PORT ANGELES — New downtown waterfront surveillance cameras — 28 in all — will allow officers to view camera images from their patrol cars as part of a $413,416 security project that the City Council moved forward with last month, Deputy Chief Brian Smith said.
The new digital cameras — including the replacement of the existing 18 analog cameras and the addition of 10 more — will be remotely swiveled and zoom-focused from the Police Department, Smith said.
The cost includes a $103,000 matching amount from the city that is included in the 2012 budget, with the remainder covered by a Federal Emergency Management Agency Port Security Grant.
The city’s waterfront cameras now stretch from Francis Street Park to the beginning of the Discovery Trail east of the Red Lion Hotel.
The state-of-the-art cameras will be integrated into the city’s new wireless mobile data system and will cover an area west of the Red Lion Hotel and MV Coho ferry dock that is not now covered by cameras, Smith said Friday.
Work to prepare a request for a proposal was being done last week for the waterfront camera project, he said.
Installation is expected to begin by the end of this year and is intended to coincide with the city’s waterfront development project, which will begin this summer.
City Council members April 17 approved a $15,000 professional services agreement amendment with Maryland-based Columbia Telecommunications Corp. to write the request for proposal.
The images the new cameras transmit will be sharp enough to identify a license plate, Smith said.
“It’s not so much to monitor what people are doing, but we can look to see where problems are occurring,” he said.
“We’ll be able to extend our eyes and ears and capabilities significantly.”
Some of the new cameras will be trained north, toward Port Angeles Harbor and immediately adjacent to the water.
“We, being the principal law enforcement agency in Port Angeles, are responsible to secure port and waterfront facilities, and make them safe and secure.”
Smith recalled the capture of al-Qaida terrorist Ahmed Ressam on Dec. 14, 1999, shortly after Ressam disembarked from the Coho, where he was questioned by suspicious Customs inspectors before fleeing.
He was quickly captured.
Bomb-making materials were discovered in the trunk of Ressam’s vehicle. He was later convicted of seeking to blow up Los Angeles International Airport.
“The place where we caught an al-Qaida terrorist, we don’t have a camera,” Smith said.
“That’s a pretty big security gap.”
The city applied for a grant for the cameras before citizens complained last summer about teenage trouble-making at City Pier, Smith said.
“It has everything to do with our workload down there; it’s not just kids,” Smith said.
The cameras also will provide added security to an area that is expected to attract more visitors when the city’s waterfront development project gets under way beginning later this year.
Work will begin this summer on the $3.27 million first phase of the waterfront project with construction of an esplanade, a waterfront walkway and overhauls of the west end of Railroad Avenue and a portion of Oak Street.
“There will be more activity,” Smith said.
“There are seating areas, gathering areas, places where people will spend time.”
The overall waterfront project — it will be built in phases — includes installation of a park on the west end of Railroad Avenue.
“It’s very ineffective to patrol randomly and look for things,” Smith said.
“It’s more effective to patrol and respond to areas where you can see things and respond and see where people are gathering.”
With limited resources, “you try to think ahead and leverage your capacity to get information,” he said.
Surveillance cameras at the skate park at the city’s Erickson Park will not be replaced, Smith added.
He said other government agencies that have surveillance cameras in the Port Angeles area include the state Department of Transportation, the Port of Port Angeles and Clallam Transit, which has them at The Gateway transit center a block south of the City Pier playground.
There won’t be a department employee watching the camera monitors all the time, Smith added.
The camera system “will be making information available to us, and we will be looking at it when we need to,” he said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
