'Eye in the Sky' scans northwest.

• Author: GOULIQUER, DIANNE
• Position: Surveillance system for business districts - Brief Article

Thunder Bay considers surveillance system for business district

Sudbury businesses and their patrons are "elated" by the city's Eye in the Sky program, a local businessman says, and that endorsement may help a similar program make its way into Thunder Bay.

A proposal to introduce a video surveillance program to Thunder Bay has attracted plenty of support from the community's business sector, local government and police officials, who cite Sudbury's success with their program as a reason to bring it to Thunder Bay.

Brian MacRae, Thunder Bay city manager, says no final decisions have been made regarding the Eye in the Sky program yet, other than the city is setting aside $135,000 in its 2000 capital budget to implement the program.

MacRae says the program's direction, including where the cameras will be installed, will be better defined once the committee set up to iron out the details of the surveillance program has issued its report.

"I think it's inappropriate at this time for me to say where the cameras should be located until (the committee) gets into the larger discussion," he says.

"Certainly the committee will look at (location), and I would anticipate that the BIAs (Business Improvement Associations) will be given an opportunity to participate" in the decision. Local BIA representatives were unavailable for comment.

Todd Wilkinson, the chair of Sudbury's Metro Management Board, says almost all of the feedback he has heard about Sudbury's Eye in the Sky Program has been positive.

"There really haven't been any negatives," he says. "The negatives that you hear are from the (people) that really have a big problem with Big Brother watching. But it soon dies. The only people that have a problem with the cameras are the guilty ones.

Also a businessman (of Reg Wilkinson Men's Wear), Wilkinson says not only are downtown businesses pleased with the program, but their customers are as well.

"As far as the businesses go, we're elated only because of the positive comments we're getting back from our customers," Wilkinson says. "We have a lot of elderly people living downtown, and with us being a business that has been around for 52 years, about 15 per cent of our overall clientele is elderly.

"They're downtown people instead of mall people, so that 15 per cent is ecstatic because the crime rate has dropped substantially."

Sudbury's Eye in the Sky program was launched in 1996, and Wilkinson says the downtown core saw a 19 per cent drop in crime...