Police will more actively monitor the Beaver Canyon cameras this weekend during the 38th annual Central Pennsylvania Festival for the Arts, marking the first time the cameras have been operational during the festival.

This will serve as a change from the day-to-day policy that guides the cameras' use.

State College Police Chief Tom King said Tuesday evening in an interview that a supervisor will be at the police station throughout the festival periodically monitoring the cameras.

Normally, the cameras are operational and recording, though police don't monitor them unless a specific incident occurs.

"A supervisor will monitor the cameras to see if there are any additional officers needed in that area. Or if he needs to put officers in other areas and the crowd is low enough where he can move people away from that area. Basically he'll be using [the cameras] to make some decisions about staffing," King said.

A committee that is responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of the cameras met yesterday in preparation for an October report to State College Borough Council concerning the cameras.

The Citizens Advisory Committee for the Public Cameras consists of three students, a police officer, a borough council member and the director of the Downtown State College Partnership, Inc. Though the committee is in the early stages of developing criteria and gathering data to evaluate the cameras, committee member Janet Knauer said she doesn't expect the committee will recommend installing more cameras.

The cameras, located at the intersections of Beaver Avenue and Locust Lane, McAllister Street and Hiester Street, were installed during the summer of 2003 and became operational during September. Slightly before midnight on Oct. 3 a camera installed on Hiester Street was struck by a recreational vehicle in a hit-and-run accident that knocked over a light post holding the camera, temporarily disabling it. No arrests were made in the incident.

King said yesterday the cameras are intended to serve primarily as a deterrent, though they have captured video images of several incidents that resulted in arrests; however, the arrests were all made based on eyewitness information, which the camera images then corroborated.

The idea to install cameras was generated by a riot prevention committee formed after three disturbances in the Beaver Canyon area between 1998 and 2001. The first two riots occurred during Arts Festival in 1998 and 2000 and then in 2001 following the Penn State men's basketball team loss in the NCAA tournament.