New Haven Independent

“I hope you’re having a good day too,” he replied

The man is John Prokop. A former New Haven police officer and, for 17 years, head of security at Southern Connecticut State University, Prokop has been head of security at the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) since January.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the housing authority’s board, Prokop requested approval of approximately $963,000 to increase the closed circuit video security system in HANH’s 3,600 units, both the high-rises and the spread-out family apartments from the current seven sites to 12. There are currently 85 cameras at the seven sites; the request is to add five more sites, including Farnam Court and Valley Townhouses, with an additional 65 cameras in total.

The discussion about Prokop’s proposal concerned not just finances, but the best way to monitor crime. Here’s part of the exchange between Prokop and the commissioners on the issue Tuesday, beginning with HANH Board Chairman Robert Solomon’s response to Prokop’s wish of a good day:

Solomon: “No, really, in your view do we need all that? I’m especially concerned that the equipment will become quickly obsolete.”

Prokop: “It won’t.”

Commissioner Louise Pearsall (pictured at left, beside Solomon): “Are we in Newhall Gardens on the list to receive the cameras?”

Prokop: “At the moment, no.”

Pearsall: “Well, we’ve been waiting for that for a long time.”

Prokop: “It easily could be done, through a change order.”

Solomon: “I’m concerned we’re being reactive. Shouldn’t we perhaps have fewer monitors and real live people looking at them?”

Prokop: “That would be nice, but to staff that would cost an additional $275,000. That represents about five people to be looking at the monitors. Look, my hope is that now with the city’s police and fire emergency 911 systems integrated, down the road, when we have our cameras in place, they will be able to look in on our cameras too.”

Solomon: “All right, I’ll vote approval of this, but with the understanding that we move ahead only one site at a time and see how it works. So, let’s bring that to a vote, same wording but implementation at the discretion of the staff who will provide us regular reports.”

The motion passed. Prokop said to Solomon, “Thank you, sir, and I still hope you have a good afternoon.”

Seeking “Peace of Mind”

In his office after the meeting (in the picture at the top of the story), Prokop demonstrated the system in place. “It’s really important, for example, in the high rises. An elderly person, say, will now have the intercom buzzed a half dozen times, let’s say, in a bad area. And they will want to sleep and so let the person in just to stop the buzzing, and that potentially leads to crime. Or perhaps it’s a relative calling on a grandparent to let them in. A kid in trouble that for whatever reason the older folks don’t want to admit. Now, all they can do is buzz them in. With the cameras, once installed, they will be able, through Comcast, to turn on the designated station on their TV and see who it is in the lobby. They won’t even have to use the intercom, so the person in the lobby won’t have any idea they’re in. That’s a real plus. The Comcast part is a second phase of the project after the cameras are installed. But it’s a system well established in other places, like Bella Vista, and will make for safety and peace of mind for our residents.”

Tuesday’s meeting opened with a remarkable call.

Prokop said that since he began at HANH the biggest change or challenge for him has been to appreciate how dependent on the authority its tenants are. “That’s very different from the students at Southern. Here, we are often the first and last resort for the residents.”

In that Prokop echoed remarks made by Chairman Solomon to the staff when he gaveled the meeting together. “Just remember I’m the one that’s suffering, you’re not,” he said, referring not to himself, but quoting an e-mail he had recently received from an aggrieved resident trying to communicate to him her great distress.

“I know I’m preaching to the choir here,” Solomon told his attentive staff and fellow commissioners, such as Louise Pearsall (pictured), “but in our work let’s always remember, even in our own most exasperated moments, that so many of our residents are fragile, and elderly, have few other resources, and really do depend on us.”

It was a remarkable and laudable tone set for the proceedings of an agency, about whose workings many New Haveners have little knowledge, and, perhaps for that reason, an agency that one also associates with bureaucratic aloofness.

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