City Council Slated To Vote On Cameras In Police Cruisers Today

Mentor City Council is scheduled to vote on an ordinance that, if approved, would fund the installation of microphones and high-definition cameras in 25 Mentor Police Department cruisers.

Council can vote on this ordinance during its meeting 7 p.m. at City Hall.

The city has been talking about putting cameras in police cruisers for more than a year now.

The cameras would film activity happening both inside and outside of the cruiser.

The city of Mentor asked for bids on the project and received seven of them, including one from WatchGuard Video, which the city recommended that Council accept.

While WatchGuard did not have the lowest bid at $150,000, it did have the lowest bid that included high-definition video and background recording.

The city estimated that the entire project will cost about $167,000 when taking into account the additional expense of hard drives, wireless access points, a server and the installation costs for the Information Technologies Department not included in the bid.

That is still less than the $168,000 initially set aside in this year's budget for the project.

Before City Council's meeting, they will have a work session at 5:30 p.m. in which they will discuss the 2013 budget and the city's beautification committee.

The suggested 2013 budget is $53 million, as opposed to the 2012 that was $51 million.

Filipiak explained that operational expenses for this and next year will be similar. The $2 million difference comes from additional capital programs, he said.

For additional information on the proposed budget, you can read previous stories on Mentor Patch.

The agenda and legislation for tonight's City Council is attached to this story as PDFs.