“It’s not the money, it’s the principle,” people who care mostly about the money like to say.

We’ve been treated to a variation of that theme with city officials claiming that the hugely unpopular traffic control cameras that have been set up at three Kingston schools are not about the money but about safety.

Too bad they didn’t emphasize the safety factor after ticketing drivers with $50 fines for driving at least 16 miles per hour past two elementary schools and the high school on Broadway. It would have saved City Hall untold grief.

For a while the controversy swirled between privacy and revenue. Now, it’s safety which, when it comes to our children, has to be the top priority.

According to city officials, school zone cameras that went operational on April 20 until the end of August have resulted in 17,530 tickets being issued. Gross receipts – if everybody pays up – for that period would have come to almost $900,000. Except that the camera provider/operators get 30 percent off the top.

The $900,000 sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But by city ordinance, the lower speed limits are not in effect when school is out. With schools in session for some 300 days a year, revenues would be much higher.

City Comptroller John Tuey, the tracker of traffic violation fines, reports that the cameras issued only 890 tickets in the month of July compared to March when almost 2,800 tickets were issued.

Again, schools are not in session for much of July and August, though the eyes in the sky might have been tracking motorists who exceeded the citywide 25 mph limit during the summer.

To suggest, as some city officials have, that the cameras have produced a significant decrease in violations is not justified by this small sample.

Let’s give this experiment a full year before we start handing out safety awards.

The Camera in the Bushes

Last week’s exchange between natural-born rivals County Executive Jen Metzger and County Comptroller March Gallagher could be a big thing, or not, as the calendar moves toward next year’s local elections. But it does make for savory watercooler speculation.

Carefully worded press releases from contending camps hardly brush the surface.

The story was that an employee of the county bus operation was mowing grass at the front of the bus terminal on Golden Hill when he spotted “something suspicious” in the bushes across the road. Upon investigation, he reportedly found a camera (on a tripod?) with Gallagher’s name and cell phone number on the back of it. He reported his findings to superiors whence it rose quickly up the food chain to the executive’s office.

Gallagher’s reasoning, via press release and reporters, was that she had received credible evidence that some members of the bus brigade had been cheating on their time sheets. Hence, it was her job as the county’s independently elected “watchdog” to investigate.

I’m down with that.

Metzger was aghast, aghast, I tell you, that Gallagher had not informed her of her concerns and, worse yet, had invaded the “privacy” of hard-working county employees.

She immediately called in the posse, and a plethora of county departments were ordered to get to the bottom of all this. Curiously, she did not notify the district attorney because, perhaps, Ulster County district attorneys do not investigate suspected misfeasance in county government. He’s a Democrat, too, so why add fuel to the fire? If either Gallagher or Metzger produce something more than a smoking gun (or guns), the DA might call in the grand jury.

The political component in these politicians publicly clashing with each other bears some scrutiny.

Democrats seem to be suffering from an abundance of elected officials. Of the 28 county offices (including 23 legislators), 24 are Democrats. With Republicans hunkered down at an undisclosed location in Shawangunk, Democrats have only themselves to fight with.

The office of county executive is on the ballot next year. Metzger, who campaigns ceaselessly, as does Gallagher, will be her party’s nominee. If Gallagher has ambitions to move up (literally) to the Sixth Floor, her only path is a party primary.

Unfortunately for Gallagher, she’s done that before, with disastrous results. In a three-way primary for executive in 2022, Metzger, fresh off losing her Senate seat to an Orange County nonentity, took almost 70 percent of the vote.

As indicated in the lead, this all might be much ado about nothing. That said, I smell smoke.