New traffic police will have to issue enough tickets to cover their salary in cash-strapped Marysville, California.
The 4700 residents of Marysville, California depend on just one traffic police officer, Dennis Hauck, to keeps the streets safe. Although the city's new red light camera system has now generated enough profit to cover its million-dollar deficit, it hasn't freed him to patrol the streets looking for more serious crimes, as is often promised. Instead, Hauck is behind a desk processing photo citation paperwork.
"I spend the majority of my time right now on (the red light camera program) which, unfortunately, has taken me off of the streets," Hauck told the Marysville Appeal-Democrat.
To ease the situation, the state has offered Marysville a $385,000 grant to hire two additional traffic officers. The catch is that the money runs out in two years, after which the city has to pay them out of its own pocket. Marysville's solution is to suggest that the new traffic policemen will need to generate enough revenue from traffic citations to cover their own salary.
Officials hope that over time, increased revenue from fees garnered from traffic violations will help offset some of those costs.