13 Cobb parks to get tag readers to deter crime

More than two dozen license plate readers coming to Cobb County parks will help deter crime, police say.

County Commissioners on Tuesday voted 5-0 to approve a contract with Flock Group Inc. to install 26 solar powered automatic license plate readers at 13 county parks. The $182,000 proposal includes two cameras at each of the following locations: Lost Mountain Park, Oregon Park, Fair Oaks Park, East Cobb Park, Terrell Mill Park, Fullers Park, Skip Wells Park, Noonday Creek Park, Wallace Park, Hurt Road Park, South Cobb Campus, Tramore Park (on the north side) and Wild Horse Creek Park. The project will be funded using Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funding approved by voters.

Flock will also provide four years of cloud hosting, cellular service and software upgrades for new features. The readers will record the date and time, license plate information and characteristics of cars entering and leaving parks. Cobb officers are notified when a scanned plate is from a vehicle reported as stolen, or the plate itself has been stolen or if there’s a warrant out for a driver’s arrest.

The system will tie directly into the Cobb County Police Department’s existing Flock camera system. Any information obtained from the readers will be transmitted directly to the Police Department. No parks employee or county department will have access to that information, the county said.

County spokesman Ross Cavitt said Cobb County police reached out to the parks department earlier this year after investigating 14 incidents of smash-andgrab burglaries at parks facilities. Cobb police thought the Flock readers “would be a deterrent” and used a list of 911 calls from the parks to determine which areas needed them, Cavitt said.

“It’s been a cooperative effort all along,” he said.

Cavitt said he doesn’t believe there has been any discussion about expanding the program “at this time.”