Opinions aired on Lincoln surveillance

LINCOLN – Steve Ruhl owns a pizza parlor on Main Street that might benefit from town officials’ tentative plan to put surveillance cameras downtown.

But Ruhl told the Town Council, which will consider the idea next month, that he doesn’t want to see it happen, mainly because such cameras might invade people’s privacy.

“Is this what little Lincoln, Maine, is going to come to? This is a great community, but it has problems like every other community has,” he told councilors during a meeting on Tuesday. “To me, this is going to be ‘Big Brother is watching.’

“This is a free society,” he added. “This is supposed to be a place where we can conduct our activities without fear of government surveillance. It is very easy to take our rights away in search of a solution.”

According to a proposal submitted to Town Manager Glenn Aho by Secure It Video Systems of Lincoln, the cameras’ monitors would be watched by police or dispatchers in the Lincoln Public Safety Building.

The cameras, proponents hope, would be a major deterrent to vandalism and other petty crimes that have destroyed flower pots and damaged vehicles parked on Main Street, among other things.

Discussion of the proposal occurred before and after Aho told councilors that Secure It officials had to cancel their scheduled appearance before the council at the last minute. Opinions were mixed.

Resident Harry Epp agreed with Ruhl, while Councilor David Whalen said he thought that about 90 percent of the people he talked to about the plan favored it.

Another resident, an employee at Penobscot Valley Hospital of Lincoln, said that the cameras installed there have been a major deterrent against crime on the hospital’s campus.