I'm stunned...that Chicago has a Governmental Ethics Ordinance, I mean. :)
The Chicago contract (which is being canned when it expires this month) represented 13% of Redflex's worldwide revenue ($~$100M) Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that the contract was immediately cancelled once he found out about the Redflex investigation, and that "his move to block a new contract for the operator of Chicago’s red light camera program shows the city has “zero tolerance” for ethical violations." (LOL)
There are two other geographic locations that the feds are looking into where similar 'activities' with Redflex took place - they wont say which two other cities are involved, but Jefferson Parish, LA (suburban New Orleans) is most likely one of them. Stay tuned for that story once it hits.
The 'consultant' (hired by Redflex) that was allegedly spreading around Redflex money in Chicago is a guy named Marty O'Malley (longtime friend of the City Program Manager [who ran the camera program], John Bills.) That same consultant is being implicated in the Jefferson Parish probe as well.... Bills retired in 2011 and claims no wrong-doing (of course he does). :) Redflex investigators (the law firm they hired) claim the kick-back scheme was the brainchild of Bills (of course they do; ignoring that the same 'consultant' is possibly implicated in other cities' kickback schemes as well).
Here's an audit report from the Chicago Inpector Generals office (from May 2013) showing that, although city officials claim the redlight program exists for 'safety' reasons, there is NO EVIDENCE to support this claim - and MUCH EVIDENCE showing that 'safety' has not even been a consideration when placing/moving these cameras (they also claim no evidence that placement of cameras was done to maximize revenue either - more like the program was a complete joke, with no oversight whatsoever).
Status Quo - Here's a story from a few days ago saying that Mayor Emanuel's campaign received $10K in political donations from the wives of 2 different exec's from System Development Integration - one of the companies bidding for the new contract once the Redflex contract expires. (note that the Trib story it links to is no longer there) :)
Here's the map of the Chicago redlight camera locations.
Finally, check out this story from Chandler, AZ that includes a study that shows that increasing yellow light times is more effective (yet obviously less lucrative for municipalities) for increasing safety/lowering accidents than red-light cameras are. Note how the City Transportation Engineer from Chandler ignores this data completely so he can continue to justify having redlight cameras at some of those same intersections now... :)
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In case you can't tell, I think (and always have) that the reasoning for redlight cameras is complete bullshit. Safety of the public is not even a concern, nor was it ever.