PRESCOTT – The Prescott beach house is about to get added security. The Prescott City Council unanimously approved the purchase of five cameras to be installed by CIT, the city’s IT consultant, at the Prescott Beach House and bathrooms for a total cost of $16,638.

This decision came about due to the recent acts of vandalism to the beach house and the surrounding area, including graffiti on the beach house and a picnic table being pulled into the water.

City Administrator Matt Wolf explains why the council decided to purchase the cameras.

“It’s about trying to get the police department more tools to actually try to make sure that we get those who are trying to ruin public property,” Wolf said. “Our public works has to go in there now and repaint it and constantly have to work on trying to maintain that. We want to make sure that we are keeping it up to a good standard, especially for those residents that live around it.”

He commented that during the summer many people enjoy it.

“It’s unfortunate that one or two individuals are deciding that they’re trying to ruin it for the community,” he said.

He added that when Prescott Daze is over, further maintenance will be done to bring vandalized property back to the original standards, including painting, installing more rock, and the possibility of installing a fence for safety.

“We don’t want to have to go through the extreme of putting cameras everywhere because that will just be something that is really not cost effective,” Wolf said. “But at the same time, it’s got to a point where you do have to do something to try to give the tools to our police department to try to make sure that this doesn’t happen and to take off the stress of our public works constantly having to go down there and rectify vandalism issues.

“We’ll start with this, and we’ll see how it goes in terms of benefits that it brings and if it does provide a lot of benefits and we’re seeing it stop happening or us being able to catch the individuals that do decide to do these types of things then I think we look at it in other areas in terms of potentially installing them.”

Wolf shared that unfortunately vandalism, namely graffiti, is happening in other areas of Prescott, such as public signs on Dewey Street being recent targets.

“It’s on an increase, at least relatively recently,” he stated.

Alderperson Pat Knox asked, “If we catch a picture of somebody on that camera, once we have this camera and we can get a picture of it, what will we be able to do with that information to stop or slow down or encourage people not to do it again?”

Police Chief Eric Michaels responded, “The Constitution of the United States has deemed that free air is not an invasion of privacy. So, law enforcement or any entity can go down and take pictures of any plate they want or any picture of any person they want as long as they are in a free open space, meaning out in public. It’s no different than anybody walking up to city hall or walking up to the police department or any other business that has cameras. If some person is doing ill-refuted work and trying to beautify in their own eyes our beach house and we catch them on camera, and we have a picture and we can identify them, that can be used to prosecute.

“How does that stop that from happening?” he asked. “Pretty soon words going to get out that ‘oh boy, now they have cameras and they’re able to catch us and we’re not going to do that down there anymore.’”

Knox remarked, “That’s exactly what I was hoping for. That sounds pretty clear. If we’re going to spend the money to make it a deterrent, we want it to be a deterrent that can hopefully have teeth to it or use it. And it sounds like that’s a fairly easy way to do it.”

Alderperson Maureen Otwell said the new food pantry is also concerned about graffiti and vandalism on their expensive outdoor equipment, and they are looking at cameras as well.

Other business

Commercial properties will now have the same junk parking restrictions as residents do as they will need to have a fence, structure or something to cover the “junk.” The Council voted to amend Chapter 443 of Ordinance 06-23. Previously the ordinance exempted businesses from the rule but now both businesses and residents must comply with the ordinance.

The council unanimously approved a mutual aid agreement with the villages of Baldwin, Deer Park, Hammond, North Hudson, Roberts and Somerset in the event of an emergency. The agreement states the surrounding communities will respond with municipal water, sewer and public works service equipment if requested. Responding is at the discretion of each municipality.

The council unanimously approved the appointment of former Mayor Michael Hunter to the planning commission. Hunter previously served as mayor from 2004 to 2012 and will serve on the planning commission until April 2025, at which point the position will be up for reappointment.