When Caught Between Privacy and Security

Re “ ‘Smart Park’ Is Keeping Watch,” May 5: So, Louise Mozingo, an associate professor from UC Berkeley, thinks that the best way to keep parks safe is to make them “well-used and well-loved.” That’s all well and good during the day, when kids are playing and adults are supposed to enjoy Palmer Park. But at night, when parks are closed, people don’t go there to use them. They drink beer and leave the empty cans, spray graffiti and try to steal barbecue grills.

Even if the thieves are not caught, the alarms and lights are deterrents. As a Glendale resident living across the street from another park that is due to be fenced in next year, I welcome the additional safety and security. People who use the parks as they are intended to be used will not stay away.

Phillip Hain

Glendale

*

I was disgusted to read about the use of electronic surveillance by the city of Glendale to “guard” its parks. What is this society turning into? Everywhere you look cameras are pointing at you. When it’s private businesses guarding their property, that’s one thing. But now we have the government pointing cameras at us at intersections as we drive and even as we use the park.

Personally, I would much rather have some graffiti and vandalism in my local park than a bunch of Big Brother surveillance equipment pointing at me.

Miriam Jaffe

Valley Village