McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/11/2008 | Cop cameras don't just catch speeders, they raise cash: "[C]op cams can be cash cows.

In Chevy Chase, for example, where speeding tickets brought in about $8,000 monthly before cop cams, 'We are routinely bringing in approximately a quarter-million dollars per month,' Geoffrey Biddle, Chevy Chase's village manager, told his Board of Managers in February.

For a community of 2,000 with an annual budget of $4.6 million, that's a bonanza. What's more, because locals know enough to evade the cop cams, the village's new revenue mostly comes from outsiders, rather like a commuter tax.

Nor are Chevy Chase's big gains unique. Washington's dozen cop cams have taken in more than $200 million since 2001. Scottsdale's six freeway cameras took in $17 million in 2006."
------------
Yet another way municipalities are finding new revenue sources to take the place of federal grants in aid, property tax revenues, and other streams that have dried up. Now it is HOAs, tobacco lawsuits, sin taxes, charging fees for what was once free, and cop cams.