Citizen Crime Watch Blog

Camera installer has no La. license
N.O. council looks at surveillance contract
Thursday, June 26, 2008
By David Hammer

After months of fruitless attempts to get public documents on New Orleans’ troubled crime camera program, a City Council member has discovered that the Nagin administration gave a small contract to a company — too small to need a Louisiana contractor’s license — then exponentially increased the company’s take to more than $1 million.

Councilwoman Stacy Head led the inquiry into the city’s contract with LSI Research of Huntsville, Ala. She got confirmation Wednesday from city legal and contract procurement staff that the company was hired to install just eight cameras, even though the city knew at the time it needed to install at least 200 of the devices.

The administration officials also confirmed what Head found Tuesday night while reviewing documents: LSI falsely claimed it had a Louisiana contractor’s license when it bid for the work. Head said LSI used what she called a “fraudulent” contractor’s license number in an initial bid to install and operate the cameras.

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Homeland Security director announces his retirement
by The Times-Picayune
Tuesday June 10, 2008, 7:24 AM

Col. Terry Ebbert, the city’s director of Homeland Security, has announced his retirement as of June 30.

Ebbert, named to his position in February, 2003, said in a press release issued by the mayor’s office that he has “some family, personal and professional goals that remain unfulfilled.” He said he intends to remain involved in working to restore the city “to its prominent position as one of the strategic and vital cities in America.”

The announcement comes a day after Mayor Ray Nagin’s top political aide, Kenya Smith, announced his resignation. Smith, with Nagin since 2002, was director of intergovernmental relations.

Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed, who led the city’s hurricane preparation efforts in 2007, will continue in his role, according to the press release.

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Few tapes rolling on crime in N.O.
Promised cameras were not hooked up
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
By Brendan McCarthy
Staff writer
The Times-Picayune

Days before thousands of citizens marched on City Hall last year in a public outcry about crime, Mayor Ray Nagin held a twilight news conference to outline crime-fighting initiatives.

One key to the plan: The mayor championed crime surveillance cameras as an unassailable witness to help take back the city’s neighborhoods.

On that January evening in 2007, Nagin announced that 50 cameras would be operable within a week, with 200 online by the end of the year. It was a modest proposal, scaled down from an earlier pledge of 1,000 cameras.

Even the more modest goal remains elusive.

Since the announcement, much of the Nagin administration’s crime camera program has been cloaked in secrecy. City Council members and citizens seeking basic information about the program, such as contracts, have been rebuffed.

As a City Council hearing about the matter began Tuesday morning, the city’s technology officer, who is in charge of camera deployment, was nowhere to be found. A note sent to the head of the Public Works committee stated that Anthony Jones — who had canceled several previously scheduled appearances — was traveling.

That left two attendees, a police officer and an associate tasked with monitoring the program, to give council members the bad news: Right now, the city has “about 85 cameras that work most of the time.”

The announcement incensed some council members.

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