Jim, I threw out a tongue in cheek comment regarding the Moe town thing. Just a little humor at VV expense. I hope you're not too offended by it. You know that I am supportive of Ventura Village and no one "downtown" fought harder for you to get independent neighborood status than I did.
In terms of the camera idea, the Alliance did it along Nicollet Ave. in the early 90's. It works! However, it also tends to drive it one or two blocks over where the cameras are not located so make sure there is a strong block club network on either side of Franklin. Project Look Out uses them in some of the public housing hi-rises. I think they have been pretty successful in the hi-rises with an active volunteer network to monitor them. The biggest deterent were the signs we had installed on the light posts saying "You are under survellience 24 hours a day". You can place those at strategic corners. We used "dummy" cameras at some of the corners to keep the costs down. The criminals don't know which cameras are live and which ones are dummies. It's a big deterent for the people from outside the neighborhood driving in to pick up drugs or prostitutes. As you know, this traffic accounts for over 60% of the illegal solicitation traffic. I was a little concerned about your statement "that in order for the video to be admissable in court, it had to be on police cameras". We used a commercial security camera firm on Nicollet. I am pretty sure that evidence from those cameras are admissable in court also. I would be interested in knowing for sure though. Can Amy weigh in on this one? The biggest issue with the cameras is monitoring and maintenance. Someone has to check them all and make sure they are working and that there is video in the VCR's the cameras are attached to. Someone has to watch the videos and report any crime captured on them. Someone needs to archive them so that they can be accessed for criminal cases when needed. This all takes a tremendous amount of effort from either volunteers or the business owners if the cameras are installed on businesses along Franklin. You can pay for this service, but, it's really expensive. If you think the police are going to do all this, forget it. Maybe the chief is willing to consider some extraordinary measures to address the problems and might be willing to dedicate the manpower to run a successful video crime watch operation. I would be surprised considering the police budget is limited this year. They are expected to do more with less so I'm not sure they can add the expense of manpower and equipment from their funds. Maybe some VV NRP funds can help this project. Barb Lickness Whittier ===== "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
