Shorraw repeats security camera accusations
By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
Monessen City Council held an executive session Tuesday night to discuss potential litigation, and Mayor Matt Shorraw disclosed many of the issues involved.
At the beginning of the meeting, Shorraw announced that council held the executive session about potential litigation and personnel matters regarding the former camera system and its audio capabilities that was installed in city hall.
Council didn’t discuss it further at that time, but at the end of the meeting former mayor Mary Jo Smith asked Shorraw to read his statement again “about what the executive session was in regards to.”
Shorraw said he’d read it at the beginning of the meeting, but in case anyone had come in late, he summarized it again.
This issue has been brought up several times by Shorraw and, at times, Councilman Don Gregor.
Ron Mozer, a Monessen resident, Shorraw’s opponent in Tuesday’s primary 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.
In January, Shorraw said he was investigating the system as “potential wiretapping inside city hall.”
At that meeting, Mozer said the camera security system was installed 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, Mozer said in January.
Tuesday night, Shorraw said part of the executive session discussion was about suspicions “we’ve had … for some time” and that they now have evidence there was audio recorded by the system.
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