City Council - Regular Meeting

Let's get this show on the road, baby.

Okay, I would like to call City of Apache Junction Council meeting of September 1st, 2026 to order and ask everyone to put their cell phones on silence.

We thank you for the privilege and freedom we have of being able

disgusting business. We ask you to give the city and council wisdom and clarity in their decision making. Keep us mindful that we serve the residents of this city. We ask you to watch over the men and women who serve in our military around the world. Please keep them safe in these troubling and uncertain times. We ask also for your blessing on our first responders, including our police and fire departments, along with our EMS personnel and our park rangers. Please keep these brave men and women safe in their duties to protect and care for the residents of this city. And we do thank you for the honor and privilege we have to serve the residents of this great city. These things we ask in your name. Amen.

Amen. Aye.

Congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Roll call.

Mayor Wilson?

Here.

Vice Mayor Schroeder?

Present.

Council Member Cross?

Here.

Council Member Heck?

Here.

Council Member Johnson?

Here.

Council Member Nesser? Present. Council Member Soler? Here. You have a quorum, Your Honor.

Thank you. We'll make a quick little statement in the aspect on it. I know there's a bunch of people who have put in some applications for FLOC. You don't have to sign up for it because it is a... excuse me the public hearing and you don't need to have them filled out and the forms are for the call to the public so just to let everybody know okay consent agenda as a reminder all items under consent agenda will be approved with one motion if a council member wishes to remove an item for further discussion the requests will be made prior to approving the consent agenda and will be moved to new business. Do I have a motion on the consent agenda?

Mayor?

Yes. I move that the consent agenda be accepted as presented and that item numbers four and five be approved with a retroactive date of July 1st, 2026.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call.

Council Member Nessar? Yes. Council Member Johnson?

Yes.

Councilmember Cross? Yes. Councilmember Heck? Yes. Councilmember Soler? Yes. Vice Mayor Schroeder? Yes. Mayor Wilson? Yes. Motion passes.

Awards and presentations. Presentation of a 40-year service award to Trish Peltier.

Trish Peltier.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Ma'am? Good evening, Mayor Wilson, Vice Mayor Schroeder, city leadership, and everyone that's joining us here tonight. We're here to recognize an important milestone tonight, and I need to get out of here. All right. Tonight, we are celebrating 40 years of service to the city from the woman behind me, Trish Pelletier. Trish began working at the library in 1986. You can see the building up there on the screen. And now it's 2026, 40 years later. So what makes that date special is that the library itself was going through a big change at that time. It was a one-month-old building. Our Idaho Road Library had opened finally, and Trish was one of the first people to work there. So when Trish walked through the doors for the first time as an employee, she was beginning her career in a building that was just beginning its life. And 1986 looked a lot different than the one we know today. It was smaller. Apache Junction was smaller. And many of the additions and changes that we now see are permanent plans of the libraries. We're still years away. The photographs on this slide really put those 40 years into perspective. If I can get it, go to the next screen.

There we go.

So this is trashed back, we believe, in 1986. During that time, she began as a library clerk. Then she was a senior library assistant in 1990. And in 2015, she began the library's supervising library assistant. And of course, the library wasn't standing still during those 40 years while Trish was here. Trish began working in the area of library card catalogs and was instrumental in bringing about the transition to computers and the more advanced technologies that we know today. with the perspective of someone who has personally experienced every chapter of this building's story. But ultimately, public libraries are about people. Over four decades, thousands and thousands of people have walked through the doors of our library. They've come looking for books, information, technology help. And this milestone is especially meaningful because

And all the years I've been up here celebrating people's years of service, I have no idea.

And the aspects on it, and they gave it to me a little early because I'm not going to be around next year to be able to attend to it. So I'm a few months early for the 20-year mark. And there was just two of us that got it. So I guess I'm joining a small crowd in the aspect on it. All right. Presentation of the discussion of public hearing on technology employed by the police department. Chief Pooley. Uh-oh, I skipped the manager's report. I mean, it's really big tonight, so I can go over it really quickly if you'd like, Mayor.

