Keeping track – New ordinance would help with police tracking

CRESWELL — Creswell City Council is considering an ordinance that would require businesses to record the resale of certain used merchandise to make it easier for police to track stolen goods.
Lane County Sheriff’s Sergeant Scott Denham said this ordinance would put Creswell in line with the rest of the county, which largely operates on similar ordinances. Veneta recently passed a similar ordinance.
“We’ve been able to track a lot of stolen property through this system,” he said at Monday’s work session. “This new system is more of a national broadcast” and is used in other states, he said, making tracking more effective.
Police are looking to track items you’d find in a pawn and resale shops; in Creswell, Emerald Valley Armory will be required to track and upload resale guns to the database, as will other shops that resell items such as precious gems, video-game consoles and tools.
The system tracks items coming into the stores, and police are able to see everything that’s been pawned or sold or bought from someone, Denham said, and can pull up pictures, identification cards and location of residency.
The ordinance will be placed on the Feb. 10 agenda for a vote.
In other council news, the Public Safety Committee recommended that that the City continue with the Public Safety Fee on the utility bill, and that the fee be increased to provide one additional deputy starting July 1. If an additional deputy is added, there would be a deputy on duty every day of the week, Denham said, and it would increase the number of law enforcement hours to 200 hours per week. That increase would include coverage during the daytime on weekends.
Council is also considering an ordinance that prohibits smoking in city parks. City council directed staff to update the parks’ rules signs to exclude smoking and vaping in city parks and will discuss amending the park rules ordinance in the future.