One of Benjamin Franklin’s most beloved and inspiring quotes is “Those who would give up a their LIBERTY for a little SECURITY deserve neither.” Let me see if I got that right…
Yeah, “safety.” This saying resonates especially strongly today as city councils like Anaheim’s, sadly supported by much of their FLOCK of voters, not only have no problem with putting license-plate cameras all over town, but willingly spend nearly a million of our money foisting them on us.
But I realize quoting Ben Franklin is like speaking a foreign language to politicians like the Anaheim Council. They hear, like the kids in Peanuts listening to grownups in the other room, nothing but gibberish or “wah-wah-wah” muted trombone sounds when we talk about liberty. THIS may be more effective:
These cameras are forbidden by the Anaheim City Charter.
Yes, believe it or not, this is in our charter amendments from back in 2014, YOU CAN SEE IT HERE, and lemme just quickly screen-grab it for you-all:
Hat-tip to Bethany Ahlberg who just happened to run into that chapter. How the hell did we get a prohibition like that into our City Charter? Well, hat-tip to Cynthia Ward, who remembers. (You might miss a lot if you don’t go to Anaheim Democrats Club meetings!) CURT PRINGLE, whose shadow loomed large over the 2014 Charter Revisions, just happened to hate Red Light Cameras! The fingerprints he left all over our lives, from the ARTIC station to this camera prohibition, ABIDE, and may as well be taken advantage of.
So the April vote by the Council to spend $736,000 for 72 more automated license plate readers is NULL AND VOID PER THE CHARTER! We save that much money and keep that much liberty!
[Point of clarification: We generally use the word “FLOCK” generically, but Anaheim’s cameras come from Motorola.]
MUCH MORE COMING BUT IT’S TIME TO GO TO COUNCIL! Check on this piece Wednesday or Thursday, it will be much more thorough!.. .
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I hear from several sources what I semi-suspected – these “Flock” or License-Plate-Reading Cameras do not fall in the category of “automated traffic enforcement systems,” so they’re apparently not forbidden under Pringle’s Anaheim Charter. Oh well, it was worth rattling the Council’s cage at least last night.
I’ll take this down and write a better story about De-Flocking Anaheim and OC later this week.
You should write one about the lack of water pressure.
How do you take advantage of the worthless ARTIC? Unless you just want to get out of the heat.