ROYAL CITY — The Royal City City Council considered the purchase of surveillance cameras at Tuesday’s meeting.

Royal City Police Chief Rey Rodriguez presented council members with three options for PODS, or portable observation devices from Security Lines US, a California-based supplier of electronic surveillance equipment.

“This first set I want to put right here as close as we can to Camelia and Ahlers,” he said. “To keep an eye on the park and that intersection (where) you get a lot of collisions.”

The first, for $10,045, included three cameras, one stationary and two pan-tilt-zoom, with 16-channel input. The second, for the same price, included four 16-channel cameras, while the third, for $9,045, included three cameras with six-channel input.

The difference between the first and second systems was a capability called “smart search,” Rodriguez said. Smart search, according to Security Lines US’ website, enables the camera to respond automatically when something has crossed a particular line, or a person or vehicle has entered a camera’s line of sight, and even to identify people and vehicles in its coverage area. Rodriguez wasn’t certain how specific the information gathered by smart search was, he said.

“(The representative) on that email said ‘Hey, this is brand new technology and I don't even have data on this to tell you what it does,’” he said.

Rodriguez said he favored four cameras without smart search, since if there was a collision or an incident it wouldn’t be too difficult to examine the footage for the known time frame. The cameras would draw power from the city’s utility poles, he said, and as long as they had a clear line of sight to each other they could all transmit back to the main recording device.

Additional PODs could be purchased for $3,000-$5,000, he said.

Several municipalities in Washington are already using those systems, Rodriguez said, the nearest being Soap Lake.

“We just replaced an older camera system with these,” said Alex Kovach, former mayor of Soap Lake. “They put them up in a few spots around town. These have a little blinking blue light that kind of lets you know that they're working. We had a few people in the community come back and ask, ‘What's this flashing light thing?’ So we can explain that. But once people get used to it it hasn't been an issue.”

No vote was taken on the question. Mayor Kent Anderson said he might contact Security Lines US to clarify some points in the quote.

Joel Martin can be reached at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com