Just a reminder to the community and to you, the upcoming 9-11, Memorial, and we're so grateful for the work that the committee's done to Councilmember Johnson, Friday, September 11th, 25 years, Veterans Memorial Gazebo here at the Northeast Corner Superstition in Idaho. We hope the community will come and be a part of and think about and ponder the wonderful country we have. The other item is through SRP. SRP does, I don't know if we've got, did you have something to say?

Yeah, we have 25 different organizations that are bringing Memorial Reese to that, and we have some very interesting items with the children that were involved in learning a little bit more about 9-11, so we are very pleased that we have a full agenda, and we certainly hope to see as many of our citizens come out to the Veterans Memorial Gazabo for that.

Thank you.

And then as a reminder, Canyon Lake will be receiving a drawdown from SRP. It doesn't happen very often. And the work that's being done will be to maintain the dam and to be able to keep that great resource going. And other than that, Your Honor, that concludes my report for tonight.

Okay. I apologize, Chief. We'll do now go into your technology report.

Got me excited. Mayor, members of council, I appreciate this opportunity to come up, and I'm glad we have a lot of people here. to hear what we have to say. Tonight, we're going to be talking about technology. And technology has always been an evolution, not only for the public, but also for law enforcement. At one time, police radios were new technology. Computers in our patrol car was new technology. Body-worn cameras, which I remember when those were implemented, there was a lot of pushback. GPS, DNA, and how that's used, it's all been part of the evolution of law enforcement. Each of these technologies has one thing in common. They're tools. And they do not replace police officers. They do not replace good judgment. They do not replace good police work, constitutional policing, or accountability. They give our officers better information so they can make better and safer decisions to keep our community safe. But I also believe something else very strongly. With great technology, it comes a lot of great responsibility. And I understand why people have questions about these technologies, especially particularly ALPR, which we'll talk about. And I believe the public should ask these questions. In fact, this morning I met with a young lady who's actually here today who brought up some concerns, and I appreciated that. We met personally and I love those conversations. I heard from her perspective and she heard from our perspective. And there's things that we're looking at and we're looking at different things that may need to be modified or things that may need to be changed. That's how change happens. It's through dialogue like that and like tonight. And those are fair questions. And I also want to separate what this technology actually does from what people fear it may do. There's in my opinion, some misinformation that's out there. And I hope I can clarify that tonight. I hope I can answer questions and make things a little more clear. And even after tonight, if people still disagree with what we have to say, I respect that. And I will not hold a grudge against anybody that disagrees with the way we police here in the city of Apache Junction. One of the things that I've been here as the chief for about four and a half years now, it'll be five years in January. When we look at the decline in crime, crime has been declining significantly. So much so, just in the last three years, it's declined almost 20% since 2022. Now, there's a lot of reasons for that, the way we do things, the way we have changed things, different people have been put in place. But a big part of that, I believe, is part of the technology that we've used in law enforcement. So what is the technology that the Apache Junction Police Department has? We use ALPR, which is known as Automatic License Plate Readers. The brand we use is Flock, which has become synonymous with ALPR. There are several other brands out there. Some departments are going away from Flock and going to another ALPR to appease the public. We won't do that. We are here to answer questions. If we feel that this technology is helping our city, we're going to stand by it. We also have traffic cameras, body-worn cameras, drone as a first responder, which I'll refer to as DFR tonight. We also have our dispatch and our 911 technology. So what is a drone as a first responder? This is fairly new technology that is used specifically for certain types of crimes. When we have a violent crime that happens, and we're going to give an example here of a robbery that took place, and as that happens, When our officers are in route, they don't know what they're getting into. They don't know much information. We know there's about a three to five minute time delay from the time the 911 calls comes in to the time our officers are actually on scene because of the delay that it takes. What a drone as a first responder does as the 911 call comes in, it goes specifically to a location and gives real time information to our responding officers. And I want to show this video that'll help explain a little bit of that.

