Do you want Signal Mountain officials to install license plate cameras in the town?
A Signal Mountain Weekly Facebook post posing that question garnered almost 30 “likes” and nearly as much debate. Some commenters vehemently expressed concerns against, saying homeowners should lock their doors and stop posting their every move on social media. Others supported installing cameras, willing to consider using the measure if it will stop the rash of burglaries in the town.
A discussion about traffic calming at the Town Council’s Nov. 21 work session prompted its members to give their thoughts on the topic as well.
Acting Police Chief Scott Ogrodowczyk brought the subject up while briefing the council on possible traffic calming solutions for Arden Way and the Hidden Brook area. He mentioned requests for increased patrol and the possibility of traffic cameras.
Ogrodowczyk said there are cameras that could be moved from location to location, so that drivers wouldn’t know where exactly they are placed and when. The cameras would then have an impact on speeding cars throughout the town instead of just one location, he said.
A request by the department in 2009 to install traffic cameras to help quell speeding was met with community disapproval.
“The overwhelming input had been negative,” former councilman Paul Hendricks said at that time, before the council’s unanimous approval to let the issue drop garnered a loud round of applause from the audience. Several council members reported during that meeting that they hadn’t been able to go anywhere in the town without being stopped by residents in opposition to speed cameras.
“They would maximize and magnify our manpower,” Ogrodowczyk said during the recent work session. “The other benefit of the cameras … if you had burglaries in these areas you could go look at the footage from that time frame.”
The use of cameras to investigate home burglaries was first mentioned at the Nov. 17 town meeting, when a resident and victim of the recent burglaries requested the town install surveillance cameras in her neighborhood.
At that meeting, Mayor Dick Gee said he is wary of installing cameras in the town but that the council would consider and discuss the option if it’s “the right thing to do.”
“I am adamantly against speeding cameras and I’d be against any cameras in the neighborhoods,” Councilman Chris Howley said during the later work session, though adding that he wouldn’t be against placing cameras at main entrance and exit points of the town. “I just think it’s too much of an invasion of privacy.”
Councilman Bob Spalding suggested partnering with a security corporation to obtain discounted rates for security systems and cameras for residents. That way, he said, surveillance of individual homes could be handled privately with no “big brother” aspect.
“I think all these questions about the technology aspect is worth further discussion, but there are philosophical issues and privacy issues and a lot of things we are going to have to wrestle with, and I think we will have to do that in subsequent meetings,” said Gee.
In the meantime, the council decided to place two sets of speed bumps, one on Arden Way and another on Middle Creek Road, as a test phase to see how they affect traffic. Town Manager Boyd Veal is also working on scheduling a Municipal Technical Advisory Service specialist to meet with officials on the traffic calming issue.