1. Serious Energy Conservation
2. Real efforts at Energy Efficiency
3. Renewable Energy including large amounts of distributed generation (small wind & solar).
4. No New Nukes or Coal
5. Sustainably extracted Natural Gas (no fracking)

These RIIF funds are independent of any oversight from any agency and are included in the budget to the tune of $130,000,000.00 or more. I need a new bulldozer, maybe it will be included in the proposal.

I hope at least Gov. Branstad has the foresight to line item veto the proposed appropriation for “. . . a lake with public access. . .”.

Readers may have wondered what the school district’s reaction was to the comments, so the line in the story was simply meant to let readers know that no one from the district spoke.

Also important to note that panel looks like it was held on the 1st – the same day as the ICCSD board meetings – and their regular meetings are the same day and time as our ICCSD board meetings.

“Public Meeting
The Commission holds monthly meetings in the Lobby Conference Room on the third Tuesday of the month at 6:00 p.m.”

Please keep each of these families in your thoughts and prayers. They are going through much grief and stress at this time.

As long as ticket cameras are allowed, there is an enormous financial temptation to set posted speed limits lower than the safest level (85th percentile speed), and a similar temptation to set the yellow intervals on lights shorter than is correct for the actual 85th percentile speeds of approaching traffic. These two engineering “errors” (which are usually deliberate) are required to make the ticket cameras profitable.

ATS, Redflex, and the smaller ticket camera providers don’t give a tinker’s #&%)~{^ about safety. Their only motivation is profits and they can only really succeed if their products are placed in locations where the posted limits are set too low and the yellows are set too short. This causes thousands of tickets to be given to safe drivers, people traveling at the normal safe speeds of traffic for the conditions involved.

Correct engineering is the real answer to improving traffic safety. Allowing ticket cameras tempts far too many officials to engineer for profits and not for maximum safety.

A total ban on ticket cameras is the only realistic answer to remove the temptations, as several states have already done. See the list of states that ban cameras at http://www.thenewspaper.com

The science on both issues is on our website. I have studied these issues as a passionate avocation since my freshman year at the University of Michigan in 1962/63.

Respectfully submitted,

James C. Walker
Member – National Motorists Association
Board Member and Executive Director – National Motorists Association Foundation [501(c)3]
http://www.motorists.org
Ann Arbor, MI

And if they want your money to build it, you should get a share of the revenue.