Citizens will be asked to help pay for maintaining the crime-surveillance video cameras being installed by the city to add to those already in place.
The public cameras are posted on or by private properties with WiFi connections for the Natchez Police Department to monitor and respond to crimes in real time or for follow-up investigations.
The Board of Aldermen last month decided to purchase $16,000 worth of outdoor cameras to augment about 150 already perched throughout the city. The board on Tuesday agreed to get residents and businesses housing the cameras to pay for storing the video images for future use by police investigators. The cloud storage costs amount to $20 a month per camera, said Natchez Police Chief Walter Armstrong. For 32 cameras, he noted, this would amount to about $7,700 a year.
The city will pay for buying and installing the new cameras. Armstrong has said a video camera can range from about $150 to $350 to buy. He noted their placement will take time as he decides where to locate them. Internet and electric connections are required for the monitoring system.
Armstrong said he wants the cooperation and input of residents and businesses whose properties the cameras could be on. He has scheduled a Feb. 19 meeting to discuss this with downtown propertyowners.
Mayor Darryl Grennell said he wants the crime-fighting cameras “strategically placed in this entire city.”
The Board of Aldermen on Tuesday did approve getting WiFi connections for the city-owned, recently vandalized Margaret Martin Performing Arts Center to enable it to have surveillance cameras. Vandals or squatters recently wrecked its interior and yanked out copper or brass plumbing fixtures. The former school on Homochitto Street has been home of the Natchez Festival of Music for 21 years.
Efforts are underway to repair the vandal-caused damage for the short term. For the long-term future, a campaign is being waged to get public and private funds to restore the historic Gothic Revival/Tudor-style structure built in 1927.