There are more red-light camera signs than cameras actually eyeballing the stopping and speeding proclivities of Auburn drivers at chosen intersections.

As members of Auburn’s Municipal Services Committee learned this week, some motorists rather like the signs, even with no cameras near. A deterrent to loutish driver behavior, such supporters say, and possibly lifesavers.

But some drivers just hate them, say having them up there is a dirty City trick, say its gives them the creeps imagining that some eyeball from above might be following them just about everywhere they go.

Keep only those signs warning about actual cameras at an intersection? Leave things as they are?

These were the questions before committee members Monday. And they will be the questions before the Council’s Committee of the Whole gathering on April 30.

The cameras, operated by Arizona-based Red Flex Traffic Systems, first began rolling June 30, 2006. At the moment they are up and running at the following locations: Auburn Way South and 4th, southbound and northbound; M Street and Auburn Way South, westbound and northbound; 8th and Harvey; Lea Hill, Arthur Jacobsen and Dick Scobee elementaries; and Mt. Baker Middle School.

Largo Wales and Wayne Osborne, both elected last November, said they heard from constituents as they were door-belling for votes that the signs sans cameras were sending the wrong message.

Many people, Wales recalled, complained that having such signs was giving the city an unwelcome reputation for being, well, unwelcoming. Besides, Wales added, many of the signs are already badly faded and seem to serve no purpose.

“I’d be the last person to take them down from the schools, and there are more in front of the schools than there are in our three intersections,” Wales said. “What we’re saying is that we have probably another 20 intersections that aren’t photo enforced that are intimidating people with the signs. It’s intimidation, and people don’t feel like it’s friendly.”

Osborne explained his position.

“I’ve been told by a number of people that they consider Auburn to be an unfriendly town because they have these signs all over the place. What they can’t distinguish is between the traffic light cameras and the photo enforcement cameras, so they think they’re being watched at every intersection. For me it was detrimental to the city,” Osborne said.

“I even heard that some of their family members have refused to shop in Auburn because they’re getting watched everywhere they go,” Osborne added. “Almost any of the signs in the direct sunlight have faded so much you can’t read them anyway.”

Committee Chair Bill Peloza said the issue isn’t whether the signs are a nuisance, it’s whether they save lives, whether they prevent accidents. He says they do.

“The people I deal with, my social groups … they like those signs. It’s just another avenue of prevention,” Peloza said. “Faded signs, that can be corrected … I still feel that they’re doing good out there, making people aware that we are a red-photo city … The people in my circle think of them more in terms of public safety than a nuisance or trying to trick somebody.”

Mayor Pete Lewis said most of the phone calls he’s received from residents about the issue have been positive.

“I’m getting a different demographic altogether,” Lewis said. “I go out into the neighborhoods groups, and I haven’t had a neighborhood group against it. But I have to tell you that I’m increasingly disappointed with our inability to get the fading signs replaced.”