Albany, Dougherty County look at downtown park security

ALBANY — For the city of Albany, when it gets dark in the park, that means it’s time to leave, while Dougherty County’s downtown park hours can be longer, and depending on the time of year, that means city property and a nearby county park can have a big gap in the times of closing.

That, Albany Mayor Bo Dorough said, is creating some confusion as the two governments have parks in close proximity on North Front Street.

The mayor brought up the topic during Tuesday’s Albany City Commission meeting, looking to seek some kind of conformity between the city-operated Ray Charles Plaza and the county’s Riverfront Park, which are separated by West Broad Avenue.

Albany city parks are open from dawn to dusk, which can come early in the winter, while the county’s park closes at 10 p.m.

There are also security concerns, Dorough said during a Wednesday telephone interview. While there have been no serious incidents there in recent years, the mayor said he would like to have law enforcement keeping an eye on things.

“Kids just want to go somewhere and be together,” he said. “When you have that many people together, you do want somebody to monitor it. I said we ought to have some kind of presence down there, whether it’s (police) officers or community service officers, there ought to be some monitoring.”

Having the different hours for closing has caused some confusion, he said. 

“We ought to have meshed hours of operation,” Dorough said. 

The Albany Police Department does occasional checks in the area, Police Chief Michael Persley told commissioners during the Tuesday meeting. 

“We do have folks who are unhoused who do sleep down there in the park up under the pavilion,” he said. “You have to go down there and check to make sure nobody is sleeping.”

Teenagers also make use of the park because there are few options of gathering places, the chief said. 

“It’s something for them (commissioners) to discuss, then we’ll go from there,” Persley said.

The county is willing to work with the city, Assistant Dougherty County Administrator Barry Brooks said, and there has been discussion between the two staffs in the past.

“It’s in the budget for this year … we are planning to have the sheriff’s office do downtown patrols,” Brooks said. “That would include the parks and cover the river and the trail.”

The county has a deputy and two “blue coats” (the equivalent of the city’s non-sworn resource officers) stationed to provide daytime security in the Government Center on Pine Avenue and to keep an eye on the nearby tax office, RiverFront Resource Center and library buildings. The officers also patrol the area, including the riverfront, on a four-wheeler.

The county’s budget item, if approved by the commission and with agreement from the city to split costs, would bring an expanded patrol that would include the nighttime hours. It would include the downtown and park areas as well as patrolling the paved river trail that stretches from Cox Landing to the southern end of Albany State University.

“That was kind of a step in the process,” Brooks said of the daytime patrols.

Currently, the sheriff’s office operates and monitors cameras in the Riverfront Park area, and Albany police also have access to those cameras, Brooks said.