City Park Co-op is tucked in behind what we used to call Maple Leaf Gardens. The co-op is a handsome complex, three buildings in all, with a façade that whispers “downtown.”

Or maybe “Big Brother.”

Because somebody is watching; proof of this came when residents got a letter from the board of directors recently, with this disturbing news:

“On April 7, the board was advised, for the first time, that there are concealed pinhole cameras on certain floors in the co-op.”

Concealed pinhole cameras?

“The property manager and the security manager first learned of these concealed pinhole cameras during the annual inspection of the fire equipment which took place on April 7, 2014. There was no annual inspection done in 2013.”

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The cameras were installed on 25 floors of the 42 floors in the complex; yikes.

“Upon being advised of the cameras’ existence, the board directed that the cameras be shut off immediately. The cameras were shut off and remain shut off.”

I should hope so.

“Since becoming aware of and conducting its investigation in this matter (which remains ongoing), the Board learned that the cameras were installed in early 2013.”

In other words, there has been a year of secret spying in the co-op. Speculation is rampant; so far, there seems to be no evidence that the board at the time was ever consulted about the installation; there exists, however, an invoice for a capital expense in the amount of $26,000, which is as yet unexplained.

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Who dunnit, and why?

I dunno.

Look here: I’ve been in a lot of apartment buildings, including many in the city’s social housing portfolio; the presence of security cams is usually no big deal, and can be desirable in some circumstances. But the cameras in the hallways of City Park were not only secretly installed, they were hidden.

I met with a couple of co-op members the other day.

A resident named Nicole said, “I felt an absolute and immediate invasion of my privacy.” Did the secret cameras, once she knew about the fact they had been there in the past, not make her feel safe? She said, “They made me feel more insecure. I should have been aware.”

Nicole asked that I not use her last name; co-ops are run differently than any other kind of housing and, for whatever reason, she fears the power of the board.

Ken Demerling has no such fear. He said, “I was shocked. I wanted to know whether the cameras were being monitored by regular security or someone else.”

Good question.

Ken said he learned that the pinhole cameras were not connected to the usual bank of security monitors, but to a laptop kept in a locked drawer in the security room; he says the company providing security at the present moment was unaware of the existence of the laptop.

What no one seems to know is whether the hidden laptop has been feeding images surreptitiously to any other computers anywhere else in the city. In other words, nobody knows who was watching, or why.

As soon as she found out about the spy cams, Nicole said, “I looked at the fire alarm inside my apartment when I found out. I looked in all the vents. I looked in the bathroom. Who knows if there are any other cameras?”

She noted, with deep irony, that there are no cameras in the laundry room where she says her son was once propositioned by an old pervert; might have been nice to have that on camera.

There was to have been a special meeting of the residents last week. That meeting was cancelled at the last minute because of the rain, on a day when it had rained earlier but the rain had stopped and there was no more rain in the forecast; go figure.

A new meeting has been held. I’ll try to find out what happened. I have an interview with the past president later on today, and have requested an interview with the current president.

I’ll keep you posted.