Ken
Your very popular Newsletter has motivated a very diverse reaction from a very diverse industry about a very old issue, public vs: private response.
A summary of recent Newsletter interaction suggests that it is just more of the same.... the industry is still highly fragmented without coordinated operating standards or meaningful leadership. Some alarm associations like ESA (NBFAA), SIAC, CAA are trying to provide leadership and promote industry wide standards, but have failed. Their failure has been an embarrassment for much of the industry.
Consequently, the industry has invited confrontation and legislation. It is a serious industry weakness and the police know it. Decades of police experiences and documentation give the leverage to the municipality.
A good example of a leadership failure is ECV/ Enhanced Call Verification. Most monitoring firms and strong association leadership could have, should have, practiced ECV in nationwide standards several decades ago. We all talked about it as far back as the 80's. Action then would have mitigated legislation today. Failure to do it voluntarily has forced involuntarily controls, via legislation. We now have hundreds of cities and several states that say the industry has not taken ownership of the solution, so they will do it for us. As we have observed in Oakland, State of Florida, State of Texas, Fremont, Fontana, Milwaukee, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Buffalo NY, just to name a few.
Regardless of what we say, the police cannot justify historical alarm response… "Police response to alarm signals is simply an extension of the private monitoring process, which is the last step in the process of elimination that requires a site inspection to determine if an emergency exists, not because of an emergency." And when it is "gifting of public funds", it is unlawful in most states. All of which suggests that the industry needs serious leadership that can provide serious guidance to the thousands of security providers and millions of alarm users.
Lee Jones
Support Services Group
949-361-3300
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Ken,
I’ve been in the alarm business since 1967 and have been self-employed for about 35 years.
While being self-employed, I have also served on the City Council for a town of about 65,000 for 10 years, serving as a council member as well as the Vice-Mayor.
I have worked on Police budgets and with their associations as well as the general public’s concepts on police. So let us (the alarm industry) put blame where it belongs and not with the hard working cops who respond to our alarms. I have found these men and women want to, need to, and thrive on catching the bad guys, that is their job and they do it well.
Since California cities funds have been cut back by the state they still have an ever increasing appetite for more money and they look at alarm response as a revenue generator.
They call the revenue source different names but it is still a tax and they see it as income.
However the real culprit here is the alarm industry itself, and shame on us. Alarm companies go into towns throughout the country without getting a city business license or a permit, hardly ever joining the local chamber and all the while they draw upon the cities resources and never pay a dime into that community. Fire alarm, burglar alarms, hold-up alarms, medical alerts all draw upon the city’s resources, and we criticize the cops and the cities. Many companies take all the local alarm income and leave the city and county and even the state.
And we wonder why city ordinances look upon us with indifference.
The smaller local companies actually serve their communities 100% better; of course they don't have share holders to answer to. The local companies answer to and pay into the communities they serve.For the most part their false alarms, even by percentage, are less.
In my humble opinion we should be paying into communities more than we are.
Ron Irish