TIFTON — The Tift County Board of Commissioners have purchased a security system for the in-progress Fulwood Park pickleball facility to provide its future patrons a little more safety.

As the facility nears completion, commissioners approved the $38,147.98 purchase of security locks and camera system from Coopercraft and Avigilon to be installed at the new courts.

The vote took place at the commission’s meeting Monday.

The camera system will consist of four cloud-based cameras that will cover all areas of the pickleball facility, with the cloud connection allowing county staff to access the information from the cameras anywhere and at any time, even outside the county network. Additionally, county staff confirmed the camera quality to be high enough that it would have no trouble clearly depicting people and defining characteristics.

Commissioners first discussed the security implementation during their previous meeting, where they had determined a security system was needed for the courts and had narrowed down their options to two firms, Coopercraft and Echo Technologies.

Staff reported that the firms were offering the same locking systems and that the differences were in the cameras, recommending Coopercraft’s offer due to the ease of access of the cloud-based cameras.

The pickleball courts are expected to be completed within the week, with a ribbon cutting scheduled for Friday.