[Bboa-members] RE: Marina Security Meeting

[Paul Kamen]

On 8/10/2006 at 8:13 PM Tom & Lori Jeremiason wrote:
>The problem with the Kiosk (Guard Shack) is that if you close the Marina at 11pm, what do you do with the people already inside the Marina. 
There is no suggestion here to "close the Marina." The proposal is that after 11 pm or midnight (or whatever time is chosen) access becomes controlled. The guard never has to take anyone's word about why they need to enter the marina. It would require a hotel key, marina key, yacht club key, hotel or dinner reservations (easily confirmed by phone from the guard shack) if someone is arriving that late). 

Yes, late-night public access to the fishing pier would be lost, and I have argued against proposals that would limit that access in the past, but I think the time may have come to make that compromise. 

Obviously there will always be some holes in any reasonable security system. Of course a car thief could enter early  and stay in the marina after hours. But this is no worse than with a mobile patrol, which lacks a fixed control point. The kiosk or guard shack could easily record license numbers in and out, something the mobile patrol can't do.
>The problem people and the thieves will just enter before 11pm.  There are no current laws that forbid you from being in the Marina after 11 so the police cannot chase anyone out even if they had the staffing to do that. 
No-one is proposing chasing people out of the Marina under either the guard shack or the mobile patrol scenario. This is a red herring. 
>So once the bad guys are in they will have the run of the Marina since the guard is sitting at the front gate.
As noted, there are holes in any reasonable system. With the mobile patrol, all the car thief has to do is wait for the patrol car to pass, then they have the run of that part of the Marina. And there is no record of your exit, and no way to restrict exit if a real-time report is made. 

Here we have the benefit of a single access and exit point, tailor made for a gate and a guard shack. It gives us options that most high crime areas do not have. We should take advantage of this topology. 
>You also run into the problems with the Fishing Pier. What if I am fishing on the pier, do I have to leave at 11pm? What if I want to go to the to the pier  after 11pm? How do you make sure I am going fishing and not coming committing crimes? 
 
Again, no-one has proposed making people leave the fishing pier or any other part of the marina when controlled access goes into effect. 
>Can the City close the pier from 10pm to 6am like the current park curfews?
I think it can, although I would hate to see it close that early, and I have argued against restricting late-night pier access in the past. But if it's seen as too dangerous for most people to use at night, then maybe the trade-off is worth it from a public access point of view. That is, we might have much safer access up to midnight (or whatever time is chosen), and then no entry after that time. 
>How about berther guests? How do you ensure that someone who says they are going to visit Mr Smith on the A Dock after 11pm is really going there?
By telephone. Or an escort to the dock, and escort back out if Mr. Smith is not there. The security guy in the guard shack does not have to stay there continuously for it to be reasonably effective. 
>No plan is perfect, but I believe a mobile patrol is much more effective than a static guard at a Kiosk. Especially, if the Guard is in a marked city vehicle and has the ability to communicate with the police department. 
 
I can think of several examples: 
 
A mobile Security Guard finds a large group of people drinking in H’s Lordships parking lot. The guard could call police and the police could take action (Before the next gang shooting). 
The Security Guard sees a suspicious vehicle in a parking lot. The Security Guard writes down the license number of the suspicious vehicle and notifies the Police. The next day an auto is burglarized or stolen… Now the police have a lead. 
A mobile Security Guard can lock gates and become familiar with the area and its residents after hours. 
 I don't think it's critical for the guard to be in the kiosk or guard shack absolutely all the time. The guard would still have a vehicle and could still perform all of the functions you list above. Yes, this leaves the entrance uncontrolled for odd time intervals, but the result is clearly no worse than an all-mobile patrol, and the security person gets to use some on-the-ground judgment about whether it is more important to be at the access point or moving around at any given time. 

The guard shack, the gate and the vehicle are the least expensive parts of the system - it's the salary of the security people that is the big ongoing expense, and I think the guard shack is a very important tool to help them be more effective. 

The guard shack is more oriented towards prevention, while the mobile patrol is more about apprehending people who are already in the marina causing some kind of trouble. Maybe this reflects the different priorities of park people v. law enforcement. I defer to Tom's expertise in law enforcement, but it seems to me that it makes more sense to keep the crime out of the marina rather than chase it around inside. 

 
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Paul Kamen
Chair, Berkeley Waterfront Commission
510-540-7968  510-219-8106 (cell)
pk at well.com   www.BerkeleyWaterfront.org

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