Months after installing costly surveillance cameras along the downtown Riverwalk, Columbus officials said they”ve recently discovered some of the cameras don”t work at night.
The 12 Knight Hawk Security cameras, which cost the city about $18,000, were installed in September 2010 to alleviate safety concerns at the park and nature trail.
But the cameras, which have very low picture quality at night, are nearly useless without better lighting, according to some city officials.
Chief Operations Officer David Armstrong said a different model of cameras, which are actually cheaper than the current cameras and work better at night, might be the solution. He plans to talk to Knight Hawk representatives about replacing a broken camera with an infrared camera at no cost to the city as a test.
If that works, the city may be entitled to a partial refund, although Armstrong said they “haven”t gotten to that discussion yet.”
But in a department heads meeting Monday, Columbus Fire and Rescue Chief Ken Moore and others expressed doubts that cheaper cameras would solve the problem.
Instead, they said, the city may have to buy even better cameras or improve lighting — solutions that might be out of the city”s financial reach right now.
“It boils down to a question of money,” Armstrong said.
During the meeting, Mayor Robert Smith expressed dissatisfaction with the way the project had been handled so far.
“Hopefully, we won”t get snake bit this time,” he said.
Armstrong said he was unsure why the city was just now finding out about the issue and that he assumes officers have regularly checked camera footage.
Assistant Police Chief Joe Johnson said a shift supervisor first reported the problem to him July 20 and that he passed the complaint on to city officials.
He said he was unsure why the problem went unnoticed for so long.
Interim Police Chief Selvain McQueen said he didn”t know either, but that he would look into the issue in upcoming weeks.
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