Pictured is Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) /

(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

Ohio's Black press)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has reinstated the city's red light traffic cameras after suspending them last month after a three-judge panel of the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the cameras that take snapshots of speeding motorists for subsequent fines are unconstitutional and illegal because Ohio's municipal courts have sole authority or jurisdiction over violations of codified city ordinances under the the Ohio Constitution and state law. At issue, the appeals court said, is how the administrative appeals process for the tickets is administered. The Cleveland Municipal Court, and not the city, has jurisdiction, the appellate panel has said.

Attorneys for the city said earlier today that the city has appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court and has asked that it accept jurisdiction to hear the case, an option for the seven member largely Republican court, and not a mandate. The appellate decision is binding in Cuyahoga County and relative to all municipal and village traffic camera programs like it in the county, including the one in neighboring East Cleveland.

If the high court refuses to hear the appeal and does not reverse a similar state appellate court ruling in a Toledo traffic cameras case that it has agreed to hear, or if it does not otherwise deem the controversial traffic cameras constitutional, the city's program, by case law, has to be stopped.

The city can likely hold off in complying with the ruling until it exhaust all legal remedies at the Ohio Supreme Court level. But likely, Jackson and city officials may soon have to deal with the reality of the eight district court decision, one allegedly pushed by some Cleveland Municipal Court judges who have said that their authority is being subordinated.

Sam Jodka, the trial court defendant who prosecuted the appeal via his attorneys, could not retrieve the monies he paid for the camera ticket, a civil and not criminal infraction, because he did not appeal the ticket through the administrative appeals process, the appeals decision said, a ruling that Jodka has asked the high court to assess.

Jodka,  of Columbus, Ohio, got the digital speeding ticket when he was in town from Columbus and driving through Cleveland.

The appellate decision on the constutionality of the cameras reverses a Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas ruling against Jodka and in the city's favor.

"At issue is how the appeals process for these civil violations is handled," said city spokesperson Maureen Harper at the time of the ruling.

But the money, millions of dollars annually, is too good for the city's coffers, sources say, and Jackson is going to ride it out as long as he can in hopes of a possible win.

The mayor says that safety is his concern.

The camera tickets at issue generate fines that start at $100 with additional fees if not paid within a specified period of time

A bill pending in the Ohio state legislature dubbed HB 69 that would make the traffic cameras illegal under state law passed the Ohio House of Representatives last year and is now in committee before the Ohio Senate. Whether the Ohio General Assembly will decide the matter before the Ohio Supreme Court does remains to be seen, though the eighth district decision in the Jodka case also makes mention of  state lawmakers having authority to adopt a state law around the traffic cameras.(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)