Chilmark’s select board voted unanimously Tuesday night to authorize a committee charged with exploring security camera options for Menemsha’s West Dock. Committee members will be selected by Chilmark harbormaster Ryan Rossi and select board member Warren Doty.
Select board chair Jim Malkin urged Doty and Rossi to tap “no more than seven” committee members. The board’s vote came after about 40 minutes of debate. Previously, public outcry over a 30-foot camera tower erected on the West Dock led to a joint meeting of the town’s harbor advisory committee and parks and recreation committee. Those committees called for a halt to the camera tower project until it could be further evaluated. The committees’ stance followed a March select board meeting where criticism of the tower was ample. The board’s vote authorized only three cameras, to be mounted on the harbormaster’s shack, which is on the east side of Menemsha Harbor. The West Dock camera installation was excluded from the vote.
Prior to Tuesday’s select board meeting, Rossi disassembled the tower, leaving behind only the concrete pedestal it had been mounted on. Local excavator John Keene said at the previous joint committee meeting it wouldn’t be too difficult to remove the pedestal and store it, but Rossi walked that idea back Tuesday night.
“He went down to look at the pedestal afterward, and gave me a call and let me know it would not be as easy as he expected,” Rossi said. “There’s electrical conduit that runs through the center of the concrete slab. So it would be a lot more extensive than him just picking it up and relocating it.”
Rossi told the board he’d been working with Chilmark Police Chief Jonathan Klaren and former Chilmark Police Chief Tim Rich to craft policies and procedures for camera use in Menemsha.
“Our intent is to provide a weblink for public viewing of real-time imagery,” Rossi said. This would exclude the ability to pan and zoom. Rossi said it was unclear if public access is best made through a weblink or through a username and password system.
One reason public access to the footage would be handy, Rossi said, is that it would let boat owners keep tabs on their boats without having to drive to Menemsha to do so. He said it would also be helpful for keeping watch for overdue vessels.
Questions about privacy in Menemsha were raised, and Doty suggested that the issue be held over for discussion until the next board meeting. Doty said it was the recommendation of both the harbor advisory committee and the parks and recreation committee that there be a “pause” in security camera development in the harbor.
“It was my sense that the general consensus among the 30 people on the call [was] that the tower was not a good idea,” Doty said.
Rossi and Doty differed as to the wording of the vote taken by the two committees. Rossi said he believed the vote only halted West Dock camera work, but cameras on the east side of the harbor could proceed. Doty didn’t recall that in the vote, but felt it was the general opinion of those present in the joint meeting.
“I will state that I was surprised as we walked through this issue over the past several weeks, months, the number of cameras that are present down in Menemsha,” Malkin said. Malkin described them as private cameras.
Menemsha resident Deborah Hancock asked what “pause” truly meant.
Select board member Bill Rossi said, “I think we should have some idea, to answer Debbie’s question, exactly what ‘pause’ means. I’m understanding ‘pause’ to mean that there’s going to be a committee formed [which will] come up with a recommendation … for maybe next annual town meeting. That’s what would constitute a pause, in my opinion.”
Ryan Rossi stressed the pause stems from the tower, and doesn’t extend into privacy issues. He noted security cameras were approved at the prior annual town meeting.
“The issue that was raised later on was that the tower was not in keeping with what the townspeople wanted to see in Menemsha,” he said. He asked for clarity as to whether “pause” would encompass the tower alone, or if it would also extend to the system approved at town meeting.
Rossi said even reducing the number of cameras to three atop the harbormaster’s shack was a backslide from the vote at town meeting.
“I know the tower was not included in that vote, but the use of security cameras for town docks within Menemsha was passed by a majority vote,” he said.
Harbor advisory chair Jeff Maida said he didn’t think the town meeting vote spelled out the number of cameras the system would use. “So I don’t think by putting up three cameras, we’re necessarily going backwards,” Maida said. “We’re going to have something, as opposed to having nothing now. So I would certainly hope that we would move forward with the east side and try to figure out a better solution for the west side.”
Rossi said the harbor has the “majority” of its issues on the west side of the harbor, so he hoped nothing would be enacted that would ban cameras from that area.
“All along I’ve been wondering what the extent of the crime and the vandalism that’s going on in Menemsha [is],” beach committee chair Clarissa Allen said, “and I think before these committees move forward, it would be really good to have some clear documentation of what’s going on down there.”
Chief Klaren said what has historically occurred in Menemsha is property crime. He said the police department recently ran a five-year report on incidents in Menemsha, and while he didn’t have it with him for the meeting, he noted “well over a hundred incidents” occur in Menemsha each year. He also said that cameras such as the ones contemplated for Menemsha can’t legally capture audio without notification.
In other business, the board unanimously approved the sixth annual Meet the Fleet for August 4, from 3 to 7 pm.
Bill Rossi, who is chair of the building committee, said construction mobilization for the new fire station and Tri-Town Ambulance headquarters is expected to begin next week. “The fire station has been demolished, which everyone here probably knows already,” he said. Rossi said he expected the project to finish up in a year’s time.
Malkin touched upon the ongoing quest to arrive at a high school funding compromise. He reminded the board a working group of one select board member from each town and all six town administrators is coalescing to help arrive at a compromise.
Malkin said the expected cost of the rebuild/renovation high school project is “now north of $100 million, and perhaps significantly north of $100 million.”
He said the idea is to try to get a deal by May 15.
Town administrator Tim Carroll said he expected the first meeting of the working group to take place April 20.
The board voted 2-0 to send Malkin as its representative on the working group. Malkin abstained from the vote.
“There is no one on this Island who doesn’t want this project to happen, and happen well, for their kids,” Malkin said. “The issue is funding. We have some towns that feel that they pay too much in taxes, and there are some towns who feel that they shouldn’t have to bear the burden of somebody else’s taxes. And it will be very interesting, and hopefully successful, to get something that is palatable to all the voters in all the towns. I look forward to trying to accomplish that.”
