SOMERS POINT — The city has joined Atlantic County in a free program that provides high-resolution imagery and geographic information system software.
Some citizens said they don’t like the idea.
Tim Kreischer, Shared Services coordinator for Atlantic County, presented the proposal to City Council on Aug. 27, saying information initially was provided at the beginning of the year and that the county’s 22 other municipalities all have joined.
A geographic information system is a computer-based technology used to capture, store, manage, analyze and map all types of spatial and geographic data. It is helpful in assessing properties, researching roadway and intersection conditions and other uses.
Created and operated by Eagleview, the agentic AI system uses high-resolution imagery and property intelligence, combined with customer-owned datasets and trusted external resources to answer questions, identify and prioritize properties, and generate action-ready outputs, according to the company website.
Kreischer said the county has secured the grant funding and established the financing structure for the program.
“The purpose of the shared-service agreement is to make the resource available to participating municipalities without requiring each municipality to independently purchase the service,” he said.
Somers Point would be able to use the system, which is scheduled to be updated annually, at no cost over the five-year contract period.
“Whether your departments use the system 1,000 times or never use it, your cost remains zero dollars,” he said. “I believe the fact that there is no cost to the municipality, no cost to the taxpayers and no obligation to use the system makes this a particularly easy opportunity to consider. You are essentially being offered access to a countywide resource that could benefit multiple departments without having to purchase it independently.”
City resident Brandon Dolan, who claimed Eagleview is owned by multibillion-dollar companies Vista and Clear Lake, said the system is intrusive.
“No wonder it’s free — you want to take our data. That’s pretty simple,” he said. “It’s an easy way for them to develop a profile on us. The data center being used is Amazon.”
Dolan said he believes a lot of municipalities are moving away from license plate readers and AI networks “because it’s being abused either by the people in power or the people that are receiving the data, and who knows what’s going to happen in a couple of years when this data is collected and the subsidiaries get sold to somebody else.”
He said the software provides more than simple images.
“This is data acquisition. This isn’t safe for our well-being and our future in this community and I greatly oppose it,” Dolan said.
Another city resident, Caryll Camp, told City Council she had “some questions about this Big Brother.”
She asked where the data was collected and stored and who has access to it besides the county.
“As far as I know, your data would be an aerial photograph,” City Council President Kirk Gerety said.
“You’re saying you’re going to observe my backyard, my home, but you don’t know exactly who has it, who has access to it, how it will be protected. How long will you keep it? What do you do with it?
Gerety told Camp that she should direct her questions to the Atlantic County Board of Commissioners.
“They’re the ones that have this application, and they’re asking us to do a shared service with them,” he said.
County Tax Administrator Theresa Prendergast said the service provides simple still photos of every parcel in Atlanta County.
“The purpose of the images is for assessors, emergency management, police, fire, etcetera, building departments, construction to be able to view a property for emergency purposes, particularly roofs of hospitals and schools and churches, etcetera, under emergency circumstances, and for assessors to be able to measure properties, see images from year to year to see if there is any changes to the property such as square footage, a pool, any type of addition, that sort of thing.
“It is merely a tool originally designed for assessment purposes, and it has grown into a tool in order to manage municipalities and governments. That’s all it is. It’s not acquiring data that is not already public information.”
Councilwoman Janice Johnston said Google Earth already provides the images.
“I did a lot of reading and a lot of research on this, and I also reached out to our city engineer and asked him if this was beneficial to what he does. He said it definitely is. It would help when he’s applying for grants. So if this could save our professionals some time and make them even more efficient than they are, and in turn that will save us money, I see no reason not to do this.”
– By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
