Tt proposed post 06jul2017 b

"Why is this just now coming to light?"

That's a good question for chief Kral and city councilman Ludeman. Maybe they made a public statement in February, and I missed it.

I conducted a web search, and the only results that I found were related to this week's stories. Nothing from last winter about this issue.

To me, it seems that the only reason this has become public in July is because of the Toledo Blade's reporting.

And now five months later, the magnanimous police chief is offering a refund.

This statement from the police chief is lame:

“This was a case of us being in the wrong place and us owning that we made a mistake and making it right.”

The mistake was made on February 1, and now he's "owning" it on July 6. That ain't making it right.

In my opinion, you don't get to own the mistake when someone else exposes the possible cover-up. You should get saddled with an investigation.

The time to own it and admit to it publicly was last winter before anyone else discovered the problem.

It's a mistake if a police officer accidentally sets up in the wrong location for one morning.

It's not a mistake for Toledo police and city government to hide this error from the public for five months. That's more like malfeasance.

In my opinion, Toledo police/government got caught doing something unethical.

The first sentence from this Apr 17, 2017 Blade editorial about another city issue applies here too.

The words that come to mind are: blatant, sleazy, and shameless.

Toledo police issued 29,615 handheld tickets between January 1 and May 26. Were other mistakes made? Are we to believe that this "mistake" occurred only on one day at one location?

Less suspicion would exist today if the police chief and the councilman went public with the error when they first learned about it. And when was that?

The perceived cover-up is worse than the error. What did they know, and when did they know it? Who else in city government knew about this?

In the Jul 5, 2017 Blade story, note how councilman Ludeman gets a bit prickly at the Blade.

Mr. Ludeman contacted The Blade by email after the newspaper ran a story Sunday about handheld speed cameras that said he and two other councilmen had received such tickets this year. The councilman was upset that the article didn’t say his ticket had been dismissed.

“If you had called me or checked the facts the officer was clocking drivers right at the flashing light before the school zone,” the email said.

Here's another fact. Councilman Ludeman could have made the issue public months ago, but he chose otherwise.

Where's the transparency from city government? This is why we need local journalism.

This was a city councilman going directly to the police chief to have his ticket dismissed. I don't think that option exists for the rest of us who don't know Kral personally.

But why didn't these public servants inform the public last winter about the error? The media should lambaste Kral and Ludeman for failing to serve the public.

We know the date and location of the erroneous speed-clocking: Feb 1, 2017, near the Byrnedale school zone.

• But when did Ludeman show Kral the ticket?
• When did Kral order the officer to determine where the school zone existed?
• How long did the bogus speed trap exist?
• How many other bogus tickets were issued beyond the 38 known ones?
• Has this bogus speed trap configuration been used elsewhere in the city?
• Did Kral and Ludeman intentionally hide this error from the public?
• Who else in city government knew about this problem?
• Had Kral planned all along to make the refund statement on July 6, five months later, and the timing of the Blade stories was a massive coincidence?