Pettigrew: Barcode Much Ado About Nothing

Former State Rep. Wayne Pettigrew, an official with the Chicago firm that apparently would administer a new highway "spy" camera system in Oklahoma as proposed by Governor Henry, told The McCarville Report Online today that the controversy, in essence, is much ado about nothing.

Said Pettigrew in an email: "I was forwarded your recent report on the state projecting $50 million in the recently passed budget in anticipation of revenues to be received from the possible procurement of a statewide vehicle insurance verification program.

"I have been involved in promoting this program nationally for the past year with one of the possible vendors such a program.

"The company that I have been working with (InsureNet) does not use the bar-code and was not in any way instrumental in it being in the legislation passed in Oklahoma. In fact the legislation authorizing the state to contract for such a program was passed in 2006. This was 3 years before I became affiliated with InsureNet and also before they began marketing their current insurance verification model. It is my understanding that the bar-code is used by tag agency officials for inventory purposes. To my knowledge we have not lobbied for the passage of additional legislation in Oklahoma and only had a cursory interest in Rep. Ken Miller’s bill last year since we were at that time marketing our system. He asked for the company’s views on the bill at that time and our lobbyist submitted some language that was not used in the bill.

"The automated license plate scanners (ALPR) used in the verification system by Insurenet is identical to the hardware currently in use on Oklahoma Turnpikes. The system we are proposing does not photograph the driver of the vehicle and does not retain any data on non-cited vehicles longer than 60 seconds. They scan the numbers or letters on the plate and check insurer data that is available thru NLETS to see if the vehicle has current vehicle liability insurance. This system does not have the ability to track non-cited vehicles.

"The Department of Public Safety in Oklahoma has been interested in some type of a vehicle insurance verification system for years. InsureNet responded to a request for information that was put out by the department last October as did several companies. We also have responded to the request for proposal that the department issued in March. This process has done under the normal procurement procedures and has respondents from several companies that provide these services and equipment. To my knowledge, a vendor has not been selected."

Pettigrew did not speak to the involvement of Henry fundraiser and donor Barry Switzer on behalf of InsureNet here and in other states.

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