Florida city researching alarm monitoring Brief
By SSN Staff
Updated Sat March 1, 2008
GULF BREEZE, Fla.--A proposal for the City of Gulf Breeze to begin monitoring security alarms was met by skepticism from members of the Alarm Association of Florida at a Jan. 7 city council meeting.
"We as a state association, along with local members operating in the area, attended the meeting to express our views as to why this may need to slow down before it moves forward," said Bob Worthy, legislative committee chairman for AAF and president of Secur Technologies in Coral Springs, Fla. "We brought to the council's attention issues about technology, safety, procedure, codes and laws that they may violate.
"The city says that they already have the building and staff in place with their 911 center, but what they don't realize is how much alarm traffic is generated by each account," he said. "Central stations, through state law and company procedures, take care of 70 to 80 percent of alarm traffic that the police never see."
Edwin Eddy, the city manager of Gulf Breeze, said the proposal is still in the research phase and no date has been set to take it back to the city council for approval. "The police are considering it, but we need to do some research so we can answer some of the council's questions regarding how to put the monitoring station into operation," Eddy said. "We need to be sure we can comply with state regulations and that we're not doing anything that would be in competition with other independent firms."
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