Is there evidence that License Plate Readers lower crime rates? Police Chief says, “No.”

The Piedmont Public Safety Committee met on Thursday, April 4, in the Council chambers with an unusually large audience who were primarily interested in the proposal to purchase License Plate Readers (LPR) for Piedmont egress/ingress points.  First, the new Committee member, Dana Sack, was introduced and Committee member Lyman Shaffer reported  there have been 13 Neighborhood Watch meetings in 2013, with 9 more scheduled. > Click to read more…

Once again, Piedmont is receiving attention as an exclusive, wealthy city concerned about others coming into the community.

The CBS San Francisco affiliate broadcast a report titled, “Piedmont hoping to curb burglaries with crime cameras at city limits.”  According to the Wednesday, April 3 newscaat, “Now Piedmont, which is entirely surrounded by Oakland wants to put cameras at all its 30 street-entry points, to trace robbery suspects.”  Piedmonters Lindsay Barstow and John Kelson as well as the Police Chief express support for License Plate Readers (LPRs) on CBS. > Click to read more…

National Prescription Drug Take Back Day

Unused or outdated prescription drugs can be dropped off at the Piedmont Police Department on Saturday, April 27 between 10 am and 2 pm. Properly disposing of medications can be a challenge, as most drug stores will not accept them, and other methods of disposal pose potential health and safety hazards. The service offered by the Police Department is conveniently located in the center of Piedmont. > Click to read more…

Reduced Local Fares May Lure Riders-

With an ever present tight budget, AC Transit is considering a dramatic change.  The Board is looking at lowering  fares from $2.10 a ride to $2.00 on local lines to encourage more people to ride buses.  Historically, every increase in fares has resulted in fewer riders.  Buses with numerous seats available provide an opportunity to increase ridership and revenue at minimal cost to the agency. > Click to read more…

City Council to consider cost to install readers at all Piedmont entrances or a dozen primary entrances. 

On February 4, 2013, Police Chief Rikki Goede informed the City Council that the Police Department had met with a vendor of license plate readers and was waiting for a final estimate of the cost to install License Plate Recognition systems at all Piedmont ingress/egress points.  The Police Department determined there are 24 entrance points between Piedmont and Oakland.

A partial cost estimate by the 3M company was referenced in the Police Chief’s March 18 Update. For the software, equipment, mounting assembly hardware, sales tax, shipping costs, for the 57 cameras, the City of Piedmont would pay 3M an estimated $978,716, not including installation. “Additionally, an optional, but recommended, three-year extended maintenance warranty of $174,700 would need to be considered, increasing the total to $1,153,416.”

At the February 19, 2013 City Council meeting Vice Mayor Margaret Fujioka asked Chief Goede to determine if the $68,068.33 Citizens Option for Public Safety (COPS) funds from the State can be used to purchase additional license plate readers.  At the June 21, 2010 City Council meeting, George Kersh objected to the use of the prior year COPS funds for purchase of a license plate reader.  (That license plate reader remains in mobile use in a Piedmont Police vehicle.)

Police departments nationwide are eagerly acquiring Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) systems.  A report published by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) finds that ALPR systems are primarily used for finding stolen cars or vehicles that have multiple parking violations and can be booted or towed.  With federal funding, police department purchases skyrocketed and the cost of ALPR camera units is decreasing.

In 2009, Tiburon installed ALPRs at their border on the only two roads going in and out of town at a cost of $130,000*.  Cameras point in each direction of traffic, each one trained on two lanes.   The cameras constantly look for listed plates of stolen vehicles.  When a plate is recognized, an automated alert with date, time and location is sent to any linked network.  There are a number of false positives due to the California Department of Motor Vehicles lag time in updating recovered stolen vehicles.  The majority of Tiburon hits are lost or stolen plates, not stolen cars or other crimes.

The currently available camera units are capable of capturing thousands of license plates per minute from two traffic lanes.  They can be mounted on buildings, telephone poles, information signs, traffic signals or on a police car.

