PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Enhanced technology to fight crime is on its way to Portsmouth.
Mayor Shannon Glover highlighted new safety investments in his State of the City address on Friday.
Mayor Glover spoke to a packed house inside the nearly three-month-old Rivers Casino Portsmouth. It’s a more than $300 million private investment in the city.
“Created more than 1,200 permanent jobs and established a new entertainment district in our city,” Mayor Glover said.
Glover had public safety top of mind.
“Reducing violent crime is a shared responsibility,” Glover said.
Last month, Portsmouth Police Chief Stephen Jenkins said the department is down about 80 police officers. Mayor Glover said city staff is working to develop a real-time crime center and expand security cameras across the city.
“FUSUS is a public safety ecosystem that combines video from traffic cameras, private cellphones, building security cameras and links them with other utilities like CAD data, gunfire detectors, real-time officer geolocator feeds,” Glover said.
He said license plate registration cameras are also getting installed.
“As they say, it’s a force multiplier,” Glover said of the technology. “When you don’t have the physical bodies there, you need other things to help you get the job done.”
Glover told the crowd the police department is still actively recruiting and encouraged them to spread the word.
When it comes to entertainment, Glover says he’d like to see the casino get a hotel. He said city council members are also developing plans for the Portsmouth waterfront.
“The other thing might be some more family-oriented type of entertainment, coming into the entertainment district,” Glover said. “We have a number of options we are considering at this time; however, it is ongoing.”
Councilman Vernon Tillage said he’s excited about all the improvements in Portsmouth.
“Portsmouth has great potential, we are dead center in Hampton Roads,” Councilman Tillage said. “To be able to have economic growth, so to have the casino come here and have historic numbers of tax revenue is phenomenal. Now, how can we go to the next step on trying to enhance this area to sustain tax revenue for the casino but also to expand and bring new business here?”
The next State of the City address takes place on May 16 in Suffolk.