City placing signs to scare off vandals|[8/2/06]
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Visitors to the city’s downtown Art Park or the swimming pool on Army-Navy Drive may pay them little attention, but Vicksburg officials are hoping a few new, menacing signs will ward off potential vandals.
“It’s just to provide a little more security,” said Mayor Laurence Leyens of the 14-by-18-inch signs, featuring a white eye against a yellow, black and red background and the tag, 󈬈-Hour Camera Surveillance Area: This area is monitored the Vicksburg Police Department.”
They will arrive this week to accompany two cameras already overseeing the Art Park on Mulberry Street and another monitoring the pool.
One Art Park camera has been in place for more than a year, said Billy Gordon of the city’s Information Technical Department, but a second with streaming video capabilities was added last month to offer a better range of view over the park. About the same time, a camera was installed at the pool and another, “slightly better” Web cam was put up at Washington and Clay streets.
All four cameras feed to the city’s servers, where anyone with Web access can dial them up on the city’s site, www.vicksburg.org, anytime – including the Vicksburg Police Department, which has the feeds up on security screens 24 hours a day.
“We put them up there initially for just sort of an enhancement to the Web site, but it turns out the police department can log onto the Web and monitor them, too,” said Gordon. “They are using them for that, but that’s not why they were put up initially.”
The cameras and signs are meant to deter after-hours vandalism and monitor the swimming pool, near Vicksburg High School, a frequent site for late night, teen gatherings.
“The previous administration had a guard there 24 hours a day, which was hugely expensive, and we eliminated that,” Leyens said.
The Art Park was built in 2003 from funds in the $17.5 million bond issue the administration authorized in November 2001. Its hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week. The area also features 17 murals painted by artist Robert Dafford on the north and south floodwalls across from the park depicting scenes from Vicksburg’s history, and the proposed Corps of Engineers Museum, planned for the old depot a few hundred feet from the park. Start of construction on the $12 million museum project is still at least two years away.
The swimming pool remains open to the public through Sunday from 1-5 p.m. and 6-8 p.m., and will open for public swimming only from 4-6 p.m. beginning Monday. The last weekend for public swimming is Aug. 18 and 19, from 1 until 5 p.m. each day.