...responded to an accurate incident and see what they were walking into before they got there. AJPD's drone is a first responder, otherwise known as DFR. The program can provide officers with critical information before they arrive at certain calls. VFR allows trained personnel to deploy a drone to active incidents, providing a view from above that can help officers understand what is happening and determine the safest way to respond.

To be advised, the RP's sons wore all types of shoes. Someone held them at gunpoint and took those shoes. It's going to be one male with a pink ski mask. The other one was wearing a red hoodie with white shoes.

During the investigation, a school resource officer developed information identifying a possible subject and residence. As officers responded, the DFR was requested to assist.

DABOL launched a DFR in ATL area. Area 1 has been launched.

The drone provided a live real aerial view of the area as officers responded.

We got a subject that just exited out of the east side of the house and went under a little tent structure. He's just sticking onto the west side of the building. It's right underneath that little tent attached to the side of it.

I got it.

Officers located both suspects who admitted their involvement in the robbery on scene and were detained. The real-time crime information gave officers a clearer picture before approaching the residents, helping them plan their response with safety of everyone involved. It's important to know that we're not just flying drones around looking for activity. DFR is the place for specific calls for service and law enforcement operations, and our pilots are trained, FAA certified, and follow established department policy. Better information can lead to safer decisions for our officers, for those involved in an incident, and for the community we serve.

