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Asbury Park will fund the installation and repair of surveillance cameras on property owned by the housing authority, and city officials have plans to upgrade and add more cameras throughout the city.

City officials along with members of the housing authority, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office, the Monmouth County Department of Community Affairs and Senator Jennifer Beck have been meeting to talk about the city’s camera initiative.

“There are tons of cameras that are not operating properly,” said City Manager Terence Reidy. “The original push was for the housing authority but what was eventually decided was – what would be more prudent – would be additional cameras in the city.”

Many of the cameras within and around the buildings the housing authority owns do not operate properly, those that do only broadcast “real time” images to television units within the security stations in each individual housing authority building that are no longer recorded, Asbury Park Police Chief Mark Kinmon said.

Around 200 cameras will be repaired or replaced within the seven buildings the Monmouth County Housing Authority operates in Asbury, Reidy said.

The Asbury Park Police Department does not currently have access to view video from the cameras set up by the housing authority, and in the past, had to go retrieve recordings themselves, according to Kinmon.

“It was very inconvenient,” Kinmon said.

Now that the state has provided funding for the city to purchase and own the cameras, the police department will have access to view and operate the cameras at will, he said.

“We have to come up with different means to fighting crime, and this is an excellent tool for us because it gives us real-time information,” Kinmon said.

The housing authority cameras, along with ones already in operation around the city, will “eventually tie into one big system that the police department maintains,” he said.

The system will give police “another tool to investigate, and you can’t beat it in terms of prosecution,” he said.

A consultant will now work with housing authority officials to assess the current functionality of the cameras and camera system and make recommendations, said Kinmon, who is unsure how many cameras will be involved in the citywide upgrades and additions, but estimates the entire project will have a rough cost of $350,000 – $400,000.

Senator Beck [R-Monmouth] looked to the state to help with the project, and was able to secure $150,000 in additional state transitional funding, Kinmon said.

An amendment introduced at Wednesday’s city council meeting places all state transitional aid towards levying taxes.

“They can use the $150,000 to offset the cost of the project, or they can bond for [the project’s total cost] and use the $150,000 to reduce the tax levy through the transition aid,” said Richard Gartz, the city’s acting chief municipal finance officer.

A public hearing on the amendment is scheduled for the Aug. 21 city council meeting.

Funds still need to be secured for the rest of the citywide cameras and upgrades, Kinmon said.

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