Body cameras approved for parking department
The Lake Geneva City Council has approved to purchase body cameras for parking enforcement officers.
The Wrigley Drive street improvement project began April 3.
Parking enforcement officers in the City of Lake Geneva may soon be wearing body cameras.
Members of the Lake Geneva City Council approved, April 24, to purchase body cameras and body camera software for the parking enforcement department by a 6-2 vote with alderwomen Mary Jo Fesenmaier and Linda Frame voting “no.”
The body camera purchase was recommended by the finance, licensing and regulation committee, April 18.
The cost of the body cameras and software will not exceed $15,266. Money to purchase the items will come from the city’s parking fund.
Comptroller Laura Pisarcik said the city is set to receive some grant funding to help pay for the body cameras.
“It looks like we will get the majority of it from these grants,” Pisarcik said. “We don’t know the exact amount of the grants that will come in, but it looks like we will be able to use grant funding towards purchasing the body cameras.”
Parking Operations Manager Seth Elder said footage from the body cameras will be monitored by a records clerk who was recently hired by the Lake Geneva Police Department.
The Lake Geneva Police Department purchased body cameras for its officers earlier this year.
“They already hired a new person to do their record keeping. We can just piggyback on top of that, and initial cost would be this $15,000 number,” Elder said. “In subsequent years, the cost would be even less because all we’re paying for is really the storage and the data.”
Elder said members of the city’s police and fire commission recommended that body cameras be purchased for the department for the safety of the parking enforcement officers.
“Obviously, the reason we want to employ body cameras is for the safety and well being of our parking enforcement officers while they are on the streets,” he said.
Elder said the cameras will be used to record the city’s parking enforcement operations in case someone appeals their ticket.
“We already take copious photographs when we issue parking tickets,” Elder said. “This would just be an enhancement to that.”
The City of Lake Geneva recently increased weekend parking rates from $2 an hour to $4 an hour and parking fines from $20 to $50.
However, Elder said he does not feel there has been much of an increase in incidents between parking operations staff and people who park in the Downtown area since the weekend parking rate and parking fines have been increased.
He said if there is an incident between staff and people who are upset with receiving a parking ticket, they report it to the police department.
“We call that an incident report,” Elder said. “We write it up, then we pass it along to the police department to follow up with the individual.”
Frame said she feels the city should purchase body cameras for the fire department before purchasing body cameras for the parking operations department.
“Firemen would have more reason to have a body camera than a parking attendant. If you take that $50 fine down, you wouldn’t have so many arguments,” Frame said. “The parking attendants needing a body camera is unreasonable really, grant or no grant.”
Miss America Grace Stanke of Wausau visited Badger High School, Feb. 17, to talk to students about careers in science, technology, engineering…
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