Has every single red-light camera fine ever generated in Austin been Illegal?!?

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

Another gem from Watchdog:

Is it possible that nearly $6 million in citations generated by red light cameras were issued illegally over the past eight years in Austin?

Bryon Schirmbeck, who has led a long, lonely fight against the cameras in Texas, said the city has been unable to show it ever did an engineering study to establish the case for the cameras before they first went into operation in May 2008.

What’s at stake for the city is an average of $735,000 a year through an average of 9,800 annual citations for red light camera violations.

“So, what it would boil down to is that every single ticket Austin has ever issued has been illegal,” Schirmbeck contends. “They never had the authority from the state to issue them since they didn’t meet the statutory requirements to impose the civil penalty.”

Schirmbeck, Texas coordinator for the national Campaign for Liberty, said he can find no evidence Austin established a citizen’s advisory committee to review and make recommendations based on the engineering study to the City Council.

The study and the committee review are requirements of section 707.003 of the Texas Transportation Code, passed seven months before the Austin City Council approved a $9.7 million contract with Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc. of Glendale, Ariz.

As of late Tuesday city transportation officials were unable to provide Watchdog with any documentation to show the city followed legal protocol before signing a contract in effect until March 19, 2018.

Read the whole thing here.