ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The Allentown Police Department is set to spend almost $1 million over the next year to establish “citywide surveillance.”
Allentown City Council members voted 5-0 on Wednesday to approve a $984,000 contract with Paramount Security Partners for cameras, mounts, hardware, switches and more.
That contract will be covered by a seven-figure grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Police Chief Charles Roca confirmed.
The Allentown Police Department plans to outfit its officers and vehicles with new cameras. It will also work to replace or upgrade about 175 cameras across the city to provide high-definition surveillance footage, Roca said.
Council members made no comments Wednesday on the contract for Paramount Security Partners, which also was not discussed at a committee meeting.
Many of those cameras were installed from 2007 to 2009, Roca said.
Allentown City Council in March accepted more than $1.5 million from the commission. That total also included $385,000 to reimburse the department for buying fingerprint readers, license-plate scanners and gunshot-detection technology, which launched this year.
Council members made no comments Wednesday on the contract for Paramount Security Partners, which also was not discussed at a committee meeting.
Unlike ordinances, resolutions can be introduced and passed at the same meeting. The council’s president holds discretion over sending resolutions to committee for further debate, according to City Clerk Mike Hanlon.
Members voted Wednesday to say they believed city administration officials followed proper contracting procedures and not necessarily that they supported the surveillance program, Hanlon said.
Council gave itself the power to approve or deny contracts over $40,000 after former Mayor Ed Pawlowski was indicted in 2017 — and later sentenced to 15 years in federal prison — for pay-to-play contracting, he said.
Passed without a peep
Residents have spoken out at several meetings in the past year against what one called “very invasive monitoring.”
Council in 2023 accepted a grant of just over $600,000 for a gunshot-detection system, which wildlife biologist Neil Singh said is similar to what he uses for work.
“This is a technology that's often used to monitor bird populations,” Singh said. “I'm kind of astounded that it's being used in this capacity to monitor the people of Allentown.”
Several others urged council to also invest in measures to prevent gun violence establishing the gunshot-detection system.
Lewis Shupe, who is running an independent campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, told council in January that the gunshot-detection technology is an “expansion of the surveillance state.”
He also challenged the constitutionality of police tracking the movement of people and their vehicles, with Allentown police expected to get license-plate readers this year.
But the contract with Paramount Security Partners seemingly flew under the radar, as it only hit the public record — Wednesday’s meeting agenda — earlier this week.