-traffic”.

I’m
just saying

By the way, I actually type this in Word then cut and paste to this blog. The formatting and sentence structure is messed up in this process for some reason. I aplogize for the sloppiness that appears here, bear with me as I struggle to get a handle on it.