The 2012 PERF publication “How Are Innovative Technologies Transforming Policing” reported on a 30-week control experiment in 45 high auto theft locations in Mesa, Arizona (2012 population 439,041).  The license plate reader systems scanned 751,000 plates, resulting in the recovery of 14 stolen vehicles.  In a comparable period without the license plate reader systems, 7 stolen vehicles were recovered.  While twice as many vehicles were recovered, there was no decrease in the number of auto thefts after the license plate reader systems were acquired.  (This was noted as the only field evaluation of the effectiveness of the systems for decreasing crime rates and crime solving.)

PERF found that 71% of responding police agencies across the US have license plate reader systems. They are used to locate stolen cars and cars with multiple parking tickets in order to boot or tow them.  The readers can scan passing cars or parked cars (from a moving police vehicle) and automatically alert police on any license number that is in the data base.

*Half the cost was paid by Belvedere, the island town whose only access is through Tiburon.

http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/html/govern/staffreports/2013-03-18/platereaders.pdf

http://policeforum.org/library/critical-issues-in-policing-series/Technology_web2.pdf

Dr. Andrew Guzman Urges US to Act To Save Billions of Lives –

On Sunday afternoon, March 17, a Piedmont audience heard a sobering description of the worldwide calamities likely to occur within this century from a modest 2 degree (celsius) warming of the earth.

Speaking at the monthly Piedmont Forum at Piedmont Community Church, Dr. Andrew Guzman, Professor of International Law at UC Berkeley and author of a new book, Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change, painted a dark picture of what will happen to human populations around the world as a result of water shortages and rising sea levels.

Hundreds of millions of people will be killed, and 3.5 billion (half the world population) will be damaged, he said, because mountain glaciers, which create rivers and water runoff that sustain human populations around the world, are shrinking.  South America, Asia, Europe, he noted, all depend on water from mountain glaciers. “If there are no glaciers, there will be no stable population centers.”

In California, he noted, 35 percent of our water comes from the Sierra snowpack, which by 2050 is projected to be 25 percent smaller.  “This means we will have more water in winter when it’s not needed and less in summer when we need it.” Food prices will rise, and by 2050, severe droughts such as happened in 1977 will occur every six to eight years.  “Internationally, because of the impacts on worldwide food production, people will be priced out of the market, and starvation and famine will result.”

If seas rise one meter, he said, Bangladesh will lose 17 percent of its land mass, displacing 20 million people, who will never be able to go back home.  Overall, he projected 200 million people — 3 percent of the world population — will be displaced and will migrate to cities that are unprepared to handle them.

“Dangerous (international) situations will become more dangerous,” he said, with potential for military violence and terrorism in unstable countries such as Nigeria, which may lose 50 percent of its crops, and Pakistan, which relies on water from the Indus River that it shares with India, its unfriendly neighbor.

Guzman concluded that the United States does not appreciate how big the threat of global warming is and that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by raising the price of fuel, which he recommends through a carbon tax. “The politicians won’t do it unless we make them,” he said. “We must tell our leaders to do something.  If we lower greenhouse gases, we will be saving billions of lives.”

In response to an audience member who questioned the reality of global warming, Guzman replied, “The rise in greenhouse gases is measurable. Ninety-seven percent of scientists today believe the climate is warming and that the cause is manmade. That’s a given.”  The US, he said, is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China is first.

Funding for Projects to Help Protect Creeks, Wetlands and the Bay –

The Alameda County Clean Water Program is inviting applications for its 2013 Community Stewardship Grant Program, designed to encourage and facilitate community-based actions that enhance and protect the health of local waterways.

Proposed projects must be aimed at storm water pollution prevention in Alameda County and contain a community or public outreach element. Funding requests between $1,000 and $5,000 per project will be considered, for a total 2013 grant budget of $20,000. Eligible applicants include teacher and student groups, youth organizations, homeowners associations, community groups, environmental groups and other non-profit organizations. The application deadline is April 18, 2013.

Clean Water Program grants support community-based projects designed to protect waterways in Alameda County.

