Crime & Safety

Charles Village Benefits District Installing 12 Surveillance Cameras

The cameras would be paid for by an Abell Foundation Grant and monitored by CitiWatch.

The Charles Village Community Benefits District is moving ahead with plans to install crime surveillance cameras in the neighborhood.  

A $132,000 Abell Foundation grant to pay for 12-crime surveillance cameras is included in the district’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget.  The district provides security and sanitation services by charging a surtax to property owners in communities such as Charles Village, Abell and Waverly Main Street.

"Like other areas of the city, CVCBD has an unacceptable crime rate. The CVCBD is combating it in every possible way including the installation of cameras," David Hill, the district’s executive director, wrote in an email. 

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Last year, the district also began to pay off-duty police officers to patrol the area, and the proposed budget includes $112,400 to cover 60 hours a week to continue patrols through the coming fiscal year.

The district is still working with a contractor to find cost-effective locations to place the fixed cameras, which will be monitored through the CitiWatch program.  

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Hill said the cameras would not be the "blue light" cameras that are often seen in the city, but will be "very discreet high tech day/night color vision cameras that produce court quality footage."

Anthony Guglielmi, a Baltimore police spokesman, said there are about 600 CitiWatch cameras deployed citywide. But said it was impossible to tell how many arrests have involved evidence provided by the cameras.   

He said the cameras will never be a substitute for officers patrolling the street, but called them a "magnificent tool," and said improved technology, such as high definition, have made the cameras more effective since the program was launched nearly a decade ago. 

"Its like Star Trek versus Star Trek The Next Generation," Guglielmi said.

The camera grant was actually awarded to the district last year, but they were unable to be installed because the cost of hardwiring them at certain locations was more expensive than anticipated.

"The hard wiring—which means: digging trenches in the sidewalks, laying conduit for the wiring, and then replacing the sidewalk to City specifications—at some of the original locations costs more than we expected and allowed for in the grant," Hill wrote.

The benefits district will make a presentation on the proposed budget, which its board of directors recommended this week, to residents at 6:30 p.m., April 23 at Lovely Lane Methodist Church, 2200 St. Paul St.  The budget must be given final approval by the Board of Estimates. 


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