Commissioners approve prison camera system upgrade
The county commissioners on Wednesday approved a $277,000 replacement for the old, failing camera system at the prison.
The unanimous approval came after Warden Beau Sneddon said the existing system is old, shuts down and lacks enough data storage for new digital cameras.
“We’ve been having a lot of camera problems. The system shuts off. It just can’t anymore,” Sneddon said. “When we started switching from analog cameras to digital cameras, we learned it required a lot more data storage.”
He said the $277,030 contract with Cornerstone Detention Products involves replacing the “brains” of the camera system — a “whole room of computer equipment” with a new camera system and data storage, as well as some cameras. The contract calls for seven cameras.
“Once this is done, we’ll then have a capability to upgrade our cameras, kind of at will and kind of control that expense going forward,” Sneddon said.
He said replacing the camera system is included in the budget as a capital expense for $280,000.
A separate agreement was approved with Washington County to house inmates in the county prison at a cost of $60 a day per inmate.
In unrelated business, the commissioners approved a work order with the county engineering from Herbert, Rowland and Grubic to serve as project manger for the water and sewer system replacement project at the Allegheny-Clarion Valley Business Park in Allegheny Township at a cost of $84,000.
At a meeting last week, the commissioners awarded three contracts totaling $4.8 million to replace the systems at the park, where, official said, businesses employ nearly 600 employees and have a combined annual payroll of $30 million.
The park’s water and sewer systems are operating under a consent order from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection that mandates system upgrades.
Construction will begin in about a month. The work will take six to nine months to complete, followed by six months of mandated testing.
