If the rate were shared among all Napier rateable homes and businesses, it would amount to $8.11 each.<\/p>\n
A council spokesperson said the nighttime CCTV monitoring aimed to enhance crime prevention efforts within the central city, offering direct benefits to local businesses and residents.<\/p>\n
Jackman said the city streets were not an appealing place to be and that the money for the CCTV would be better spent cleaning up the streets.<\/p>\n
The council spokesperson said homelessness was a nationwide issue under review at all levels, from the Government to local services.<\/p>\n
They said the council recognised the challenges and was working in collaboration with partner organisations, including the police, Whatever It Takes Trust (Witt) and K\u0101inga Ora. <\/p>\n
Mayor Richard McGrath said the council included CCTV in its recent annual plan so the community could share their views on their priorities. <\/p>\n
\u201cCCTV was an important tool to make Napier\u2019s central city safe and people feel at ease while they\u2019re in town,\u201d McGrath said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow the service is paid for is an essential part of the decision, because it needs to be considered in a way that makes it sustainable and means it doesn\u2019t add unnecessary pressure to ratepayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said everyone wanted a safe city and it was a collective decision on how that was achieved. <\/p>\n
Another business owner on Tennyson St, Theresa Cabot, who has owned Degas Women\u2019s Clothing and Fashion Boutique for 10 years, said it was the council\u2019s responsibility to keep its citizens safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not up to business owners. It\u2019s up to the council to protect its citizens. It\u2019s appalling that they are asking us to pay for it,\u201d Cabot said.<\/p>\n
But not all business owners were against the proposal.<\/p>\n
Some Napier CBD businesses are against a proposal by the Napier City Council to charge them a targeted rate for CCTV cameras, but Trattoria Alla Toscana restaurant owner Enzo Saber is all for it. Photo \/ Linda Hall<\/p>\n
Trattoria Alla Toscana restaurant owner Enzo Saber said it was a good thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCameras are safety, and people will know they can walk around the city during the evening when it\u2019s dark and be safe. It is very good,\u201d Saber said.<\/p>\n
He said the restaurant has had problems with homeless people but there was nothing it could do about it \u201cbecause it\u2019s a problem all over the world\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said more lighting on the city streets would also help to bring people back into the city after dark.<\/p>\n
However, Napier City Business general manager Pip Thompson said the organisation strongly opposed the proposal.<\/p>\n
She wrote in her submission that CCTV night monitoring was a \u201cpublic good\u201d, monitoring streets, footpaths and public spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cCameras support police, the community and benefit the city\u2019s residents, visitors, workers and businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is therefore inappropriate to categorise CCTV nighttime monitoring as a service that primarily benefits businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council spokesperson said the CCTV trial had shown three key benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first is early detection and reporting of suspicious behaviour. Direct communication between monitoring staff and police has proven effective,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne example was the identification of a vehicle patrolling the CBD with its lights off, which led to the arrest of the offender and the recovery of a stolen vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second was improved protection of CBD assets with quick communication with Fire and Emergency New Zealand when fires were lit in town, helping prevent more damage.<\/p>\n
The third was improved police intelligence.<\/p>\n
\u201cActive monitoring has enabled staff to assist police in apprehending offenders, helping to proactively prevent future incidents within the central city,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
McGrath said the council looked forward to reviewing the feedback in the annual plan submissions and coming together to discuss the best approach.<\/p>\n
The council will consider all feedback, and submitters will have the opportunity to present their views in person on May 27 and 28.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the rate were shared among all Napier rateable homes and businesses, it would amount to $8.11 each.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94,1975,138,21181,32294,2199,212222,5205,3594,302,3607,111,43,139,69,3111,42929,2738,9769,29056,3598,19257,312,1326,1458,417],"class_list":["post-412828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-appalling","tag-at","tag-business","tag-cctv","tag-charge","tag-city","tag-closedcircuit","tag-council","tag-hit","tag-its","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-out","tag-outrageous","tag-owner","tag-owners","tag-proposed","tag-proposing","tag-rate","tag-says","tag-shop","tag-targeted","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}