Here here, thank you Brian for sharing this insightful information. I also urge the council to put our communitys safety and security as as a top priority and revisit ALPRs ASAP.

I have to believe that 15 other communities have not come to the same conclusion without doing ample research. We are clearly the outliers here.

Many of us have recently invested in security measures in our houses and on our properties. We take this seriously. But this isnt enough.

We need our city officials to take this as seriously as we do, and to also invest in our safety at a broader level.

And we cannot waste time. Every week that goes by, another 1+ houses in Sharon Heights gets burglarized. Thats too many for our small community. Once they are done with Sharon Heights, they are likely to hit another Menlo Park community, because Menlo Park has not taken the measures that the neighboring communities have.

Please make our safety a top priority. Please talk to the other communities if you have outstanding questions, as Brian has, so that we can come to a speedy conclusion. The research has already been done for us, by our neighbors. Thank you.

On Fri, Mar 8, 2024, 7:25 AM Derek Marsano > wrote:
Brian,

Thank you for taking the time to further research ALPR technology, and providing us with the results of your research. I had not realized that 13 (!) of our neighbor communities (plus 2 more about to come online) have deployed ALPRs. But I did know that, in those communities where ALPRs have been installed, crime rates have declined measurably. By not joining with our neighbor communities and deploying this technology, I fear that Menlo Park is effectively hanging out a sign reading “open for business” to criminals. I urge the council to approve funding for and deployment of this technology as soon as possible, so that we may better protect our residents’ property and personal safety.


Derek Marsano


From: Brian Kissel >
Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2024 10:29 AM
To: City.council@menlopark.gov
Cc: Maya Sewald >; Derek Marsano >; ​Cat Carlton >; Linda Itskovitz >; Sally Cole >
Subject: Additional information on Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)

Following up on the public comments at the last city council meeting on the significant increase in home break-ins, we spoke with the Palo Alto Police Department about their deployment of ALPRs. Below is a summary of that discussion.
1. PAPD chose to lease rather than buy their cameras for a 3.5 year period since they think the technology will continue to improve and leasing includes maintenance of any devices that have issues. The cost for 20 standard fixed solar powered cameras which can be mounted without a power supply: $165,900 (which includes $61,900 for the balance of FY23 and all of FY24, plus $52,000 annually for FY25 and FY26)
2. The following cities on the peninsula have ALPRs deployed: Atherton, Redwood City, Fremont, Los Altos Hills, San Carlos, San Mateo, Burlingame, San Bruno, Millbrae, Hillsboro, Santa Clara, Campbell, and Los Gatos.
3. Los Altos and Mt. View are in the final stages of approval and deployment.
4. All these cities are using Flock as their provider. Palo Alto decided to go with Flock primarily because they offer a turnkey service (maintenance and data services, not just selling cameras) and that they can connect with other cities to share information. They did look at other vendors but felt Flock was the best solution for them.
5. HOAs and property managers can contract directly with Flock, then share their data with any police departments they choose to. Some HOAs, property management firms, and Stanford Shopping Center in PA feed their data to the PAPD.
6. The goal of ALPRs is deterrence and apprehension.

* Deterrence for 2 reasons: (1) if thieves know that a community has ALPRs they are likely to go to other areas and (2) the PD can load data about known concerning licensed cars (history of crimes from the PD and DOJ) or ones of particular interest due to previous suspicious activity as reported by the PD or residents
* Apprehension for 2 reasons: (1) real time alerts and (2) reviewing historical video feeds from the time and place of the event.
7. The grant dollars that PAPD got for their ALPR deployment is no longer available and they arent aware of any active subsidies, but knows that Flock and the other ALPR providers have full time staff keeping track of all the federal, state, and local subsidy programs that might be available.
Cheers, Brian
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Brian Kissel
brian.kissel@gmail.com
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