Council to consider buying facial recognition security cameras for pickleball, tennis courts

Yahoo

05-04-2025

Apr. 5—Repeated acts of vandalism have led city officials to propose buying $81,000 in security cameras with facial recognition capabilities for Point Mallard Park's new indoor pickleball and tennis court facilities.
The purchase under consideration by the City Council at Monday's 6 p.m. meeting would increase the amount spent this spring on security cameras and associated technology to more than $172,000.
The cameras under consideration would connect with the $91,059 in security cameras and equipment that the city bought for Point Mallard's Aquatic Center and campground in March.
The city is spending $2.5 million each on four-court tennis and 12-court pickleball indoor ClearSpan facilities at Point Mallard. The structures are complete and waiting on the completion of the life-safety system, which includes fire suppression devices, Operations Manager Stephanie McLain told the Parks and Recreation Board on Tuesday.
McLain said there has been $41,000 in damage to the pickleball facility so far, and the new facility hasn't even opened up yet.
Decatur police spokeswoman Irene Cardenas-Martinez said Thursday that the pickleball facility has had three incidents of vandalism in the last six months. McLain said the new tennis facility had one incident.
Cardenas-Martinez said the cases are under investigation.
The city previously purchased Verkeda security cameras from LEK Technology Group LLC, and needs more for the two new facilities.
City Information Systems Director Brad Phillips said the cameras are more high tech than the low-end security cameras like Ring and Blink that are popular with homeowners.
"I've got these cheap cameras in my home," Phillips said. "But they've got their limitations. There's not the same level of quality."
He said the Verkeda cameras are powered by ethernet, and they're not run by battery. He estimated the city has about 150 of them.
"We wouldn't have time to constantly change the batteries (if the city used the less expensive cameras)," Phillips said.
McLain said low-end cameras only have a viewing range of about 50 feet while the Verkeda camera range is at least 200 feet.
According to Verkeda's website, the cameras feature "large digital image sensors and advanced optical lenses capture light to deliver pristine images at night and in harsh weather."
McLain said one thing she likes is the technology includes facial recognition, which can be useful in running a safe park.
The product website says the systems "create alerts from AI-powered search queries, persons of interest, line crossing, motion detection, camera tampering, and other criteria for proactive premises management. Route alerts in real time to a global security operations center, specific individuals or third-party mass notification systems."
"Let's say we have someone at the water park who is being very ugly to one of my staff or something like that, we can find him and identify him," McLain said.
If they've banned someone from the park, she said the cameras can tell the staff if that person is in the park or attempting to enter it.
Phillips said the park staff and DPD, particularly the officers who patrol Point Mallard, will be able to monitor the new safety equipment.
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