Cameras: Big Brother or big helper?

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2003 | 8:51 a.m.

Behind the front desk at the Boulder City Police station, dispatchers can keep their eyes on vehicles moving past the city's two traffic lights, watch part of Veterans Memorial Park, or see if dust is blowing off the dry lake bed near town.

In the year since the first video cameras were installed around the city, the dispatchers have sent police to broken down cars and summer traffic jams and have alerted road crews to blinding dust, they said.

Police Chief William Turk, who wanted the cameras to help alert his officers to traffic problems, said Monday that he believes the cameras have been a success -- and not a threat to privacy, as some feared.

In January 2002 the city paid $70,500 to put cameras at each of the city's two traffic lights and at other locations, including a park and a power substation. Two cameras were intended to curb vandalism at park restrooms and at the substation.

The video feed from the cameras is displayed on a large screen next to the dispatchers and can also be seen by the chief on his laptop computer. The video from the camera on Red Mountain, also known as Radar Mountain, is also shown live on the city's website.

The decision to install the cameras was criticized by some, including the American Civil Liberties Union.

Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said Monday that he thinks the cameras continue to threaten individuals' freedoms.

"The concern is that we're moving ever so rapidly to a Big Brother surveillance society where people are left with no meaningful zone of privacy, especially in public places," Peck said.

Kurt Kissinger, 26, of Boulder City agreed.

"It's almost like Big Brother's always watching," said Kissinger, a captain with the Lake Mead Fire Department. "I'm not for it ... because of what doors it could open in the future.

Some had also worried the police might use the cameras to write traffic tickets, but Turk said Nevada law prohibits police from doing that.

The camera at the park may be deterring vandalism even though the numbers don't show it, Turk said. In 2001 the park was hit by vandals eight times, while in 2002 there were 10 reported acts of vandalism at the park. Turk said the increase despite the presence of the camera could be due to the growth of the park during 2002, when soccer fields, more restrooms and another baseball field were added in areas out of the camera's view.

Meanwhile, five more cameras were put at the electric substation since January, Turk said. The facility has not been broken into since the cameras were installed, he said.

But Turk said the primary reason he asked for the cameras was to help alert his officers to traffic problems in the city.

Using the cameras on the traffic lights and at the water tank, dispatchers at police headquarters can spot traffic jams on the main route to Hoover Dam.

At least four times over the summer the cameras tipped off police to a big traffic jam along Nevada Highway, Turk said. When that happens an officer is sent to the intersection of U.S. 93 and Pacifica Way to help vehicles get across the crowded highway, Turk said.

The cameras have become an afterthought to many residents.

Mayor Bob Ferraro said he hasn't heard anyone talk about the cameras since a week after they were installed.

Tom Younggren, 61, a winter resident of Boulder City, said he doesn't hear people talking about them anymore.

"I know they're there. And every so often when I'm at a stoplight I look around for them," he said. "But I think people are oblivious to them."

Or maybe they're just accustomed to seeing them throughout much of the rest of Clark County.

Since 1999 there have been 40 to 50 cameras installed at intersections in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and unincorporated parts of Clark County, said Niel Rohleder, system manager of the Las Vegas Area Computer Traffic System.

In general those cameras are used to monitor the roadways to see if timing adjustments need to be made to the traffic signals and to relay traffic information to the media, he said.

Video from Boulder City's camera on Red Mountain can be viewed online at: www.ci.boulder-city.nv.us/cam.html.