Suffolk County red-light program has ended

Long Island Morning Edition

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Suffolk’s red-light camera program has stopped as of this past Sunday, but people with unpaid tickets under the automated enforcement system may be on the hook for those fines, county officials said yesterday. Drivers with red-light camera infractions issued before the program ended on December 1st will need to have those adjudicated, officials said. The fine for a red-light camera ticket is $50.

In 2023, the program generated around $13 million for Suffolk County. Nassau County’s red-light program will continue. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the end of Suffolk's red-light program closes a 14-year system that was often contentious, drawing support from proponents who said it increased safety and ire from critics who claimed it was a money grab.

At a Monday news conference by a Holbrook intersection that had a red-light camera, officials praised the conclusion of the program they say didn’t improve safety and whose cameras they said were unfairly concentrated in lower-middle-class communities.

Once the program was implemented, accidents increased by about 9% and rear-end accidents increased by nearly 50%, Newsday has reported. Yet, the number of accidents with injuries decreased by about 11% since the red-light cameras were installed, according to other published data.

The program generated more than $289 million in revenue for Suffolk from 2013 to 2023. Although Suffolk might have to pay back a $30 administrative fee on tickets that the county stopped collecting in 2023. In November, an appellate division court deemed the administrative fee to be unlawful. A lawyer told Newsday he estimated Suffolk took in $160 million in additional fees. At least of some of the tickets, officials contend, were going to residents who live in lower-middle-class communities with a higher concentration of cameras.

There were no cameras placed south of Montauk Highway and north of Route 25A, officials said. They were also not placed in any of the five east end towns.

State Sen. Anthony Palumbo, a Republican whose district includes portions of the Town of Brookhaven and the entire east end. said the placement of red-light cameras "was not about public safety."

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Scores of Catholic parishes across Long Island will be required to pay thousands of dollars — in some cases millions — as part of a $323 million clergy sex abuse settlement that may be finalized within days, church officials said. Bart Jones reports in Newsday that the parishes also will briefly declare bankruptcy at the end of the proceedings, which have gone on for more than four years, officials said. The Diocese of Rockville Centre said the bankruptcies will not affect the operations of the 134 Catholic parishes in Nassau and Suffolk counties or force any to close. The diocese declared bankruptcy in October 2020.

The $323 million settlement, which involves about 600 clergy sex abuse survivors, was announced on Sept. 26 and may be finalized in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week.

The diocese declined to release the total amount that parishes are contributing to the settlement, but some pastors are providing the information in their churches' weekly bulletins. Some of the amounts range from $82,553 at a parish in Southold to nearly $4.5 million at another in Manhasset. Parishioners will not be asked to directly contribute toward the payments through, for instance, a special Sunday collection, said the Rev. Eric Fasano, a spokesman for the diocese. Instead, the money comes from a variety of sources, including unrestricted cash on hand, investments, rental income and insurance, he said. Catholic Ministries Appeal donations will not be used, he added.

The amount each parish must pay was calculated based on the number of abuse cases filed against it and the parish’s financial resources, he said. The cases date back as far as the diocese's founding in 1957, and involve scores of priests, according to court papers and attorneys for survivors.

There are around 1.4 million Catholics on Long Island...about half the combined population of Nassau and Suffolk counties.