AUBURN -- Officials hope a proposal will keep a workmen's pride from turning into a criminals' playground.

The city could spend $19,000 to install two fixed cameras and a movable one to watch over Exchange Street Mall.

Auburn City Council discussed the idea during the Thursday meeting, but will take no action until possibly next week.

City manager Mark Palesh said the downtown improvement project is done, so city employees need to think about security issues.

"The mall looks beautiful ... but I look at if from a different perspective. It's an attractive nuisance," Police Chief Gary Giannotta said.

The cameras would protect the city's investment by putting a face or visual clue to any problems that might arise, Giannotta said.

Mayor Timothy Lattimore asked that the city look into mounting video cameras inside the nearby parking garage, but that undertaking would cost far more than the external cameras would, Giannotta said.

Providing wireless Internet could make installing cameras easier and cheaper, he added.

During the meeting, everyone stressed the cameras are not meant as a "Big Brother" surveillance system, but rather a way to have a record of criminal incidences.

For more on this story, read Friday's edition of The Citizen.