The WLH newsletter, long, long ago when it used to be actually printed and distributed every single month, reported crimes committed in our neighborhood based on our NPD police stats. The vast majority involved petty theft or burglary involving valuables left unattended, such as the incident wherein two unattended lawnmowers were stolen from the back of a pickup parked in a resident's driveway.
None of the crimes described hitherto in the newsletter remotely resemble the work of professional burglars seeking expensive jewelry, electronics, art, construction tools, or other high-value targets.
Most property crimes are crimes of opportunity - unlocked gates, doors, or windows; leaving expensive items on the porch or lawn unattended; and packages delivered by UPS/FedEx or the Post Office which have to be left on the porch because they won't fit in the homeowner's mailbox. From time to time, there are high levels of non-resident foot traffic in WLH, particularly around the apartments/condos and on Saint Lawrence. This is probably the actual source of most of the property crimes in WLH.
The WLH Citizens On Patrol group is far more effective in keeping WLH safe and crime-free. I am always glad to see their cars driving slowly by my home at any time.
Regarding the WLH 'surveillance' cameras at the neighborhood entrances:
In the first place, anyone could easily walk behind the cameras at either Bridge Street entrance, burglarize a house or car for pocket-sized valuables, and exit the neighborhood without ever being detected by the cameras. I highly doubt that the cameras have a high enough resolution to capture a good face shot, even within ten or fifteen feet of the camera. The cameras appear to sense proximate motion and a red light flashes on the camera, implying that a picture is being taken of your license plate or car. The cameras are close enough to the ground on the utility poles that they could easily be obscured, removed, or a criminal or vandal could break the lenses, rendering the camera useless.
In the second place, either wireless technology or a tremendous amount of over- or underground data cabling would obviously be required to transmit the cameras' data to a computer, probably situated in one of the Board members' residences. It is highly likely that no transmission of data between the cameras and a computer has ever occurred. In the case of wireless technology, whoever is in control of the cameras would have to have a huge amount of available bandwidth to handle high-resolution photographs or surveillance footage.
Even if such infrastructure really existed, storing real-time data from these cameras would require terabytes (a factor of 100 bigger than a megabyte of storage, or a trillion bytes), if the cameras really record 24/7/365. This would require a few coins to set up a server to hold all that data. Just pictures of license plates would eventually require a significant amount of storage space on a computer, if they were high-resolution enough to be of any value to the police.
Even if the cameras only record license plates, what good does that do if it can't be timestamped and recorded electronically for later viewing or use in prosecuting an actual crime? I highly doubt that the cameras are really recording anything at all. Such a system would cost a lot more than a few thousand dollars.
A WLH board member (he knows who he is) told me a few months ago by phone that surveillance cameras were also mounted on certain houses, about which he refused to divulge identifying details. I find this extremely disturbing, if it is in fact true, and feel that this is an invasion of WLH homeowners' privacy. Since when does the WLH HOA have a right, let alone the technical ability, to conduct surveillance on the residents of WLH?
If the house-mounted cameras are not pointed directly at the street, at the general area necessary to photograph most car license plates (which would be kind of hard to do), then what are they pointing at?
