Tedisco: Governor’s Budget Includes Senator Tedisco’s Proposal to Install Security Cameras in all State Parks & Campgrounds

Senator Jim Tedisco (R,C-44th Senate District), today said that Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed state budget follows through on his request and public safety legislation to require all state parks, campgrounds and recreational facilities have security equipment and cameras in place at all entrances and exits.

Tedisco’s legislation (S.7688) was in response to the abduction on September 30th of a 9-year-old girl from Moreau Lake State Park on Saturday. No security cameras were present when the kidnapping took place.  Fortunately, the girl was found and safely returned to her family about 48 hours after her abduction thanks to a fingerprint found on a ransom note left by the kidnapper at her family’s home in Corinth.  Senator Tedisco represents both Moreau Lake State Park and Corinth.

Senator Tedisco’s bill requires New York’s 180 state-run parks and campgrounds be equipped with security cameras that can identify the license plate, make and model of any vehicle entering or exiting the facilities as well as record the image of any person walking into or out of the grounds. The measure is sponsored in the Assembly by Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara (D-Rotterdam).

“What I’ve learned over the years in my legislative work to help find missing persons is that when an abduction occurs, seconds count and time is of the essence and could make the difference between life and death. If security cameras were already in place last September at Moreau Lake State Park, perhaps the kidnapper would have been identified and the girl found much sooner and not 48 hours after her disappearance. It’s thanks to the grace of God that the police were able to capitalize on the kidnapper’s mistake of leaving a fingerprint on the ransom note, and that his prints were on file from a DWI in the 1990s, that she was safely found,” said Senator Jim Tedisco.

“I appreciate the Governor listening to my proposal for this common-sense public safety measure and including it in her budget so we can keep all New Yorkers who recreate in our state’s 180 parks safe and more secure,” said Senator Tedisco, a member of the Senate Parks and Recreation Committee and a longtime legislative expert on missing persons and child abductions, who with former Governor Mario Cuomo, helped make New York the first state in the nation to put the pictures of missing persons on Thruway Toll tickets and helped find the first missing girl they put on those tickets.

As Chair of the Assembly Minority Task Force on Missing Children, Tedisco sponsored and passed New York’s landmark non-custodial release law to protect children from being abducted. This child release procedure law continues to be used by every school in New York State to provide guidance on who is authorized to pick up a child.