A proposal to install traffic cameras throughout the county failed to gain traction at this week’s meeting of the county board.
Sheriff Mike Borkovich and Undersheriff Jim Kiessel appeared before commissioners at their executive committee Tuesday with a proposal for a 60-day traffic study which would include installation of 12 traffic-related cameras at location throughout the county.
FLOCK Safety would provide the cameras at no charge during a 60-day period beginning next spring. Upon completion of the trial, the county/Sheriff’s Office would determine if the project would be something they see as a beneficial partnership. Cost of the monitors, a total of $36,000 per year, would be paid by participating townships.
Borkovich said that the monitors would be one more tool in the law enforcement arsenal which already includes the Michigan Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), a statewide computerized information system, and NCIC (National Crime Information Center), a computerized database maintained by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division.
Here’s how it works: Participating law enforcement agencies submit license plate numbers in connection with reported crimes. The monitors would scan license plates and alert these law enforcement agencies if the plate is scanned. But commissioners questioned whether the monitoring constitutes an invasion of privacy.
“Leelanau has the highest ratio of law enforcement to residents in the state,” District 3 commissioner Will Bunek said.
“Every person I know has a camera … We’re opening a system of spying on residents. I can’t support it at all.”
District 4 commissioner Ty Wessell also expressed concern about what other board members called “over- reaching.”
“It’s a private business with data that can be sold and distributed for anyone to use,” he said. “I don’t want to frighten our residents.”
District 6 Commissioner Gwenne Allgaier questioned how this information could be used.
“Right now… there are people who have lived and worked here for years who haven’t been successful in navigating the country’s immigration system,” she said.
District 1 Commissioner Rick Robbins, a retired law enforcement officer, suggested money spent on the monitors would be better applied elsewhere.
“I’d rather see it put into overtime or a new deputy,” Robbins said. “I can’t predict the future, but I don’t see it as a tool we can use right now.”
Commissioners had plenty of questions about the FLOCK proposal. These include:
• What safeguards are in place to ensure information gathered will stay with the policing agencies?
• Will the data collected by the private business be sold to other private businesses?
• Where are the FLOCK monitors in place regionally, statewide and nationally?
Borkovich is expected to return to the board in coming months with answers to the questions asked.
“I don’t want people spied upon, but I know it’s a really good tool,” Borkovich said.
