GIRARD — Residents and travelers in Girard may not be happy with the police-officer manned traffic speed cameras and the tickets they generate, but the city has no plans to pull them and officials say the funding supports important initiatives.

Mayor James Melfi and police Chief John Norman said the revenue is producing good things for the city.

Residents may not have noticed new police cruisers, new officers, a new roof on the Boy Scout cabin and a freshly paved parking lot at Tod Park, Melfi said. But, the improvements came from the money collected from camera speeding tickets.

The city purchased 12 new police cruisers recently, each costing about $43,000. And, they upgraded police radio communication systems with $30,000. The money funded a new video system offering coverage of the Girard Municipal Court.

“We’re making sure we spend money in appropriate ways,” said Jerome Lambert, the city’s service director.

Even with the frustration in the city, Melfi says they will not stop using the cameras.

“Folks don’t have to speed,” Melfi said adding that drivers have a 10 mph leeway before they are issued a ticket, in most cases.

“People still don’t care. You’d think they’d slow down after getting a ticket,” Melfi said.

But since the city started using the cameras, Norman said he has noticed a decrease in speeders.

“Just travel on (U.S.) 422, it still moves, but drivers have slowed down quite considerably, especially on the side roads,” he said.

In addition to the financial benefit of the cameras, they also increase police coverage in the city, Norman said.

“The speed cameras are not operated by an officer on duty. They are operated by an officer on off-duty status,” said Norman, adding that the amount of officers paroling the city has not changed. “If they are needed, they can back up an on duty officer. We tell them ‘put down the camera and go to the call.'”

Norman said Girard issued over 2,000 tickets in July.

And despite a pending lawsuit, the city is not backing down.

The Trumbull County Common Pleas Court class-action lawsuit against the city claims that although construction on I-80 ended Dec. 7, the city continued to issue tickets based on the reduced 55 mph speed limit until Jan. 7.

The Ohio Department of Transportation has said the speed limit legally returned to 65 mph on Dec. 7, but they couldn’t change the signs until Jan. 8.

However, Melfi said the reduced speed limit was not why tickets were issued.

“They (speeders) claim that folks got tickets with the reduced speed limit but they failed to look at the fact that the tickets were way over 65 mph. They were speeding anyway,” said Melfi.

Not all of the defendants would have been considered over the limit.

Blue Line Solutions works with the city to issue the tickets and takes a part of the cut from the tickets that are paid. The company is also named as a defendant.

The terms of the class action suit were set by Judge Andrew D. Logan, but the defendants are appealing to the 11th District Court of Appeals in an effort to adjust the defined classes in the suit.

bshiller@tribtoday.com