ST. PETERS   •   City officials on Wednesday reiterated their decision announced last February to keep their red-light cameras turned off for good.
However, 35 people with pending camera-generated tickets issued under a revised version of the city ordinance passed in 2013 still must deal with them, officials said.
City Attorney Randy Weber said the city already had dismissed tickets issued under a previous camera ordinance which the Missouri Supreme Court partly voided on Tuesday. Those dismissals took place after a lower-court ruling in 2013, he said.
Mayor Len Pagano and city aldermen in February decided to terminate the city's nine-year-old contract with Arizona-based Redflex Traffic Systems to operate the cameras.
The contract ended July 1 and Redflex is expected to dismantle the cameras in the next few weeks, city spokeswoman Lisa Bedian said Wednesday.
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday, upholding a decision by St. Charles County Circuit Judge Ted House, ruled that the earlier St. Peters camera ordinance conflicted with state law because it prohibits the assessment of penalty points that the state permits.
But the high court didn't object to the rest of the city's earlier law. Â
After House's original ruling, city aldermen passed a separate camera ordinance that didn't include the prohibition on points. That was used until the city suspended the camera program last September.
Then last November, voters across St. Charles County approved a county charter amendment banning red-light cameras both in unincorporated areas and municipalities such as St. Peters.
The city then filed a lawsuit challenging the charter amendment but also announced it was getting rid of the cameras even if it won the suit.
The city and other plaintiffs say they are continuing their suit on principle. They contend that the ban, which was placed on the ballot by the St. Charles County Council, violates state laws giving municipalities exclusive control over regulating traffic within their borders. County officials dispute that.
Others also joined as plaintiffs, including two cities that haven't used red-light cameras.