Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has unequivocally expressed his opposition to the oppressive Communist Chinese government, signing a legislature measure banning the sale of Florida land to just about anyone remotely tied, or directly tied to China,
Recently, Gov. DeSantis said that the U.S. needed to “reestablish our economic sovereignty” over China
"We are dependent on China for major parts of our economy. You saw it during COVID, almost everything we needed came from China. So I think we need to reestablish our economic sovereignty. I think we need to produce more critical items here in the United States, and I think they have a huge amount of leverage over us," said DeSantis.
With that being said and understood, eyebrows are being raised, and heads are being scratched, at why the Miami-Dade County Commission decided to implement Chinese technology to be used in school zone cameras.
Yes, county lawmakers in Miami-Dade are not actually in bed with the Chinese government, but they sure appear to be ordering some questionable Lo Mein technology take-out.
The Commission recently filed a resolution to direct the County Mayor Daniella Levine Cav to negotiate a contract for school zone cameras with Redspeed Georgia, LLC. This no-bid contract for what they call a “school speed zone detection and enforcement system” comes after the legislature passed a new law last year that would allow counties and cities to enter into agreements with companies to install these safety systems. Good idea, right? Yes, great idea.
We all want safer school zones - we want our children, their caregivers and the crossings guards that protect all of them to be safe. We all know that the flashing yellow lights that encourage people to slow down don’t always work, so it is a good idea to motivate them with cameras that will ticket them. Granted, some don’t like the idea of cameras and we remember some of the drama around red light cameras years ago. But, in school zones, this makes sense and is truly a safety issue, so its good policy.
What doesn’t appear a very smart or good idea, not to mention being a real head-scratcher, is the no-bid contract to one company, the void of discussion and competitive bids, and the void of an open evaluation of the company that gets the work.
In this instance, this company is not unknown to Miami-Dade, in fact, Miami-Dade has done this before and the result was:
Is the Commission knowingly engaging with Chinese interests, again?
Former President George W. Bush once famously stated:
“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”
As we stated, this company is not new to the Miamians sitting on the commission.
Miami-Dade in the past spent $400,000 on what now appears to be unreliable COVID fever-detecting cameras that were tied to the same Chinese surveillance company in question.
Those fever-detecting devices were developed by China-based Zhejiang Dahua Technology company, a firm that the U.S. government banned from working with government agencies.
Speed detection systems are needed and can and will save lives – including the lives of children – but that is not what’s up for debate here. What is, and should be up for debate by the commissioners, is the vendor the county chooses. And this no-bid contract with a company with this sort of questionable track record should be disqualified while the commissioners look to other, more reputable vendors to provide these school speed zone detection systems.
