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Canfield police eye body cameras in upcoming budget talks
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Warino
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Colucci
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
City police are asking for funds to buy and use body cameras starting this summer.
Canfield Police Chief Chuck Colucci first talked publicly about body cameras for the department at a recent city council meeting. Department heads are submitting budget proposals now, and budget decisions will be made this month and next month.
City Manager Joe Warino said this year’s budget could be “a little tighter than last year.”
“My biggest concern with [body cameras] is, do we have enough space to retain all that” video and audio, he said.
During last year’s budget talks, Colucci asked for funding to build an extension onto the police department, next door to the city building at 104 S. Lisbon St.
One of the main reasons for wanting a building extension is having to hold evidence for longer periods of time. That includes having to hold video from the nine dashboard cameras that the department uses. Body cameras will be in rotation among on-duty officers and will need office time to re-charge and upload recorded content.
Canfield city police have nine marked cruisers. Colucci said this week that he will again pursue the building expansion.
“Ultimately, it will maximize our storage. When you are talking about storing video, you need to look at our server room, which was never intended to be a server room,” Colucci said. “It’s at capacity.”
Warino said Colucci’s budget proposal for the body cameras was $13,500 for nine cameras, including service contracts and yearly fees. Colucci explained that includes a first-year cost of $12,461 that then drops to $585 annually. Video and audio records have to be kept for two years unless those records are part of a case, an ongoing case or ongoing litigation.
At last month’s city council meeting, Colucci said the department was looking into body cameras after highly publicized police-citizen incidents in 2014. He also said the cameras would add another layer of accountability for city officers.
“I believe that body cameras for law enforcement is not a new topic of discussion. I believe it’s been around for the last several years,” Colucci explained, adding that storage is the biggest obstacle. “It’s extremely expensive to store audio and video so that’s been a hurdle for law enforcement across the county ... it presents a significant burden on local communities.”
Colucci will also be asking for two cruisers to replace ones that the department has used. He said he hopes the city can get back onto a rotating schedule of replacing cruisers. “It gets extremely expensive to repair cruisers if you aren’t on an annual replacement system.”
The village of Lowellville has four body cameras and Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office is looking at buying body cameras this year.