Preston Police | Cameras in the city parks

Preston’s cameras did not arrive through a public safety debate. They arrived through a grant, a vandalized restroom and an amendment to the recreation chapter of the city’s comprehensive plan.

In March 2021 the police chief told the City Council he was working on a grant for a camera system in the city park. The terms he described are the ones worth keeping: five cloud-based wi-fi cameras and a five year license agreement, after which the city would be responsible for the yearly license and the internet connection.^[1] A grant pays for the hardware and the first five years. The city inherits the subscription.

The coverage question

When the chief came back in April the Council did something worth noticing: it asked about coverage. The minutes record the Council discussing where the five cameras should go, and asking whether they would pick up the westerly side of the park or whether an additional camera would do better.^[2] It then voted unanimously to authorize the chief to pursue the grant, and to research the cost of cameras at Craner Field as well.

Two weeks later the Mayor raised the vandalism of the restrooms by the splash pad, the second time it had happened, and the minutes note that more cameras were on the way.^[3]

Surveillance enters the comprehensive plan

In August 2021 the Council held a public hearing on amendments to Element 8, Recreation, of the city’s comprehensive plan. The list of changes is ordinary municipal housekeeping: a table of three year participation in youth sports, soccer’s increase in popularity, the acquisition of Craner Field, the need for a walking path, the removal of a reference to an activity bus. In the middle of that list is the addition of implementation of surveillance at Preston City recreation facilities.^[6]

A comprehensive plan is the document a city points at when it wants to say a decision was already made. Putting surveillance of recreation facilities into it is a small sentence with a long reach, and it was adopted as part of a recreation amendment rather than as a public safety question.

A health district bought the last set

Craner Field took two more years. In July 2022 the Council discussed vandalism again, the chief said he was buying more cameras for the park and the restroom and researching a grant for the field, and the Council told him to get bids.^[4] The same evening a county commissioner offered to split a reward for catching whoever was responsible, and the city and the county put up $500 each.

In May 2023 the chief reported he had the grant, and that the problem of getting 110 volt electricity to the site had been solved. The Council voted unanimously to move forward with the camera placement at Craner Field, with the grant through Southeastern Idaho Public Health.^[5]

Southeastern Idaho Public Health is the regional health district. It is the same kind of channel the county used two years later, when a $10,000 emergency management grant went toward camera work at a county building. Neither body is a policing agency, and neither grant appears to have been debated as a surveillance decision. In a small city, the money that installs a camera and the forum that discusses what a camera is for are very often not the same place.

What the council record does not say

No vendor is named. No retention period is stated. No policy governing who may look at the footage appears anywhere. The count at Craner Field is never recorded. What the record does establish is a sequence: a grant, then cameras, then the plan amended to expect more of them.