After a couple months’ delay, three East Cobb parks will be among 13 in the county that will be getting electronic license plate readers.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday to spend $182,000 for the devices, which are designed to help cut down on crime and improve public safety at the parks.
East Cobb Park, Fullers Park and Terrell Mill Park are on the list for getting the readers, which are being purchased from a private vendor and will monitored by the Cobb Police Department.
The measure was tabled in August at the behest of East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who said he had privacy concerns with the proposal.
The revised request includes a provision that only police will receive the data coming from the devices, and that they will employ their existing policies about restricting use of the data.
No other county employees will have access to that information.
South Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid thanked Ott “for letting us digest” the need to address privacy concerns.
“This was a sensitive issue,” said Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce, who thanked the police and parks and recreation staff for working out a solution.
Cobb will purchase a total of 26 devices from Flock Group, Inc., which has sold cameras to the county for use by other departments. The funding for the park devices is in the 2016 Cobb SPLOST.
The solar-powered readers at the parks will collect data that includes time of arrival and departure as well as license plate and vehicle characteristics.
Two devices will be installed at each of the 13 parks, which Cobb Parks and Recreation Director Jimmy Gisi said were chosen “based on experience and data obtained from the police department records of the number and type of citizen requested dispatch calls.”
The other parks include Noonday Park and Skip Wells Park in Northeast Cobb; Lost Mountain Park, Oregon Park and Fair Oaks Park in West and North Cobb; and Wallace Park, Hurt Road Park, Tramore Park and Wild Horse Creek Park in South Cobb.
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