NORTHVILLE - A call in December for residents to be "the eyes and ears" of the village to help stop burglaries and vandalism appears to be working.
"The calls are way down," Mayor James Groff said at a meeting of the village trustees last week.
He said "two or three individuals have been questioned" and incidents have declined.
As part of the village meeting, trustees decided to spend $2,000 on security cameras for Waterfront Park, where vandalism occurred last summer.
After vandalism incidents in the summer, vandals damaged Waterfront Park in October, just before Pumpkinfest. The event went on despite $2,000 in damage to a light pole and fixture, a broken picnic table, a broken railing and damaged receptacle boxes. A "tremendous amount" of graffiti was found in the bandstand, Groff said. The damage is being covered by village insurance.
At the meeting, village Clerk Wendy Reu said the purchase of mobile tablet computers for use by the village police and highway department will help officials keep an eye on the park and other areas of concern by remote access.
Reu said $2,000 had been transferred from police expenditures to the parks column to cover the cost of four cameras, DVD-recording equipment and peripherals being placed in the park. She said things have gotten quieter in the park and downtown, possibly because word had gotten out about the security cameras.
She said she didn't know of any other cameras being installed by the village, but that some local businesses had installed their own cameras. The three tablet computers were purchased at less than half their retail price of $500 each.
"We got them for $199 each through a special promotion," Reu said.
One of the tablets was used at last week's meeting when out-of-town Trustee Patrick Barnett attended the meeting via a web camera from Sarasota, Fla.
"The tablets operate on a fast 4G cellular network as well as with a wireless router so we can keep an eye on things without actually being there," Reu said.
Concerns in 2011 started with a string of burglaries that began shortly after vandalism incidents during the summer, Groff said.
Thieves used to limit themselves to stealing items such as electronics from parked cars, but they widened the scope of what they took and where they took it from.
"There was quite a robbery spree, with cars broken into as well as sheds and outbuildings," Reu said.
She also said after the owner of a home in the village died last summer, his home was broken into, and a boy who attends school in Northville from Edinburg had his car stolen from his home. The car was later recovered in Schenectady.
"So the break-ins and thefts weren't just here in the village, they're all around the area," she said.
Reu didn't know of any arrests made from the burglaries or car theft.
Groff said the situation is much quieter now, and he hoped the thefts and vandalism would continue to decline.