About the Clean Water Program

Made up of agencies from around Alameda County, the Clean Water Program has been working since 1991 to facilitate local compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act. Member agencies include the cities of Piedmont, Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Dublin, Emeryville, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, Newark, Oakland, Pleasanton, San Leandro and Union City, the County of Alameda, the Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, and the Zone 7 Water Agency.

The Program reaches out to residents and businesses throughout the county, helping people understand why having clean and healthy waterways is important to our daily lives, and what role each of us plays in protecting local creeks, wetlands and the Bay. Fostering an appreciation of the local environment, the Program inspires residents to do their part to prevent water pollution during everyday activities like gardening, household cleaning, and keeping their cars in good shape. The Program’s free publications and consultations help business owners and managers understand water pollution prevention regulations that affect them, and adopt best practices to stay in compliance.

For more information about the Clean Water Program visitwww.cleanwaterprogram.org.

To view an online version of this release, please click here.

“Projects funded by the grants help us reach out to people in Alameda County about the importance of clean and healthy waterways and what we can all do to protect our creeks, wetlands and the Bay,” explained Clean Water Program Manager Jim Scanlin. “The grants provide financial support to local groups and organizations aligned with this mission, and in turn their expertise, creativity and networks on the community level help us expand our reach,” he added.

Since its beginnings over 15 years ago, the annual grants program has funded almost 100 grassroots projects. Activities range from creek restoration, wildlife habitat improvement and rainwater harvesting to outreach and education. Projects focused on outreach typically address practices to prevent storm water pollution such as proper household hazardous waste disposal, litter prevention, Integrated Pest Management, etc. Outreach methods include art projects, events, trainings, videos and printed materials, among others.

Sample projects funded in recent years:

• Park Day School in Oakland installed a rainwater garden and cistern as part of the school’s learning garden program, developed educational signage and provided tours of the garden and catchment system to outside visitors at several school events.
• Cycles of Change in Oakland trained high school students as “watershed ambassadors” who led groups of 3rd through 8th grader to educate small businesses near Lake Merritt about their shared watershed and how to prevent storm water pollution.
• The Alameda Creek Alliance recruited and trained volunteers to monitor, clean up and restore creek habitat, and reach out to creek-side residents through the StreamKeeper Program, aimed at the restoration of salmon and steelhead trout to Alameda Creek.

For more information about the Clean Water Program Community Stewardship Grants and projects funded in the past, and to download an application packet please visit www.cleanwaterprogram.org/grants.

Resident Asserts: The Piedmont School Budget could have survived a low income senior optional exemption –

How School Districts are funded in California is both arcane and extremely complex. Comparing districts is helpful and #1 academically ranked San Marino is probably the best comparable we have with its 13,161 population, similar affluence and limited but larger commercial tax base than Piedmont. Despite Proponent’s Feb. 7 LWV false comparisons necessitating an unusual School District correcting memorandum, Proponents continue to use this comparison in recent comments here at PCA.  > Click to read more…

Many Piedmonters with absentee ballots have yet to return them to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.  All ballots must be received by 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5.  Ballots mailed on March 5 will not be counted.  Absentee ballots may be turned in on election day to a voter’s regular polling location.

The Piedmont Unified School District Special Election will be held on Tuesday, March 5, 2013. The polls will be open from 7:00 A.M. until 8:00 P.M. 

Voters may cast their ballots early at the Registrar of Voters office, Monday through Friday from 8:30 A.M. until 5:00 P.M. or on Election Day, March 5 th,  from 7:00 A.M until 8:00 P.M. at the Alameda County Courthouse, 1225 Fallon Street, Room G-1, in Oakland. > Click to read more…

Do you know a deserving volunteer who has worked tirelessly for the Piedmont Schools?  The deadline for nominations is March 15, 2013.

NOMINATION PERIOD FOR 2013 ARTHUR HECHT

VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR AWARD

This award is presented annually to individuals who have volunteered their efforts over a period of time and made a difference because of their involvement and commitment to Piedmont’s youth. > Click to read more…