PIEDMONT — The City Council has approved adding five new intersections with automated license plate readers and replacing failing cameras at the intersection of Grand and Wildwood avenues
The new cameras will be installed at Blair Avenue and Calvert Court; LaSalle at Indian Avenue; Trestle Glen at Valant Place and west of Park Boulevard; and at Harvard Avenue at Ranleigh Way. Police Chief Jeremy Bowers told the council that “The cameras are an investigative tool to deter crime. The readers have enabled arrests of 124 people since their installation in 2013 and provided leads in more than 100 criminal investigations. The past six years have provided our department with information to understand where additional cameras would be beneficial.”
Readers were initially installed at 15 of the 24 intersections that border Oakland. Repair and maintenance has been under-budget, Bowers said. With Councilman Tim Rood absent, the council voted 4-0 for the new cameras at its July 1 meeting. Two speakers at the meeting were concerned with privacy issues, while others supported the new cameras. Concord resident Don Arana-Fogg is a frequent visitor to Piedmont.
“I do not want to be treated as a suspect and surveilled,” he said. “There are privacy issues.”
Mike Katz-LaCabe claimed that 99 percent of the camera “hits” are nonproductive, and that faces of drivers are included in the images captured by the cameras.
“Data is withheld from the public,” he said. “And the data is stored too long. Other agencies or cities have less retention times than Piedmont, which I believe is a year. I suggest reducing the amount of time the data is retained.”
Trestle Glen residents Joseph Gold and Debbie Dare supported the cameras in their neighborhood on grounds they ensure more safety on their street. The cost for installing replacement cameras at Grand and Wildwood avenues is $38,686, covered by the city’s equipment replacement fund. The COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) grant administered by the U.S. Justice Department and a private donation of $20,000 from the Helen Connell Trust will be used to fund the five new locations for a total of $74,672, Bowers said.
In other business: The council also approved Caselle Inc. to install an updated software system for finance functions. Piedmont’s system is 20 years old and very outdated, retiring city administrator Paul Benoit said. The new system’s modern functions include payroll, purchasing, budgeting, cash receipts, general ledger and more in a cloud-based system that will be secure, Benoit said. The total cost over a 10-year period for the new system will be $484,000; the start-up costs are included in the city’s 2019-20 budget.
The council also approved a new CivicSpark Fellow to serve the city for 11 months at a cost of $26,000. Justin Szasz is a Harvard graduate who, as his predecessors, will assist staff with development and implementation of the city’s climate action plan. His term begins in September.
CivicSpark is a governor’s initiative of the AmeriCorps program dedicated to addressing climate change in California. Four previous fellows greatly aided the city in implementing its climate action plan: Matt Anderson, Olivia Ashmoore, Cody Ericksen and Brooke Edell.
“Justin is whip-smart,” Mayor Bob McBain said. “This will be a good year.”
