Alarm Ordinance in Trumbull is Government Overreach

Republicans are fond of saying that they favor smaller government and less regulation, bureaucracy, and intrusion.  That is, until they pass an ordinance which makes government bigger, and creates regulation, bureaucracy, and intrusion.

We heard those Republicans during the debate about universal background checks for gun purchases.  They said that they were afraid that the government would keep lists of law-abiding gun owners.  Republicans vehemently objected to any such list(s).

Then these same Republicans pass an alarm ordinance which requires that anyone who has an alarm in their home that is monitored by a security company obtain a permit by filling out a registration form and submitting it to the Police Department.  You have to give your name and address, cell phone number, home phone, and they ask for your email address.  They want to know the name of your alarm company and the name and number of the Central Monitoring Station.  They also want to know the names and addresses and telephone numbers of anyone who has a key to your house.

You may have noticed the requirement to register your alarm in the brochure that came in this past week from the Tax Collector's Office.  While we are on the subject of government bureacracy, Republicans are also fond of decrying government waste...can someone tell me why this brochure comes in a separate envelope, and we get a separate mailing with an individual tax bill for each car we own?  It's 2013.  Can't Trumbull figure out a way to put all of the tax bills and the brochure in the same envelope?  Every other town around here does it, but not Trumbull.  If you have four cars at your residence, you get four separate first class mailings, and yet another one for your home, unless that one gets sent straight to the mortgage company.  Tens of thousands of your tax dollars are needlessly wasted by sending out these redundant first class mailings...but I digress...that is a subject for another day.

But on this brochure, under the section for the Police Department, you see that it is now a requirement to register your home alarm.  If you want to see the form, it can be found here on the Town's website....http://www.trumbull-ct.gov/filestorage/7112/7189/Trumbull_Alarm_Registration_Form.pdf

What the nice brochure doesn't mention is that according to the ordinance passed by the overzealous, but supposedly small government Republicans, is that if you don't register your alarm, you will be charged a fine of $100 for each year you don't register it.  And starting with the third false alarm in a given year, you will be charged a fine of $100...and more for each additional false alarm.

On balance, the town has a right to do something punitive if your home alarm is continuously going off and it's a false alarm.  There is a waste of police resources, and home owner's have a responsibility to use diligence in using their home alarms.  However, reasonable warnings and/or fines can be issued without the government compiling lists with all of that information.  If the confidentiality of that list is ever compromised, if thieves know which houses have alarms, they also know which houses don't have them.  And a lot of personal information will fall into the hands of people who have no business seeing it.

The recent disclosure of all the snooping going on and the data collection by the U.S. Government is in the news right now.  Our town should not be compiling lists with all of this information.  It's an election year, and one of the questions I will be asking those candidates who will be running for office is whether they will repeal the ordinance which requires the compilation of this list.  We've gotten by without it in Trumbull all these years.

I will close with a trivia question....

Question:  What entity is responsibile for the most false alarms in the course of each year?

Answer:  By far, it's the Town of Trumbull's buildings.

Of course, the town can't fine itself.  The town is therefore immune to this legislation.  The moral of the story is:  Do as the Town says, not as the Town does.