Supervisors OK sheriff's purchase of license plate readers

RIVERSIDE - The Board of Supervisors today authorized the Riverside County Sheriff's Department to purchase automatic license plate readers that will be used to ferret out vehicles used for human and drug smuggling in the eastern part of the county.

Undersheriff Bill DiYorio told the board that readers are being used countywide, but more are needed to supply Blythe-area deputies working with U.S. Border Patrol agents in Operation Stonegarden, an effort to crack down on narcotics and human traffickers traversing the county.

Board Chairman Marion Ashley questioned why the sheriff's department wanted to make the equipment purchase directly from St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M Corp. and not seek other vendors, who might ask for less than the $50,000 sought by 3M.

''The original company from which we bought the devices (PIPS Technology) sold out to 3M,'' DiYorio explained. ''We need to utilize the same equipment. It's proprietary and feeds into a central database.''

He said the sheriff's department had received a federal grant that covers all expenses, allaying Ashley's concerns.

According to sheriff's documents, automatic license plate reader cameras rely on ''optical character recognition'' to scan plates and pick out ones that may belong to vehicles reported stolen or otherwise flagged for criminal activity.

The contract with 3M leaves open the possibility of automatic renewals over the next three years, on the condition that the annual cost to the county doesn't exceed $30,000.