Security costs money.

And tonight the Lathrop City Council will decide whether a contract with Bay Alarm that will range between $68,000 and $75,000 each year to protect vital city infrastructure is a fair deal.

According to the city staff report, Bay Alarm has provided security services to the City of Lathrop for more than two decades. A five-year contract with the company expired at the beginning of this year, and the current non-contract rate is just under $84,000.

If the council approves the request, the new contract will end up saving the City of Lathrop nearly $38,000 over the course of three years. A variety of city properties will continue to be covered – places like booster stations, the corporation yard on Lathrop Road, City Hall, the Community Center, the Generations Center and the Police offices, among others – and the possibility of adding future facilities exists within the contract through the amendment process.

The overall annual savings will average out to 18 percent annually.

Currently the most expensive City of Lathrop property to cover with an alarm is the corporation yard – coming in at more than $12,000-a-year. City Hall, the Generations Center and the Community Center all cost more than $7,000-a-year to include in the contract while the Police Department is the cheapest occupied building at just over $1,600-a-year.

Approval for the proposal is recommended by city staff because it promotes “a feeling of safety” – one of a handful of City Council goals that are now put down on paper each time an item comes before the body for a vote.

If the council is at full-strength tonight, the group will also decide on which direction they want to proceed on a pair of items that were held-over from the previous meeting. The first, which would outlaw foraging through garbage cans for recyclables, was tabled because Mayor Sonny Dhaliwal, who proposed the item, wasn’t present to discuss it.

The five-member council is also expected to finalize a request to formally adopt the portion of I-5 that runs through the community and possibly hire an additional maintenance worker to keep it up. Because that item dealt with adding additional city personnel, the weakened board opted to hold that over so that those not present had a chance to discuss it before.