Cook County Votes to Boycott Arizona, Signs Contract with Arizona Company

By Kevin Robinson in News on Jun 2, 2010 2:00PM

Cook County commissioners passed a resolution this week boycotting Arizona businesses in response to the state's punitive law requiring immigrants to carry their alien registration papers, and requiring police to question people they suspect of being in the United States illegally. The county then voted to award one of two contracts for red light ticketing cameras to American Traffic Solutions, based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The other contract went to Redspeed Illinois, based in Lombard, Illinois. (That's DuPage County, in case you were wondering.) The red light cameras will be posted at some 30 intersections around Cook County. One town targeted seems to be Schaumburg where another fight over the cameras could be brewing. The Expired Meter has more on that as well as a list of the proposed intersections.

Cook County isn't the only local government handing tax dollars over to an Arizona-based business for red light cameras. The City of Chicago's nearly 200 red light cameras come from Arizona-based Redflex Traffic Systems. This has the city's Hispanic aldermen in a tizzy as well. The city is locked into a five-year contract is signed in 2008 with Redflex worth over $50 million. Because the technology behind the red light cameras, Reflex has a separate, $32 million contract to maintain over 130 of the cameras. Chicago's Hispanic aldermen have introduced two resolutions, one calling for a boycott, the other decrying the state's law as "racist."