Prince George City Council approved funding for a security camera pilot project at last night’s (Monday) meeting.
The program was originally proposed by Downtown Prince George and the Chamber of Commerce, and is modeled after a program currently in place in Penticton.
Downtown PG and the Chamber presented the ask to the City’s Standing Committee on Public Safety in September, where it was recommended to go to council for consideration.
“Anecdotally, to the RCMP side, this has been positive and that this is seen as a tool to support enforcement and that one of the gaps in evidence in some cases is the video evidence,” said Director of Administrative Services Eric Depenau.
Under the proposal, the City will provide $40,000 towards the hard costs of executing the initial pilot program, which includes camera equipment, security monitoring services, installation and communications.
“I believe we can move forward with this and every pilot has to start somewhere,” said Councillor Susan Scott.
“$40,000 against the amount that has been put out by businesses in our community is nothing, not that $40,000 is nothing, I certainly don’t have it in my pocket, but we do have to move forward with this.”
City Council was presented with the option of using the Council Contingency Fund to pay for the project.
However, the fund only had $35,750 remaining prior to last night’s meeting.
The remaining $4,250 came out of the City’s 2024 operating budget.
“The city does have the room, we do variance reporting and all indications seem to be that we’ll be under budget this year, and $4,250 won’t break the bank,” said Director of Finance and IT Services Kris Dalio.
The goal is to have the program in full operation no later than April 1, 2025.
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