Phoenixville Mayor Calls for Downtown Surveillance Cameras

Citing concerns about the cost of keeping Bridge Street secure on busy nights like First Fridays, Mayor Leo Scoda called on Borough Council members to consider installing security cameras in Downtown Phoenixville.

The mayor's call came toward the end of Tuesday night's Borough Council Meeting, long after most of the standing-room-only crowd had called it a night and gone home.

Talking specifically about First Fridays, the Mayor told council members "it's costing us a lot of money to have (extra police on duty). I don't think it's fair for all the taxpayers of the borough to support downtown. I do think security cameras would be a deterrent."

Scoda noted that many times crimes in Philadelphia are solved when security camera of a thief is broadcast on television news. "A lot of times those videos are there because storefronts put the cameras up."

Why now?  

"I just think we're seeing things that concern me," the mayor told council members without specifying any one crime or suspicious activity in particular but a more general increase in calls for police downtown, especially on First Fridays. 

Scoda suggested that a council committee take a look at what it would cost "to install cameras in the 100, 200 and 300 block of Bridge Street."  Council President Richard Kirkner assigned the question of cost and feasibility of getting cameras to the council's Police Committee for review for the 2014 budget.