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Piedmont Approves Camera Network To Track Every Car Entering Town

PIEDMONT (KCBS)—Piedmont residents, concerned about the uptick in burglaries in adjacent Oakland, will have cameras installed to keep track of every car coming into the town.

The thirty-six camera system which comes at cost of $700,000 will installed by September to record the plate numbers of cars entering the town. The recent spike in burglaries, robberies and car thefts in Oakland had spilled over the Piedmont—a small city surrounded all side by the City of Oakland.

Piedmont Gets Cameras To Track Cars Entering Town; Fears Crime Spike

The city council there approved the camera security system on Monday after some residents were recently held hostage as there homes were ransacked. Police Chief Rikki Goede said the cameras make sense.

"If the technology is out there, why not use it to help you keep a community safe, or help you solve crimes?" she said.

The cameras will be up by September as part of a larger crime-fighting plan that includes beefing up a community watch program.

Piedmont resident Rick Schiller told KPIX 5 that he wonders if the money wouldn't be better spent on more police.

"Other cities, like Long Beach, have implemented this and it hasn't been effective; it hasn't reduced crime. But I hope that I'm wrong. I hope this is a very effective tool for the police," he said.

In 2009, Tiburon was one of the first cities in the nation to use a camera to record the license plates of people coming into town.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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