- March 26, 2025
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While Manatee County commissioners terminated a program that allowed speed detecting cameras to monitor school zones, it doesn't mean motorists who received tickets are off the hook.
Commissioners aren't exempt either.
The cameras cost Commissioner Mike Rahn $200 for two separate citations. Even still, he voted to keep the cameras operating because too many people are exhibiting “bad behavior.”
“I’m part of that number,” Rahn said. “Fines or not, that is of concern that we have 55,000 people that are blowing through school zones.”
Rahn paid his fines and slowed down, but on March 4, he and Commissioner Tal Siddique were outvoted 5-2. As of midnight March 6, cameras installed in 30 local school zones were officially turned off.
The program caused outrage among residents that 55,243 citations were issued since the cameras were installed at the start of the school year in August.
Residents emailed commissioners, posted to social media and appeared at commission and special magistrate meetings to complain, mainly because the cameras were running all day long and not only during school drop-off and pickup times.
Deputy County Administrator Courtney De Pol said that about 60% of the citations were issued outside of flashing beacon times.
The move was called a “money grab” by citizens and commissioners alike. At $100 per violation, that equates to over $5 million collected in fines, except that only 22,292 of the violations have been paid.
While Commissioner Bob McCann told the East County Observer that the tickets were being written off “left and right,” the first special magistrate hearing held Feb. 26 proved otherwise.
Only six out of 43 citations were dismissed.
A few violators saw how the proceedings were going, so they got up and left. Two of the successes were a judge and a Del Webb resident.
Judge Robert Farrance questioned Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Glenn Cline after being clocked at 51 mph in a 40 mph zone. He was ticketed in front of Electa Lee Magnet Middle School on 53rd Ave. W. during the middle of the day when the lights were not flashing.
Farrance led Cline to say that the cameras issue violations at 11 mph and over, that MSCO is not on site to monitor the cameras in real time, MSCO does not calibrate the equipment themselves to know if they’re clocking speeds correctly and that the vendor, Red Speed, has said the calibration accuracy is within plus or minus 1 mile.
Cline couldn’t answer if the cameras snapped photos of every car driving by or just the ones going 11 mph or over.
“You can’t really speak to the inner workings of the company or how this camera works,” Farrance said. “It’s clearly hearsay, and I don’t think there’s been any proper foundation laid for (the citation), and (Red Speed) doesn’t have a representative here.”
With that, Code Enforcement Special Magistrate Walter Sowa dismissed the judge’s violation.
Del Webb’s Peggy Hufford received a ticket for driving 26 mph in a 15 mph school zone. Her ticket was dismissed because of a speed limit change on The Masters Avenue from 15 mph to 20 mph.
The new speed limit sign was posted on Nov. 25, but the MCSO’s system wasn’t updated until Jan. 8.
On the other hand, arguments that flashing beacons are broken and speed limit signs have been down since Hurricane Milton were not accepted by Sowa as providing reasonable doubt.
Roman Katyniski questioned how the equipment could detect that it was his car, and not the car right on his tail, that was speeding. He wasn't given an explanation, but his citation was upheld, too.
During the March 4 commission meeting, De Pol made a point to tell residents who were issued any tickets that those tickets are still valid and must either be paid or appealed.
McCann’s original agenda item for the meeting was to issue refunds of $100 to any resident who paid their fine. He changed his motion the day of the meeting to stop the program all together and terminate the county’s contract with Red Speed.
Commissioner George Kruse had already established at the Feb. 4 commission meeting that refunding the fines wasn’t feasible because not all the citations were paid, but more importantly, Manatee County is not in possession of all the money that was paid.
The county only collects $39 on each ticket. Red Speed would also have to agree to give up its $21 per ticket, and the school board gets the rest for safety initiatives and the crossing guard program.
McCann and Commissioner Jason Bearden cited Sheriff Wells as not supporting the program. However, Wells said by email that he didn’t support the plan to operate the cameras throughout the entire school day.
Wells does believe the cameras should operate when the flashing lights are activated, but he said MCSO will continue its established practices for traffic enforcement in school zones by stationing deputies within various school zones to issue citations as necessary.
