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Orwellian traffic cameras in Napa

Editor, Index-Tribune:

    

  I know the intersection cameras were installed in the city of Napa to draw in revenue for the city government. I understand that. But I wonder if it hasn’t had an opposite affect on the shop owners of Napa. I’m nobody, just a regular guy with a family, but I think it’s time to let the shop owners of Napa know why I stopped shopping in Napa well over a year ago.

  I live in Sonoma and work in Napa. I used to frequent stores like Trader Joe’s and others in Napa after work. But driving through these Orwellian intersection cameras is frankly very stressful. So these days, I wait until I get back home to Sonoma to do all my shopping, stress-free. Sonoma doesn’t have these devices.

  We could argue on and on about statistics and folks with vested interests could show how their statistics prove that these Orwellian camera devices save lives, and I could just a easily refute all that and prove it’s all propaganda with other statistics. I could even show how at least six cities across the country have already been caught criminally tinkering with the timing of the yellow lights – it seems some bureaucrats couldn’t resist the temptation the cameras offered to city governments to increase the revenue even more. (I know, big surprise, right?)

  Well, I don’t even play that game anymore and I haven’t for about a year-and-a-half now. When I get off Highway 29 heading to work, I take residential side streets whenever possible. I don’t want to be nerve-wracked on my commute to work. Let me at least wait until I get to work for that. It’s so bad, that when I do have to drive through an intersection in Napa now, I am so relieved and thankful if it’s a red light.

  I didn’t grow up here. I moved to this area about a decade ago. When my friends and relatives back home, or from out-of-town come to visit and want to do the whole “Wine Country experience” thing, I keep them in Sonoma. I don’t even mention Napa. Hey, I want them to have a good time, not be stressed out about whether or not some group of local bureaucrats couldn’t resist the temptation to tinker with the timing of traffic lights, like they already did in Chattanooga, Tenn., Dallas, Texas, Springfield, Mo., Lubbock, Texas, Nashville, Tenn. And Union City.

  You might think that couldn’t happen in Napa. Well, that’s what the good folks in those six cities already thought, I’m sure. At any rate, it’s just good to have a more tourist-friendly, shopper-friendly refuge like Sonoma as a sanctuary from all this Orwellian bureaucratic madness, especially as we near the holidays once again.

  Charles Holsten

  Sonoma