Tim Eyman loses first round in lawsuit against the City of Redmond over traffic camera vote

A law­suit recent­ly filed by Tim Eyman against NPI’s home­town over the city’s deci­sion not to for­ward peti­tions seek­ing a vote on the issue of red light cam­eras was dis­missed today by King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Lau­ra Inveen, who held that the mea­sure, “exceeds the law­ful scope of local ini­tia­tive power.”

The rul­ing means that the ini­tia­tive, orches­trat­ed by red light cam­era crit­ic Scott Har­lan, will not be placed on the bal­lot for a pub­lic vote. At least not any­time soon (Eyman could appeal the decision).

Tim Eyman wast­ed no time in blast­ing both the court and the city after his loss.

“It’s an appalling rul­ing…  I’m dis­gust­ed by it, and I think the City of Red­mond just kicked a hor­net’s nest,” he told reporters out­side of the courtroom.

Fun­ny, that’s about what Eyman says every time he los­es in court. (Anoth­er stock Eyman retort we’ve heard over the years: “This will just pour gaso­line on the fire of our lat­est initiative”).

In her rul­ing, Inveen cit­ed a recent case decid­ed by an appel­late court regard­ing a sim­i­lar mea­sure in Belling­ham. “[The] Belling­ham case could­n’t have said it clear­er when it held that an ini­tia­tive almost iden­ti­cal to the pro­posed Red­mond ini­tia­tive exceeds the law­ful scope of local ini­tia­tive pow­er and is not a valid bal­lot ini­tia­tive,” Inveen wrote. “By state statute, the author­i­ty for approv­ing traf­fic cam­eras is with the Red­mond City Coun­cil and the mayor.”

Red­mond May­or John Mar­chione praised the decision.

“Today’s court rul­ing is a strong affir­ma­tion of the City of Redmond’s action to ful­fill its respon­si­bil­i­ties and not abdi­cate its role to ‘gov­ern­ment-by-ini­tia­tive’.  The City’s actions are guid­ed by law that the deci­sion to use traf­fic cam­era enforce­ment is reserved for the City Coun­cil only,” Mar­chione said in a statement.

“While repeat­ed court rul­ings on Eyman ini­tia­tives have made this clear, some con­tin­ue to cre­ate a false expec­ta­tion. Instead of per­pet­u­at­ing this myth, the City Coun­cil and I chose to state the truth. This deci­sion is reserved for the City Coun­cil and not sub­ject to the ini­tia­tive process.”

Unlike oth­er cities with red light cam­eras, Red­mond’s traf­fic safe­ty pro­gram is lim­it­ed to just three inter­sec­tions and a key arte­r­i­al in front of a school. The cam­eras were installed sev­er­al months ago on a tri­al basis; the city is cur­rent­ly in the process of decid­ing whether to extend or end its pilot project. There’s actu­al­ly a study ses­sion on the mat­ter sched­uled for tonight at Red­mond City Hall.