Tonight’s vote on the CCTV policy should be very entertaining if nothing else. The policy itself (in stark contrast to other councils) contains the following paragraph –
Council will not operate CCTV where the primary purpose is enforcement of the criminal law. Enforcement of the criminal law is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies. If such agencies wish to install and operate CCTV systems on Council property, Council will not unreasonably withhold consent
And just for the record, we invite readers to compare what Jim Magee is cited as stating above, and what he said in December, 2013. This is taken from our post of the time –
MAGEE: said that cctv is ‘now a necessity’ and claimed that in 2010 he had called for a report on this. Even though Glen Eira isn’t a ‘hot bed of crime’ it’s important because ‘a lot of people take comfort’ and the cameras give a sense of security to people. Repeated that cameras can detect crime and prosecuting people. Thought that the Bentleigh rotunda would be ‘one of the first places’ where they could put the cameras. Thought it was also ‘incumbent’ for council to ‘do things’ for all those people likely to commit a crime in order to ‘discourage the anti-social behaviour’. Said that ‘this would probably be a large part of council’s operations’ in the future. This would be the role of policy in identifying ‘how to manage that in the future’. ‘This is the beginning, this is the first step’. He commends the motion.
Consistency is, of course, none of these councillors’ strong point!
Glen Eira Debates 
July 22, 2014 at 6:15 PM
Pretty rich for Magee to be complaining about “politician’s ambitions”. Ex aspirant for Hotham knows all about political grandstanding I would think.
July 22, 2014 at 9:45 PM
Combine this with your past two previous posts re
1. small sizes with substandard amenity (as per one quote from a developer “of course they’re small because nobody is going to want to spend much time in them” and
2. how dodgey (understated) the housing statistics are
and you have to wonder just how safe the major growth areas are going to be in the future.
Of course Councillors need not worry, the planners will see to that. Probably accounts for why Esakoff, Lipshutz and Hyams have overstayed their welcome – too scared to move on and let some new blood in.
July 24, 2014 at 6:13 PM
Council might not claim that Glen Eira is a hotbed of crime, but it does claim that Carnegie Urban Village is a high-crime area. Despite Council’s claims, I’m not a fan of increased CCTV and ubiquitous surveillance. They cost money and are unlikely to be used except for the most extreme and outrageous crimes in which death results.