As University of Georgia students get ready to start the fall semester in less than a month, university officials are highlighting a new package of public safety improvements.
In total, the university says it is investing over $7 million in new safety initiatives. The new spending package is part of some $23 million in public safety funding allocated in the past eight years.
Prominently featured in the university’s new spending is the creation of a group of Campus Safety Ambassadors. The ambassadors will be on the UGA campus during evening hours and will escort students around campus. They will also have radio contact with UGA Police in the event of an emergency. The ambassadors are funded by a 20% increase in the UGA Police Department’s budget.
Campus officials are also touting the university’s new “UGA Safe” app, which they say has been downloaded by almost 17,000 people so far. That app allows users to share their location and contact UGA Police.
The university says it is also spending more on infrastructure, including more lighting and fencing, automated license plate readers, and emergency call boxes.
In a press release, UGA President Jere W. Morehead said, “There is no higher priority at the University of Georgia than the safety and security of our campus community.”
Public safety in the Athens community has been under heightened scrutiny this year, following the murder of nursing student Laken Riley in February on the UGA campus. Riley’s slaying, allegedly at the hands of an undocumented migrant from Venezuela, also sparked a surge of political rhetoric around immigration and prompted state and local legislative attempts to craft new laws – and new spending – in the realms of public safety and immigration enforcement.
Earlier this year, Athens-Clarke County officials fast-tracked a $500,000 package of public safety improvements on the county level that focuses on expanding the network of surveillance cameras covering the county and beefing up its Real Time Crime Center.
This article comes to Now Habersham in partnership with WUGA News
