Posted on 09/24/2022 8:36:23 AM PDT by simpson96
Cook County Board president Republican candidate Bob Fioretti is calling out Democratic lawmakers over the latest indictment of a member of the majority party after state Sen. Emil Jones III (D-Chicago) was charged with accepting a bribe.
Jones allegedly accepted $5,000 from a firm operating a red light camera system.
"Red-light cameras are a plague on our communities, and a license to steal from our communities!” Fioretti said in a press release. “They are a hidden tax on Cook County residents created by shady, backroom deals and corruption by our so-called 'public servants.' A billion dollars in 'fines' and a plethora of indictments prove this!"
Fioretti said that Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois "already have an infamous reputation for corruption, crime, and gross incompetence by government officials."
"Why would we continue to allow this pay-to-play, cronyism, and political-grifting to continue?” he argued. "If we're going to utilize these awful devices, we must adopt a system like Virginia and invest in our crumbling infrastructure. We need to put these resources to work and use it as investment as opposed to just another tax or penalty on residents. Ultimately, it is politically connected insiders who profit and corrupt public officials who skim off of those profits.”
Fioretti said that Toni Preckwinkle, the 35th president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, "leads a corrupt Democratic party."
Fioretti, who is an attorney at Roth Fioretti LLC where he practices complex law, has served two terms as alderman in Chicago’s 2nd Ward. He switched parties to run as a Republican.
"How many more indictments must be reported, and illegal schemes uncovered before ‘leaders’ like Toni Preckwinkle act and put an end to the nonstop corruption?" Fioretti said. "Cook County deserves far better than these constant failures.”
The Northern District of Illinois U.S. Attorney's Office disclosed the allegations on Tuesday. Jones is accused of accepting a $5,000 bribe to change a measure that would have done further research on red light cameras. According to the indictment, “Company A was a Chicago-area company that provided automated traffic enforcement systems, commonly known as red-light cameras, which enabled municipalities to enforce certain traffic violations and issue traffic violation tickets. Company A did not provide any automated traffic enforcement systems to the City of Chicago. Individual A had an ownership interest in Company A. Unbeknownst to JONES, Individual A was cooperating with law enforcement.”
Jones "corruptly solicited" the cash, according to the filing. and that “In or around 20L9, JONES agreed that, in exchange for benefits provided by Individual A to JONES and Individual B, JONES would oppose legislation that required the study of automated traffic enforcement systems located outside of Chicago, and would limit any legislation regarding IDOT's study of and recommendations concerning automated traffic law enforcement systems to those automated traffic enforcement systems utilized in Chicago, thereby excluding from study and recommendations automated traffic enforcement systems utilized in numerous other municipalities that Company A served,” the indictment reads, Chicago City Wire previously reported.
In June, Jones decried the criminal justice system. He is the sponsor of the SAFE-T Act which is opposed by 100 of the state’s 102 state’s attorneys, saying that “No one should be serving time for a crime they did not commit.” Jones also noted that “The criminal justice system at times proves to have no justice at all, especially for Black and Brown folks."
One of a number of reasons I can’t stand Chicago.
i moved out of IL and down to the free state of FL over 4 years ago. Best move I ever made.
Have you gone through a hurricane yet? Do you get one next week?
Many of these lights are rigged to stay green for a shorter duration than normal on high traffic roads, setting people up to want to get through on the next signal change. But then there is a mere one second yellow, then red, so if you were trying to get through you are stuck having to finish. Even very cautious drivers can easily get caught going through one.
They are a hidden tax on Cook County
Nobody pays taxes in Cook County everybody steals what they want.
What they typically do after installing one of these is cut the yellow light time by about half thus making it a trap for people who are too close to stop safely.
Now you see speed cameras cropping up like toadstools after a rain. So far none on the interstates that I have seen, but high traffic four lane secondary roads seem to be the main money-makers. Waze is a good thing to have.
Where ever there are red light cameras there has been bribery. It took many years to get rid of the cameras here in Los Angeles and I think in San Diego. Not only was bribes taken but lives as well. In order to generate more ticket money they shorten the lights and caused many more rear end crashes.
EVERYTHING IS RACIST!!! I would never recommend using UV LEDs where you screw the list cen e play to the mounts. Then the cameras can’t read the plate. At least the old ones all over Europe.
You mean the red light CAMERAS? There is only one reason for the cameras-—illicit revenue for the State. Only fools believe that in their installations there is a concern for safety.
100%
Of course, if their real motivation was reducing red-light accidents, and not generating revenue, all they would need to do is increase the red light/green light delay, but that doesn't involve lots of lucrative govt contracts.
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