From the Chron:
Houston city leaders are assessing their options after a federal judge invalidated the November referendum that turned off a red-light surveillance system and halted a stream of millions of dollars into strapped city coffers.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled Friday that the referendum was improperly placed on the ballot last year, and the city cannot be forced to turn off the cameras.
Hughes said Houston's city charterrequires that efforts to overturn ordinances by referendum must occur within 30 days of an ordinance's passage.
Opponents to the red-light ordinance, which passed in 2004, mounted the election challenge last year and got it on the ballot as a charter amendment, but Hughes said that was essentially the same as repealing it.
"Presented with this mislabeling, the council supinely ignored — over voices of some of its members — their responsibility and put the proposition to the voters as an amendment to the charter," Hughes wrote.
The city filed a federal suit against the camera vendor as a way of having a judge review the procedure for shutting off the system, winding down the contract and determining the amount owed the company.
