West Palm Beach is paying businesses in high-crime neighborhoods to install cameras that police can monitor live, allowing officers to expand their surveillance of streets where public safety is a concern.
City commissioners on March 2 approved $120,000 in grant money to cover the cost of new cameras for businesses in several central neighborhoods, including Northwood Village, Pleasant City, the Historic Northwest and the Broadway corridor.
To receive the money, businesses would have to agree to connect their cameras to the police department’s Real-Time Crime Center and maintain them in working condition for at least two years.
The program, financed by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, aims to extend the reach of the crime center by “expanding access to real-time and recorded surveillance,” city leaders said.
“Surveillance technology serves as both a deterrent and an investigative tool, providing critical evidence to support the [police department’s] intelligence efforts and Vice Unit operations,” a city memo stated.
CRA Security Manager Carlos Rodriguez said the program was requested by residents amid concerns about neighborhood security.
“We know that we have a lot of issues in the Historic Northwest,” he said. “So the community has spoken and they talked to us in many of our meetings with the need of us to support our CCTV program.”
The grants will pay out up to $3,000 per business to provide as many as four professionally installed closed-circuit security cameras, meaning the city has money to finance at least 40 camera installations during the current budget year.
To be eligible, a business’s property must be “in a high crime area or location with demonstrated public safety needs,” the city memo stated. The cameras are intended to monitor public-facing areas in high-traffic zones.
Applications from interested business owners will be considered by a committee of police and city officials headed by Police Chief Tony Araujo. Rodriguez told commissioners the city will accept applications later this year.
Commissioner Christina Lambert said during the March 2 meeting that the grant program “shows we’re taking security seriously in the city.”
The city’s Real-Time Crime Center, established in 2018, uses a gunfire detection system, video-surveillance cameras and license-plate recognition technology to surveil streets across the city.
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm Beach will pay businesses to put cameras in high-crime areas
Reporting by Andrew Marra, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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