City investing in surveillance
LAKE WORTH — This has not been a good week for Lake Worth.
The entire city went dark for hours after a massive power outage Wednesday night. Kilwins, the popular chocolate store, closed its Lake Avenue store after 10 years and Saito’s, the Japanese restaurant on North J street, was closing its doors for good on Saturday.
But there was some good news Tuesday night at the Lake Worth Commission meeting as commissioners unanimously passed a motion to use $332,012 in surtax funds to buy 22 license plate reader cameras and 20 more surveillance cameras.
Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office Capt. Todd Baer said the camera program has done very well in the city. The city has already installed three license plate reader cameras.
“We’ve made hundreds of arrests and we’ve identified hundreds of calls of service,” Baer said, adding that deputies caught three stolen vehicles on more than one occasion. “If we had every ingress and egress covered I can only imagine what we can do. It’s been very effective.”
City Commissioner Omari Hardy said Lake Worth residents will feel safer.
“A lot of simple heads come from other cities and bring stolen cars they’ve stolen elsewhere to burglarize homes and sell drugs,” he said. “Now we’ll be able to catch them.”
Hardy said the cameras will be installed as quickly as possible.
An increasing number of Palm Beach County cities are using license plate readers, where cameras scan plates of passing cars while a computer program sends the information to a state and national database. Cops are immediately alerted if there are hits to any wanted or suspicious vehicles.
Palm Beach, Manalapan, Riviera Beach, Juno Beach, Tequesta and North Palm Beach already use license plate readers. Boynton Beach’s commission approved adding 23 cameras in December 2017.
Lake Worth has been chosen to be part of a pilot program for PBSO’s Real Time Crime Center. Analysts, dispatchers and alternate duty deputies have been using limited number of surveillance cameras and license plate readers to communicate real-time crime information to deputies on the street.
Cost for the 22 license plate reader cameras is $249,020, which includes installation. It’ll cost $82,992 for the additional surveillance cameras to be installed.
In April 2016, Lake Worth commissioners entered into an agreement with the county and the School District of Palm Beach County to support a onecent infrastructure surtax. In November 2016, the tax was approved, meaning Lake Worth will receive about $21.6 million dollars over a 10-year period to identify and complete projects that meet the surtax ordinance criteria.