The surveillance cameras that were installed without notice at Cal Anderson Park in 2008 might finally be yanked. The Seattle City Council Parks and Seattle Center Committee today recommended their removal at a meeting that was originally held to discuss legislation that would have made the cameras permanent.

City Council Member Sally Bagshaw, who was sponsoring the legislation to make the cameras permanent at Cal Anderson, flip-flopped mid-way through the meeting and agreed with Council Members Bruce Harrell and Tom Rasmussen that it was time for them to go.

“I have been wishy-washy on this thing, but I am not comfortable with it,” Bagshaw said. “It’s wrong to single out one park.”

Although the cameras were placed in the park as part of a pilot program that ended late January, they are still recording. But no one is monitoring them because the council did not vote to reinstate the pilot. The city spent $170,000 to install the cameras at Cal Anderson. It will cost $1,800 to take them out. The city also placed mobile surveillance cameras outside the Garfield Community Center and Medgar Evars Pool at the order of then-Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis. The council had not been aware of it.

The ACLU of Washington called for the removal of the Cal Anderson cameras in May arguing that its footage had never helped in a police investigation. A review from the City Auditor’s office was unable to determine whether the cameras were helping to reduce crime in any way. There was also limited evidence to show whether people felt safer with the cameras around.

Bagshaw said she had supported the idea of permanent cameras at first because she had not wanted to see public tax dollars go to waste.

She acknowledged that the public were concerned because they felt that the “government was spying on them.” “Do we want this to be the way Seattle is?” she asked. However, she added that the cameras served as an important tool for the Seattle police force, which is in favor of them.

Rasmussen strongly objected to the surveillance cameras, pointing to the audit and the haphazard way the plan was implemented. The council put together the protocol for the Cal Anderson cameras in 2009, after they had already gone up.

A question that arose more than once during the meeting was whether the city should spend money on surveillance cameras in parks.

Harrell, who is pushing for body cameras for the SPD by next year, said that he preferred mobile cameras to the current outdated surveillance technology being used. “My concern wasn’t the spying, my concern was the best and most effective tool,” he said. “I like the public safety aspect, but the two spots [Cal Anderson and Garfield[ seem a bit arbitrary.”

The committee will forward draft legislation, calling to remove the cameras, to the full council in the next few weeks.