The city of East Liverpool is asking a judge to prevent its voters from deciding whether or not to let police continue using speed cameras.

Tuesday afternoon, people on both sides of the issue were in court as the city hoped to get a temporary restraining order to keep the issue off the November ballot.

This is the city's third attempt to block a move that would take the traffic camera issue to the voters.

The city law director says the issue should not go on the ballot because they were not certified.
An assistant prosecutor representing the Board of Elections says they were.

The city then argued the initiative would hurt East Liverpool financially.

"We will have to carry forward with a campaign against the initiative, and that itself is reputable harm, the cost, the expense and the labor required to do that," said city law director, Charles Payne.

"The city does not need to campaign against the initiative," said Kevin Daley, attorney for East Liverpool Citizens Against Traffic Cameras.  "It's a will of the people issue. They can simply allow the will of the people to prevail."

According to the Board of Elections, removing the camera issue off the ballot now, this late in the game, could change other issues on the ballot, which could skew the results of the election.

"Removal could change the format of the ballot enough where a vote cast may not be read by their machine properly," said Assistant Prosecutor Krista Peddicord.

Judge Scott Washam says he plans to decide on the temporary restraining order on October 4th. That could mean people could vote on the initiative, but those votes would not be counted until after another hearing would take place. That hearing is for the city's permanent injunction request to stop the ballot initiative altogether. That may happen as late as after the election.