Government

Parking Manager: Body Cameras for Enforcement Officers Would Cost $3,500 Plus $1,000 Annually for Cloud Storage

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The body cameras that the head of of the New Canaan Parking Bureau is seeking to acquire for enforcement officers would cost about $3,500 total and funding for them is included in this year’s budget, she said last week. The cost of storing the video the cameras record in the cloud would come to an additional approximately $1,000 per year, according to Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg. With support from the Parking Commission at the appointed body’s prior meeting, Miltenberg put together a formal proposal for the Board of Selectmen to purchase the cameras. Miltenberg and parking enforcement officers have spoken in favor of using them to ensure that there’s an official record of interactions with motorists. “I put a proposal together, and a procedure together … for the Board of Selectmen, but at this time [First Selectman] Kevin [Moynihan] does not want to move forward with it until he gives it more thought,” she told members of the Commission during a special meeting held Sept.

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All New Canaan Police Officers To Start Using Body Cameras within Two Weeks

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All New Canaan Police officers on patrol will be wearing body cameras within about two weeks, following a trial run of several months with one of the department’s seasoned officers, the chief said. Designed to help officers do their jobs and to show, if not ensure, that officers are carrying out duties appropriately, the FirstVu-brand body cameras are being purchased with donations as well as state funds and through the regular budget process, officials say. “From beginning to end, they will show exactly what happened and what was said and done,” Police Chief Leon Krolikowski said. “I have great faith in our officers, that they make the right decisions, and these [body cameras] are out there for the best interests of everyone.”

New Canaan ranks among the first municipalities in the area to introduce the technology, the chief said. Officer Ron Bentley, a 1994 New Canaan High School graduate and longtime assistant coach of the Rams varsity baseball team, has been testing the FirstVu model and said “it’s a fantastic tool.”

“It’s good for both me and it’s good for the public,” Bentley said.

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New Canaan Police To Get Body Cameras ‘Very Soon’

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New Canaan Police soon will be put on body cameras as they start their shifts, the police chief said Wednesday. The department will purchase five body cameras to add to two models that it already owns, Police Chief Leon Krolikowski told the Town Council during his first budget presentation to the legislative body. “Lots of officers are asking for them,” Krolikowski said during the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “They [police officers] want a recording of the encounters we’re having with people, because frankly, most of the time, if not the vast majority of the time, our officers are making the right decisions and handling incidents well, so why not tape it and why not record it? There are some privacy concerns about going inside people’s houses versus outside in public that we have to figure out and make sense of.”

The New Canaan Police Department is to receive grant money from the state, Krolikowski said, and plans to use half of it for body cameras (the other half for distracted driving and education).