Police Seek To Improve Station Security

By Andrew Gorosko

Newtown Police Department plans to improve video surveillance at its station and better control access to the building.

“We’re going to enhance our [security] system here,” Acting Police Chief Michael Kehoe said Monday in describing how surveillance and access control will be improved.

The town is seeking firms to bid on a planned $13,000 police station security improvement project.

The police station is located on the upper level of Town Hall South at 3 Main Street. The building is a former agricultural equipment dealership, which the town acquired and converted for police department use on the upper level, and for office use on the lower level.

The age of the police security system and wear on its working parts, such as television cameras, requires that the system be replaced, Acting Chief Kehoe said.

  Color cameras will replace existing black-and-white television surveillance cameras. The police station currently has 11 exterior and interior cameras. When the project is complete, 12 to 14 cameras may be in use.

Exterior cameras will be contained in weatherproof housings to ensure their reliability.

New technology will allow the signals from all the cameras to be displayed on a single monitor instead of multiple monitors.

“This project is intended to enhance the security of the building for many years to come. Some existing equipment and wiring will be incorporated into the new enhanced system, [depending] on the configuration, the overall cost, and the department’s wishes,” according to town specifications for the project.

The bid specifications call for town acquisition of eight high-resolution color television cameras to provide continuous video surveillance of selected areas inside and outside the building.

The multiple signals from the television cameras would be recordable on videotape as normal motion or time-lapse motion.

The project will include installation of an electric door lock on the door on the south side of the building. That door and an interior door between the public lobby and the police station will have new electronic access systems installed.

The town will accept sealed bids on the specifications. The bid opening is scheduled for July 31. Bids on the security system project include costs for labor, parts, materials and permits, as well as installation and configuration. In the security system acquisition process, the town reserves the right to eliminate certain elements of the project to meet cost constraints.

The bidder who is awarded the security system project must be able to install the equipment in phases due to the simultaneous project of creating a combined dispatch center, according to the bid specifications.

Architectural planning is underway for a combined emergency dispatch center in the police station.

The dispatch center, which will combine police, fire and ambulance dispatching, will be built in what is now the police records department. Fire and ambulance dispatching currently are done at the communications center in Edmond Town Hall’s basement.