Buffalo Common Council Seeks to Pause School Zone Speed Cameras

The Common Council, the legislative body of the City of Buffalo, looking to temporarily freeze a program that has caused a lot of confusion in the last year.

According to reporting by WKBW, The Buffalo Common Council is asking the Mayor to pause the School Zoon Speed Camera program that has become very controversial lately.

The Council has said it does not want to remove the school zones themselves, but to stop ticketing drivers in the short-term. After many documented missteps and hundreds of complaints, this seems like a reasonable step for the council to take.

At Tuesday's meeting of the Common Council, Councilmembers voted 8-1 to pause the program. Councilmember Wingo was the sole member who voted no to this resolution.

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The City of Buffalo Law Department says that only the Mayors office has the legal authority to pause or terminate a city contract. And while it seems like the will of the people is clear, based on all of the various complaints by residents, the Mayor has gone on record saying that he has no plans to make any changes to the program.

I don't think it should be paused, I think we should protect our children and I think we should follow through on the initial commitment that we made to the community.
-Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, speaking at a press conference

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Clearly, there are some kinks in this program. Why wouldn't we want to take a step back and look at this wholistically to determine the best way to move forward?