Chief of Police John L. Leacher is helping lead ahead brand new safety systems throughout campus that will be put in over the summer. Courtney Prielipp | Washtenaw Voice
Board of Trustees approves $3 million for upgrade
Alice McGuire
Staff Writer
At a recent Board of Trustees meeting, board members approved a three million dollar plan to upgrade security cameras on campus as well as 10 assistance phones/towers—marking the first campus-wide camera project at Washtenaw Community College.
Work on the project has already begun and, according to Provost and Chief Operations Officer Linda Blakey, is tentatively anticipated to be completed in February or March of 2025.
Blakey also included that most of the work is being done indoors and during off-hours plus weekends, and should not disrupt classes though students may occasionally see evidence of electrical work.
However, students can expect some visible, outdoor construction during the summer months as fiber optic wiring will be installed to support the upgraded assistance phone towers.
“We have some cameras on campus, but we have areas that have no cameras. We also have some older cameras that are analog and the need to move to digital cameras. Campus safety is a top priority to us, and so we explained to the board what was needed to have our campus be more safe,” said Blakey, upon being asked what deciding factors went into the board members’ approval of the three million dollar budget.
“We’re really, really excited about this.” said John Leacher, the Chief of Public Safety and Emergency Management, adding, “There should be no place inside any building in which we wouldn’t be able to track someone who came here to do harm, so that’s huge.”
“We’re grateful that our Board of Trustees believe that money is worth making the investment in really making sure that–moving forward–we’re going to be doing everything we need to be doing to keep our campus safe,” said Leacher.
When asked about whether the security camera upgrade might cause some students to feel monitored, Leacher described the campus’ approach as reactive rather than proactive.
“We don’t approach this project with the ‘we’re gonna have eyes glued to those cameras all day long, trying to catch somebody doing something a little bit out of line’ [approach], we get calls after the fact,” he said.
“So, if someone calls us and says ‘I had my computer in a classroom at this time, and I think somebody stole it,’ we can go back and check camera footage to see if there was traffic or somebody we can identify,” Leacher added.
The 10 new special assistance phones were also a key part of the upgrade package, with Blakey adding that the phones will be “hard-wired” rather than “solar powered” as they were previously.
“I’m excited for the assistance phones. We used to have some emergency phones on campus, but they were solar powered. But as trees grew on campus, they became less effective. So now the ones we’re putting in will be hard wired in terms of power and connectivity,” said Blakey.
“People think they’re for emergencies only. We want those to be used. We want people to see ‘assistance phone’ as meaning that if you have an emergency or are lost and need directions, you can go to that phone,” said Leacher.
“We have a really good reputation of being a safe campus. We want to make sure that, for years to come, all of you continue to feel that way,” he said.