The Birmingham City Council unanimously approved a contract with Alabama Power Company for the installation of public safety video equipment to be used by the Birmingham Police Department across the city.
The cameras will be placed on existing APC infrastructure and will provide live feeds to the BPD’s Real Time Crime Center. The contract is for an additional 20 months of service, an extension of the original agreement, totaling $9.7 million, with $4.1 million of that coming from the U.S. Department of Justice. The funding from the city will be paid in regular installments over the course of the contract extension.
“We have to be intentional with how we’re approaching public safety and at a certain point it has to become personal for the people who live in our communities,” Councilor LaTonya Tate said. “If people feel like they can go out in broad daylight and start shooting, at what point does that become personal for everyone else who lives here? We have to sit down and have these hard conversations and get to a point of healing and reconciliation. That’s how we move forward because we all want the same thing.”
Tuesday’s vote comes one week after the amendment was proposed to the council by Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin. The council delayed voting at the July 1 meeting, with many council members concerned about the cost increase the amendment would bring.
To alleviate those concerns, the city council held a special called Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, July 7. Representatives from Alabama Power, along with Woodfin and Chief Michael Pickett with the Birmingham Police Department, fielded questions from the committee about the need for more cameras.
A persistent question from city councilors was how the city would pay for the increased cost of the contract once the current federal grant money runs out.
Woodfin indicated that the city would apply for more federal grants. If the city is not awarded more federal funds the city would budget for the rest of the contract to be paid out of the city’s general fund through the rest of the contract term, Woodfin said. The increase would require about $2 million per year, according to Birmingham City Council President Darell O’Quinn.
“I think a lot of the concerns were related to the cost and trying to understand, ‘Okay, what it is that we’re actually getting?’” said O’Quinn, after the special called meeting.
“In terms of public safety, it gets into the realm of, well, can you place a value on public safety?” said O’Quinn. “And when you talk about preventing violent crime, and that sort of thing, I think that’s kind of priceless. But, again, we have to live within our means.”
The mayor celebrated the amendment’s passing Tuesday.
“The truth is, one homicide is too many,” Woodfin said. “But it’s important that we made this issue a priority of public safety, particularly around decreasing gun violence. And especially around decreasing homicides, and we’ve done that with over 50% decrease in homicides.”
