UPDATE: The City Council voted to not extend the red-light camera contract with Xerox, the current vendor. It has expired as of noon Wednesday, August 17.
However, in a separate motion, the Bradenton City Council voted to put together a new request to seek another vendor to manage the red-light camera program.
The red light cameras will remain off until the City finds a new vendor contract.
UPDATE | #Bradenton ends contract with Xerox for #redlightcameras, they will be off until city finds a new vendor https://t.co/Y4mgMIUQFF
— ABC Action News (@abcactionnews) August 17, 2016
PREVIOUS STORY:
Will the city of Bradenton keep their red light cameras or not?
The city will discuss their red light camera program Wednesday during an 8:30 a.m. city council meeting.
There are seven red light cameras in the city, and they have been up for several years.The city extended their contract once with Xerox, which is a company based in Colorado. Their contract with the company expires this week. The question is whether the city council will decide to keep the red light cameras or take them down.
Some residents are for it, others against it.
"It's going to help traffic safety in the long run, people running red lights and jumping the gun on the other direction, and then you see traffic accidents all the time," said resident Kevin Autet.
Another resident, Tony Stabile said, "It doesn't allow for giving anyone the benefit of the doubt... There's no human element."
The police department said accidents at these intersections have gone up, and they cannot tell why that's happening. However, they said accidents from people running red lights have gone down in the past two years.
"I would hope that they would not renew the contract. I think it would be good to just get rid of those red light cameras," local Maggie Stabile said.
"The cameras are good if there's an accident or bad thing happen [near] the light," said another motorist. "That's the only thing that's good, but other than that, it's just money."
-----
