Monessen: Mayor, Gregor allege wiretapping

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

The mayor and some council members in Monessen say they’re investigating potential wiretapping inside city hall. A local business owner has refuted the accusation.

Ron Mozer, a Monessen resident and the owner of Crystalline Technology, installed an audio-visual security camera system in the former city offices in the Eastgate section of the city. He installed the system again when offices moved to the current location in the 500 block of Donner Avenue. 

During a state-of-the-city address Tuesday, Mayor Matt Shorraw listed “continuing an ongoing investigation regarding potential wiretapping inside city hall” as one of the city’s accomplishments over the last year.

At the end of the meeting, Mozer said he wanted to explain how the setup inside city hall worked. 

He said the cameras in the main room of city hall, which includes the area where council meets, the front door where the public enters and the access points where the public meets with city employees, were set to record video during the day, but no audio. 

From 5 p.m. to 8 a.m., the cameras were set up with audio recording capabilities to begin recording, but only began when motion was detected.

“Any time that happened, it’s logged,” Mozer said. “Any time it’s activated, it’s logged. You can see it on the computer when it was activated and who turned it on or who turned it off. There is no remote control access with that.”

Mozer said the motion-activated audio-visual recording was set as part of an alarm feature requested by city council at the time.    

“So you’re admitting that you had audio recordings?” Councilman Don Gregor asked Mozer.

“I’m saying that you had audio recording in there,” Mozer said, referring to another room where the system was kept.

“Did you post that anywhere that you had audio recording?” Gregor asked.

Mozer said there was a sign posted outside by the late Ron Chiaravalle, a councilman at the time.   

Gregor claims there was no such sign and he specifically looked for it.

“Last year, you said you could turn the video and audio on and off with a click,” Shorraw said.

“Yes, in there,” Mozer said, again referring to the room with the system, “is a switch to turn that on and off.”

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