Jim McCormick (left) and Bobby Jurovaty are sworn in as aldermen.
By Dan Moffett
Briny Breezes is considering joining with neighboring communities in a plan to install a network of security cameras that would photograph the license plates of motorists driving on A1A.
Last month, Mayor Mike Hill and Ocean Ridge Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi went on a fact-finding mission to Golden Beach — a wealthy waterfront enclave of 950 people in northern Miami-Dade County — to take a close look at the town’s high-tech camera network.
Thirty years ago, crime in Golden Beach got so bad that officials closed all but one road into and out of the town. Today, a system of some 72 cameras monitors traffic throughout the 1.3-mile-long municipality, and crime is no longer a consuming problem.
Briny is exploring a much smaller system of six cameras that would be positioned along A1A and cover the town’s northern and southern boundaries.
“The purpose is to monitor who is coming into town and who is coming out of town,” Hill said. “The hope is that when the bad guys realize that when they drive through they’re likely to get pulled over, the bad guys will steer clear. I don’t know that’s the case, but it’s an interesting theory.”
Yannuzzi said police departments along the coast are working toward having seamless coverage of A1A traffic through South County. Manalapan has used the cameras for years, and law enforcement officials in Ocean Ridge, Gulf Stream, Boynton Beach and at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office are believers in having the capability to track offenders across jurisdictions.
“Criminals are transient,” Yannuzzi said, “and what’s going on in one community isn’t limited to that community any more.”
The “automatic license plate recognition,” or ALPR, cameras cost about $10,000 each. They have the capability of reading license plates in real time and comparing their numbers with databases of stolen cars and owners with outstanding criminal warrants.
“Obviously, it’s something that’s not going to be cheap,” said Hill, “but it’s something we’re interested in looking at.”
Golden Beach was able to pay for its $500,000 system with forfeiture money — funds that came from seized cash and property of people who committed crimes in the town, mostly drug crimes. Briny, as Hill is happy to point out, doesn’t have bad guys to seize things from, so the town would have to come up with the $60,000 for cameras from more traditional sources.
Besides expense, Hill said opponents of the systems make the Orwellian complaint that “it’s too much like 1984.” The cameras take high-resolution images and are even capable of monitoring boat traffic. Yannuzzi said Lighthouse Point in Broward County installed the cameras four years ago and police since have made more than 100 arrests and seized more than $1 million in forfeitures, as crime fell.
Town Council members decided to do more research on the cameras and how to pay for them, then take the matter up later this year.
In other business:
The town swore in two new members to the council to replace Nancy Boczon and Pete Fingerhut who gave up their seats over the last two months.
New Alderman Bobby Jurovaty has owned property in Briny since 1999 and been a resident in the town for three years. Jim McCormick has lived in Briny for 17 years and served on the Planning and Zoning Board for the past two years.
Both were approved unanimously by the council.
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