Drawing police, fire and alarm industry officials, the Long Island Alarm Association (LIAA) recently held a false alarm symposium. The event focused on trying to show law and life safety officials that the industry was concerned about the false alarm issue.
“We need to discuss in an open forum what our options are to work collectively to reduce false alarms,” LIAA President Phil Lagravinese told the public authorities present. “We need each other. This isn’t going to besuccessful if we don’t work together hand in hand with the authorities.”
Also on hand was Ron Walters, legislative coordinator for the Security Industry Alarm Coalition (SIAC), who discussed enhanced call verification (ECV). Walters was presented with a $1,000 donation from LIAA.
Besides LIAA members, police officials from Suffolk County and New York City were on had, as were several fire officials from several New York counties.
In other false alarm news …
TURLOCK, Calif.:The police department in the central California city 100 miles east of San Francisco and 85 miles north of Fresno continues to push for a verified response burglar alarm policy.
Turlock Police held a meeting at Turlock High School on May 25 looking to get input from the community on a proposed plan where police would respond to burglar alarms only if a second source verifies the alarm, according to the Turlock Journal. Turlock police have been pushing for verified response sincelast December.
“We can no longer consider unverified alarms a valid source of information,” Williams told the Journal. “It just so happens that (police officers) have been providing free labor to alarm companies for years.”
If Turlock police get their way, the city of 67,000 would become the second in California to adopt a total verified response policy, following Fresno. The cities of Los Angeles and Simi Valley have alarm policies in place where some burglar alarm calls need to be verified.
According to the newspaper, some homeowners and business owners at the meeting expressed reservations about the new policy, saying they were concerned about security guards responding to alarms instead of police.
A second town hall meeting will take place at 7 p.m. on June 22 at Pitman High School.
