The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
City seeks to use $12M for police, including 500 security cameras
NEW HAVEN — The city is pitching a plan to use $12 million in American Rescue Plan funds to bolster the New Haven Police Department, which would include the installation of 500 more cameras across the city and expansion of the ShotSpotter gunfire detection sys
tem.
The plan comes as the city works to decrease violent crime in its neighborhoods, including working with the state and federal government in programs such as Project Safe Neighborhoods and Project Longevity. There has been a recent spate of shootings in Fair Haven, which prompted a Sept. 10 community meeting, and then a rally and parking lot event, and an increase in gun violence across New Haven, which has seen 22 homicides so far this year, more than in all of 2020.
Officials have said some of the violence is attributable to settling “beefs,” but Mayor Justin Elicker also has noted that in addition to the social effects of the pandemic, there has been “an explosion of guns being purchased.” The city Police Department has taken “many more guns off the street this year, as compared to last year,” according to Elicker. As of Sept. 12, New Haven police had seized 140 guns this year.
The potential initiative to use the American Rescue Plan funds was presented to the board as a communication and referred to the Board of Alders’ Finance Committee and the City Plan Commission for consideration, according to the agenda for Thursday’s meeting.
In a letter to board President Tyisha Walker, D-23, city budget director and acting controller Michael Gormany said alders previously had set aside American Rescue Plan funds to cover lost revenue and other expenses over the course of the pandemic, but the city ultimately did not need to use the $12 million for that purpose.
Instead, as the “American
Rescue Plan Act can support communities working to reduce and respond to increased violence due to the pandemic,” Gormany said the city was seeking to transfer the funds for a series of projects, including the cameras, the expansion of the ShotSpotter system, a new dispatch software system, bolstering the city’s cybersecurity and funding overtime for walking, bike and special patrols.
The city started using the ShotSpotter system around 2009; it uses triangulation to pinpoint gunshots, learns and adapts the acoustical landscape of the city, officials have said. Police often report receiving 911 calls and ShotSpotter alerts after a shooting.
The expansion of the ShotSpotter system, expected to cost about $1.2 million over four years, would take place in “high crime” areas, Gormany said.
The new cameras, which would require an estimated $3.8 million outlay, would be “installed near the entrances and egresses of the city and in areas that the NHPD has determined to be hotspots,” Gormany said.
“Cameras are routinely used as a public safety tool to increase solvability and prevent crimes,” said Gormany.
The new dispatch and record management system, expected to cost about $3.5 million, would allow the department to gain improved support for its software, Gormany said. The city would issue a request for proposals for the new system, he said.
Earlier this month, Elicker said the city was looking to bring the system to ShotSpotter system to more of Fair Haven, the area around Interstate 91’s Exit 8, and West Rock. The Police Department also is hiring, with the goal of recruiting residents and better representing the community. Interim Chief Renee Dominguez has said the department has 319 officers on staff, but is budgeted for 406 positions.
Among other efforts, the city also would set aside $400,000 to give up to 40 officers that could leave other departments and join New Haven as lateral hires; $400,000 to create a new data center at the department to alleviate “overheating and insufficient power issues,” $100,000 to upgrade the department’s Compstat room, $750,000 for new computer terminals for departmental mobile units and $600,000 for overtime tied to patrol efforts, including walking and bicycling beats, Gormany said.
Approximately $300,000 would be used to expand Wi-Fi access to other parts of the city for municipal employees, Gormany said, enhancing “mobility options”; $150,000 would go to create a cybersecurity asset management system; $350,000 would go to upgrade the city’s computer firewall.
The firewall upgrade would “ensure the future of cybersecurity for the city of New Haven, expanding access to VPNs, support telework” and, on the whole, create a “more flexible and efficient work force, while increasing security and redundancy,” Gormany said.
In terms of violence seen this year, experts have said that when the state was in the tightest grip of the pandemic, years of community work to stem violence in major Connecticut cities was decimated. Further, state police data shows homicides in Connecticut increased nearly 25 percent in 2020.