Wednesday afternoon, American Traffic Solutions representative Bob Slymes begins his presentation to the Memphis City Council.
It’s a rather interesting game. The camera guy shows up and what he really wants you to do...is lease the cameras (to get the full warranty deal). Naturally, he wants front money, monthly money, and percentage money from each ticket. The political folks are mostly sold off his fancy graphical display that they can clear $500k a month easily.
So months pass with this new operation. The cops start to get challenged in court over various issues with the cameras. Eventually, an expert or two arrives in town with fancy graphics and starts to work for a couple of lawyers. They start to win cases in court. The amount of money starts to draft downward in terms of profit.
So the council starts to realize that the monthly fee is eating into the profit scheme, and the ticket fee that the company is taking in....is now a problem because it’s guaranteed whether the cops win or lose in court.
Then the city starts to discuss getting out of the contract, and realizes that they have to pay a pretty heft fee to get out. All in all...it’s an eventual lose-lose-lose scenario.
Wednesday afternoon, American Traffic Solutions representative Bob Slymes begins his presentation to the Memphis City Council.