The fate of the nine SafetyStick parking surveillance cameras in Pottsville is up in the air.
There are only about two weeks remaining on a 60-day trial for the SafetySticks throughout the city. This trial period comes after a 90-day trial that followed their initial installation last year.
The reason for these trial periods is due to their ineffectiveness. That’s ineffectiveness based on who you ask, the Pottsville Parking Authority or Municipal Parking Services Inc., the company that owns them.
At their meeting Friday morning at City Hall, Parking Authority board members learned from executive director Ian Lipton that the sum total of the nine cameras in locations around Pottsville are catching between 35-40 violations per month. That’s only about 4 per camera but in reality, it seems 3 cameras are catching most of those violations.
Now, as far as their effectiveness goes, it could be argued that the presence of these cameras in the select locations around Pottsville is working because no one is parking where cameras are located.
But MPS wants to get about $100 in revenue per stick per month and that’s just not happening with all of them.
Lipton said at the end of this recent 60-day trial period, he’ll meet with MPS and see if the company would agree to keep just the 3 SafetyStick cameras that are getting most of the violations and send the rest back to the company.
If they don’t, all the cameras would be returned and the Parking Authority would just enforce illegal parking the old-fashioned way. Signs warning of $35 fines for parking in intersections
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