The San Diego City Council on Tuesday afternoon gave police the greenlight to move smart streetlight technology and license plate readers without approval.
In a commanding 7-2 vote, city councilmembers granted police the freedom to relocate streetlight cameras and plate readers within two blocks of approved sites. Supporters say it just cuts through red tape, but critics worry this undermines the council's oversight of public surveillance.
"Everything has been transparent," one person said during public comment. "It's a waste of your time, as you know, and the police time if they have to come back over and over."
"We can't have this ambiguity of where this surveillance technology being placed and then having them being shifted, and we learn afterward," another said during public comment. "We need to know ahead of time."
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When the city relaunched this surveillance tech last year, San Diego police proposed 500 locations. But the department says dozens of those sites don't work, leaving about 60 surveillance cameras and readers sitting in storage. Site hang-ups include power and voltage issues, blocked camera views and mistaking Caltrans light poles for city poles.
And in some cases, streetlights don't exist. Under the city's ordinance, police needed to go through council approval to relocate those some-odd 60 sites — a process the department said took seven months.
For that reason, police asked the council for the right to relocate any of its surveillance cameras and plate readers within a two-block zone of a previously approved site.
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SDPD said those two-block zones will be chosen based on violent crime statistics and will uphold the current standards of avoiding sites near reproductive health centers, worship centers or immigration centers.
But Councilmembers Vivian Moreno and Sean Elo-Rivera expressed reservations.
"I need to be able to look at my constituents in the eye and tell them that I know how the information that the city is collecting will be used," Elo-Rivera said at Tuesday's council meeting. "I still cannot do that, and for that reason, I am voting no."
"That's a lot of bureaucracy to go through," Councilmember Marni Von Wilpert said. "Six to nine months just to move the location of previously approved technology that we already said you can use."
Police said after a camera is relocated, they will update the interactive map of streetlight locations. You can sheck out that map on the city's website.
Since the city relaunched the program a year ago, police say plate readers and streetlight cameras have helped police recover 210 stolen cars, 10 firearms and make 206 arrests. The cameras do not record audio or use facial recognition.
