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NORTH SALT LAKE — Although the signs posted at Hatch Park indicate there are working surveillance cameras on site, KSL learned those “cameras” are not real and they’re not monitored either.
Missing University of Utah student Mackenzie "Kenzie" Lueck was last seen making contact with a person in a vehicle at Hatch Park about 3 a.m. on June 17, according to Salt Lake City police.
According to City Manager Ken Leetham, North Salt Lake has 17 parks of various sizes across the city. Only four of the 17 parks have working cameras. Leetham says the city only recently began putting cameras in park locations – within the past five years.
Those four park locations include:
- City Hall
- Legacy Park
- Tunnel Springs Park
- Deer Hollow Park
The city has multiple working cameras at each of the parks identified, according to the city manager. KSL visited each of the parks. Some of them have posted signage about the surveillance, other parks do not.
Hatch Park is not among that list.
The North Salt Lake Police Department is kitty-corner from Hatch Park and it’s one reason Mayor Len Arave says the park has made do without working cameras.
“We actually have cameras in many of our parks, we just don’t have enough money to put them everywhere. Until we get the real things here, which hopefully won’t be too long, we’ve put some dummy cameras in to deter crime,” Mayor Arave said. “We actually do have cameras on this park. We don’t cover the entire park, but we have cameras that cover this.”
The city also has cameras set up at its Public Works building, at two roundabouts to monitor the street and traffic there, and at three culinary water wells.
“The main reason we’re putting it in our parks is to preserve our assets and protect our assets,” Arave said.
KSL reached out to multiple neighboring cities to determine how they handle public park security and whether or not they install working surveillance cameras.
Salt Lake City
In Salt Lake City, there are 81 parks and there’s only cameras in one of them – Pioneer Park. Those cameras, according to the city, are operated by the police department. Salt Lake does not have any dummy cameras in any of its parks.
Kaysville
There are 12 total parks in the City of Kaysville. The city does not have any working or dummy cameras at any of the parks.
Farmington
According to Farmington Parks and Recreation, there are 13 public parks in the city. Currently, the city does not have any security cameras. However, the parks superintendent says the city is in the process of installing cameras at its new regional park.
