The ball is in the Polk School District’s court on whether they will sign their name to an application seeking permission from the Georgia Department of Transportation to allow for speed cameras to go up in school zones following the approval from the Cedartown City Commission of an ordinance governing those cameras, and a contract with the company who will run them.

The Commission voted unanimously to approve both measures during their November regular session on Monday, providing the legal framework to setup cameras in the school zones around Cedartown High and Cedartown Middle Schools, where traffic studies have already been conducted.

Approval of the contract with Redspeed – first discussed during a work session in October – will allow for the city to share a portion of the revenue generated by speeding tickets from those caught on camera in the school zone during specified times of the day, but will run continuously to give law enforcement information to use in catching criminals, or tracking people who shouldn’t be within a school zone like a parent who has a temporary protection order, or a sex offender.

Tickets that are sent out to people are reviewed by human eyes, per Cedartown Police Chief Jamie Newsome during the work session, before they are issued.

Instead of being a criminal charge, they instead are a civil fine that doesn’t take points from a license and can still have tickets heard before a judge.

Before the camera system can go in place and become active, the Polk School District first has to be the signatory partner on an application before the Georgia Department of Transportation seeking local assistance with traffic control in speed zones to allow for installation and operation.

Superintendent Laurie Atkins said that she expects the Board of Education to further discuss the recent approval of the camera system by the Cedartown City Commission and potentially decide whether to lend the board’s approval to forwarding the application.

They previously heard for RedSpeed’s Greg Parks on the subject, but not all board members were in favor of moving forward with the camera system at the time.

Polk County Police Chief Kenny Dodd has also previously provided information to the Polk County Board of Commissioners about installing cameras in the area around Van Wert and Youngs Grove Elementary Schools. The County Commission has yet to bring the subject back up for either an ordinance governing the operation of cameras, or a contract approval with RedSpeed.