In terms of technology, an awful lot can change in five years.
And the Sandy Springs Police Department knew that all too well, dealing with an out-of-date in-car video system that failed as much as a third of the time and was running out of storage capacity.
So Tuesday, the Sandy Springs City Council unanimously approved a measure that will help the police department upgradeits equipment. The agency will strike a deal with New York-based L-3 Communications to provide units for 62 patrol cars this year, going with the same company that also works with the Johns Creek and Dunwoody police departments.
"Our system is outdated," said Police Chief Terry Sult. "And technology evolves every four to five years. This is a good deal for the public."
Of the three vendors, L3 Communications offered the lowest price for the system at almost $448,000 for 62 units. According to city records, Link Communications would have cost more than $856,000 and Digital Ally offered a price of about $531,000.
Under the proposal, the city agrees to purchase 18 additional units in the next fiscal year to replace the other units. The cost would run about $112,000.
The price includes removing the current in-car camera system and installing the new system, plus a circuit breaker to protect the additional electrical and computer equipment inside of the patrol car.
Sult said the current equipment suffered from a number of problems, including the routine failure of the system's digital video recorders (as much as 35 percent of the time) and the lack of storage capacity for patrol car videos. The server has about 5 percent storage left and can't be increased because it's outdated and no longer supported, he said.
That could be a problem for the public if, say, officers needed to produce a video recording of a traffic stop.
"Having video protects everyone's rights," Sult said.
Sult also praised the move to L-3 Communications for its ability to integrate video with the city's new surveillance video vendor Iron Sky, and as a step toward more collaboration with the Johns Creek and Dunwoody police departments.
Sgt. John Moses of Johns Creek police said his department had been pleased with L-3's system through the first couple of years, and looked forward to more opportunities to work with Sandy Springs.
"We've been very happy with the system," Moses said. "And there's a very small learning curve as far as officers go."
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