Insiders are bankrolling the lone group that supports red light cameras in College Station, Texas. Last month, the Keep College Station Safe Political Action Committee (PAC) formed “to give a voice to local residents who support the significant safety benefits of the city’s red-light camera program.” Financial disclosure reports filed on Monday show that no College Station resident has actually supported the effort. The PAC reported collecting $19,000 in political donations, of which $10,000 was provided by ATS. Another $6,500 was provided as an in-kind donation from Questmark Information Management Inc, a company that holds a contract for printing toll road statements and tickets for Harris County. ATS happens to run the cameras that generate the citations for Harris County toll roads. The only other contribution listed was a $2500 contribution from a Houston firm, REM Services, Inc.
On the other side of the issue, College Station resident Jim Ash led the effort to gather the voter signatures required to place the referendum on the November 3 ballot. He told TheNewspaper that he was proud that his $4300 in donations came from College Station residents, with the exception of support from Houston attorney Paul Kubosh — a high-profile opponent of automated enforcement in Texas.
According to Ash’s disclosure form, the money raised so far has been spent on requests for public records from the city, sign-making materials, bumperstickers and a radio commercial advertising a public event in July (listen to commercial, 500k MP3). In contrast to Ash’s grassroots activism, the ATS PAC spent nearly all of its money on insider consultants.
The pro-camera PAC paid Jessica Colon $8817 to represent photo enforcement on television. Hill Research Consultants were paid $8389 to conduct a push poll survey of residents with questions specially designed to elicit a response favorable to the cameras. The same firm has conducted other surveys on behalf of ATS in the past. Another $4994 went to FLS Connect, a Minnesota-based political telemarketing firm. A Houston company was paid $2000 to create a website that has not been updated in the past two weeks, even though the election is less than a month away.
ATS is concerned about the possible outcome of the vote, as photo enforcement has never survived a test at the ballot box. In April, a stunning 86 percent of voters ordered the camera program in Sulphur, Louisiana to be shut down.
View the ATS PAC’s financial disclosure in a 1.5mb PDF file at the source link below.
Source: 
Specific Purpose Committee Campaign Finance Report (Keep College Station Safe PAC, 10/5/2009)
[courtesy thenewspaper.com]
This is why I believe that real campaign finance reform should be – anybody can give any amount to whoever/whatever they want – but it must be disclosed publicly, in a way that’s easy for us mere voters to look up. Then we can make informed decisions of which candidates and causes to support based on who is bankrolling them.
Campaign finance reform is a joke. What the hell is a PAC?
College Station is (obviously) a college town, but the college is Texas A&M. Therefore, not your typically liberal college town.
I predict voters throw out the cameras by a 67% to 33% vote.
File this under “So what else is new?”
This is a typical MO for PR firms. Give their client’s product the appearance of grassroots support by funding “community groups” that are simply a front for whatever agenda the client wants to push.
Tobacco companies have done the same thing, as have oil companies (funding PR-company created anti-GW groups).
Detroit-Iron:
What the hell is a PAC?
Political action committee (wikipedia): A private group designed to elect a candidate to office.
Dean:
These fake grass roots campaigns are called “Astroturfing”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
As an Aggie alum, I have to say this is the city licking it’s chops because probably 80% of the tickets will go to students who only live there 9 months out of the year. They underestimated the flack they would get from community activists. I’m glad I was out of there before they started the cameras, but there is no way this will pass, contributions or not.
@ yankinwaoz
“astroturf” seems to have been a term most commonly applied to tea parties, which are most certainly not “A private group designed to elect a candidate to office.” Seeing as how they (rightly, I believe) are not trying to get anyone in particular elected as far as I can tell.
BTW “What the hell is a PAC” was rhetorical. I don’t know if text can convey all the drippiness and thickness of the sarcasm but I am well aware of what a PAC is. It is some kind of scam, or possibly scamola.
Bonus points if you catch the reference.