NEW ROCHELLE — Feel like you’re being watched?

That could be the case soon in New Rochelle, where the city is preparing to install up to 20surveillance cameras on its public streets. The cameras will be used downtown, at highway ramps and near schools to monitor traffic, promote public safety, and investigate past crimes, city officials said.

“It is a tremendous investigative tool. People do things regardless of whether there is a camera or not, and we are able to capture it,” said New Rochelle Police Deputy Commissioner Anthony Murphy.

Police departments in urban areas across the country are boosting video surveillance as a tool to fight crime. The growing presence of these cameras, though, has triggered debate about how far societies should go to be safe and whether the price paid — a loss of privacy and, some say, civil rights — is worth it.

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Ingrid Giminez and her husband both work full time in the restaurant business, but their salaries are not enough to cover rent, household costs and day care for their 3-year-old son.

So, when Giminez learned she would lose a $395 monthly subsidy from the county for day care, which covered a third of the bill, she did what she had to. She decided to pull her son out of day care and cut her work hours, although she fears it could mean losing her job.

“It’s kind of hard when you are going to work and trying to study to give a better life to your kids,” said the 30-year-old Port Chester resident, who is studying two nights a week to be a manicurist.

Altogether, 200 families have been told they will lose day-care “scholarships” from Westchester County, part of $1.5 million in day- care spending that County Executive Rob Astorino has trimmed from the budget. Astorino has laid out $16 million in budget cuts, including those to child care, to help the county cope with a large budget deficitand a troubled economy. Click here for more.

Nine contractors sued developer Louis Cappelli in Westchester County in 2009, claiming they had not been paid in full for work they did for his company.

Complaints filed in Westchester County range from a maintenance company’s claim that it is owed $470,000 for work at Cappelli’s New Roc City in New Rochelle, to a pool company’s claim it wasn’t paid $8,825 for work in Shrub Oak.

Russ Pizzuto, of Russ Pizzuto Kitchen Designs in Lindenhurst, said he is owed more than $33,000 for work he did for Cappelli in upstate Sullivan County in 2008.

“Especially in this economy, it put me under. It really did. Thirty thousand is a lot to a guy like me,” Pizzuto said, adding that he had to take another job outside his design firm to stay afloat.

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A “bright” and “very caring” police officer from West Harrison called his colleagues “heroes” Tuesday from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from three gunshot wounds following a shootout in the Bronx a day earlier.

Robert Salerno, 25, an officer with the New York Police Department, was shot while responding to a 911 call Monday and remained in critical but stable condition at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx.

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NEW ROCHELLE – Jeff Mancini is a natural born pitchman. With his toothy white smile, sparkling blue eyes and booming voice, he sells his wares with an unbridled enthusiasm.

The reason the New Rochelle resident delivers and sells successfully, he said, is his passion and his genuine belief in his products. Mancini came up with ideas for his heavy-duty cooler, fishing rods and wounded-fish lure while pursuing his first and greatest love, saltwater fly fishing.

Now he markets those products on television infomercials, on the Internet and at fishing trade shows around the country.

“It has brought so much joy to my life,” said the 46-year-old bachelor. “I can’t tell you all the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been to. I am reliving all the things I love and am passionate about.”

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MOUNT VERNON – When Cinnamon Lewis delivers her graduation speech tomorrow, she will thank her teachers, reminisce about the prom and joke about her classmates’ fashion choices as freshmen.

She’ll keep to herself the more painful memories, like missing school to care for a sibling, making Father’s Day cards in class while her father was in prison and working seven days a week to help pay her family’s rent.

For Lewis, those events were setbacks, but they never killed her dream of being top of the class. After four years of struggle and hard work, Lewis graduates tomorrow from Mount Vernon High School as the class salutatorian. She will attend Columbia University in the fall. “I always knew I was going to college,” said the 18-year-old. “I felt like nothing or no one was going to stop me.”

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