Officials are considering the purchase of new software for Carroll County Regional Airport, which was robbed last month, to heighten security.
“We want to make it cutting-edge equipment that will protect the residents and the airport,” said Joseph Varrone, airport administrator for the county.
Airports like Carroll?s that cater to general aviation ? from where private and corporate aircraft fly ? often cannot afford to have security guards 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This new technology provides an alternative, said Brad Anderson, an engineer for Avrio Group, security consultants from Easton and one of the potential companies that would install the equipment.
“An event, like motion or sound, could trigger [camera security footage] to be pushed [to a computer] anywhere: a police department or airport manager?s home,” Anderson said after a meeting Monday night at Winters Mill High School in Westminster, where residents voiced their worries about airport security and asked questions of officials with the FBI, Federal Aviation Administration and Maryland Aviation Administration.
To pay for the system, the Carroll County commissioners have set aside $700,000, an undisclosed portion of which will come from the federal Department of Homeland Security, Varrone said.
At the meeting, residents vented frustrations about security at the airport, where last month gasoline and possibly a tool was stolen, and voiced their opposition to a possible runway expansion, arguing that a larger airport will heighten security risks.
“You?re equating an expansion with a higher threat of security, and that?s not true,” said Ashish Solanki, MAA regional director.
But members of the Carroll Joint Neighborhood Association, an anti-expansion residents? group, said a larger airport would endanger residents.
Ron Buczkowski, co-chairman of the group, sent a letter to the commissioners Tuesday, urging them to abandon plans to expand the runway.
All three commissioners attended the Wednesday meeting but sat in the audience.
“It shows a lack of leadership,” Buczkowski said in an interview.
Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge said the airport won?t see any large jets or commercial airliners.