So without DFR, the way we would go is our officers would get the call dispatched to them from 911. 911 call would come in. Our dispatchers would take that call and they would provide that information and dispatch our officers. What we've seen with our DFR since we've had this deployed for the last about five months, we have faster response times. We're able to get real-time information, provide information on where suspects are located. provide a description of travel, a description, and whether we see any weapons that are visible. So with this technology, it's become very apparent that it's been helpful to apprehend suspects in a much faster time and in a safer way as well. Let's talk about ALPR. Before I get into this, I think everybody knows, well, I believe they know the purpose of this. We did have an incident here in the Apache Junction Police Department that I'm not proud of. I addressed it in a press conference where we had an officer that did misuse this. This happened on April 19th, and when we found out about it, after the misuse, we knew about it within about three hours, and we took action immediately. The officer was suspended. All of his rights were taken away from any access to any of this. And we were in contact with the person that he was trying to locate. For us, it was a big blow to us. It was something that, for me, I'm not proud of. And it's something that I know we're going to have to rebuild trust. It's something that I will speak about openly. We have nothing to hide. We did not want to not share that. But I wanted to make sure that people know when we have this technology, we do have human beings these roles and throughout my career in 25 years I have seen officers misuse technology they're held accountable and sometimes they're arrested if it's a crime and sometimes more than anything they're terminated from employment that's what we did here in the Apache Junction Police Department he did resign before we could terminate him but he it still was a considered a termination So I wanted to bring that up as well. We also know that here in the Apache Junction Police Department, we have been working very hard to build trust. I know it takes one bad incident to break all the good work that we've been putting in. We work with our school district. We go to the football games. We go to the high school events. We go to church outings. We go to everything we can to share information and show how much we support this community. I believe we have a great reputation. in the city Apache Junction and the residents. We've seen it, we've felt it. When we lost our officer last year, we felt the support of the community. But now we have to start over and we are going to start over and we're going to continue having these conversations and we're going to address not only you, Vice Mayor and council members, we will go to churches, we will go to schools, we will go to community forums. We will not shy away from this and we will have these open discussions. That is my commitment. When we talk about ALPR, we've had this technology for about three and a half years. I came from another city where ALPR was used. We've been using it in law enforcement for over 25 years that I've been here. But Flock, the specific name in this, has been around for about eight or nine years. And the last city I worked for, we were the first agency to go to it. And we saw the success in it. We saw the success of apprehending suspects, recovering stolen vehicles. finding missing people. That's why I wanted to bring it here. I still stand by that and I want to explain a few things how it works. And then I have a little video I'll show here. What ALPR does is it captures license plate information. It's a moment in time that takes a photo of a vehicle, the rear of a vehicle. The vehicle characteristics, the date, time and location. It does not do facial recognition. We do not have cameras that have facial recognition. These cameras do not take photos of the front of the vehicles. Anybody that sees the photos, you cannot see who's in the vehicle. What it does is it gives us a snapshot in time of the rear of the vehicle and captures the license plate. For those that don't understand how law enforcement works, when somebody commits a crime or somebody steals a vehicle, That information is put into a national crime database. That information is synced to our cameras. What that does is when there's a vehicle that drives by these cameras that's involved in a crime that's been put into the National Crime Information Center or NCIC, it'll give us an alert and say that a stolen vehicle or a missing person just drove by this camera and it sends us a picture of that vehicle. At that point, we are able to respond and try to take action. Since 2024, we have recovered 34 stolen vehicles valued at about $700,000. We've located nine missing people here in the city of Apache Junction. Some of those were from neighboring jurisdictions. There was one individual that was suffering from dementia, Alzheimer's. from the West Valley that had driven out here, and we located him because of the flock hit that the other agency had put into NCIC. I've been asked, has, you know, actually we'll get into that in a second, I apologize. How we use it is we look for missing and endangered persons, stolen vehicles. We use it for investigations. Some of the investigations involve some of our youth. There was an incident not too long ago. One of our students from the Apache Unified School District was taken, and she had just turned 13 years old, and she was taken by a 68-year-old stranger. We would have not found this girl as fast as we did had we not had these ALPRs. Now, that's one person. Is it worth it, one person that's one of our students at Apache Junction Unified School District? Absolutely. We've talked to the mom or the grandparents. We've talked to her guardians, and they thank us for this technology. We've talked to numerous victims of crimes, people who have had their vehicles recovered that have asked how we found it. We let them know. They've showed appreciation. We've used this type of technology for fatal hit and runs where a vehicle ran someone over, killed them, and fled the scene. We were able to pull up the vehicles in the area at that time, and we were able to locate the vehicle. The vehicle head was somebody that lived up north in northeastern Arizona. And we were able to solve that case because of that and bring some justice to the family. One of the things that it does not do, if the camera takes a picture of a vehicle, it does not mean that the police see that vehicle. The only reason we see that vehicle is if it's involved in a crime or it's involved in some type of investigation that we need to find the person. Some of the things that we do is we have, ALPR is for a legitimate law enforcement purpose. We have changed several things since our misuse. We've learned from that. We've learned that there needs to be more guardrails on this technology, even within our own department. We have limited who now has access to that. We do weekly audits. We conduct audits where we're able to see who is accessing what type of vehicles and why. And there's a video that we're going to show here with Commander Ewer. I'm sure she loves that photo, but we'll play this. It's about a five-minute video, so bear with me for about five minutes.

I'm here to show you and dispel some rumors about how our flock safety system works. using our license plate readers in the city of Apache Junction. So behind me, I'm gonna pull up what it looks like when we are using the system and some of the safeguards that we have in place to ensure that we are using it properly and that we are holding ourselves accountable. So behind me is the restricted access warning before we actually view the system. It's showing us that if we're using it for immigration enforcement, in certain states that we are using it with care and that we are being monitored, recorded and audited and that the improper use is leading to disciplinary actions. So we're gonna click on the accept on that. And everything I do on here is gonna be in a testing phase. However, we've already documented that this is gonna happen and because it is going to show that I did a test, on this system so when we go through and do an audit, it's gonna show that I ran this license plate for a test, but it is gonna flag in the system as something that needs to be looked at because it's unusual activity. So here we have the offense types. These are our different offense types that we will have to put into the system when we do a search. So an example would be if we had an elderly citizen that went missing from her house and her family's reported her missing, if she has left in her vehicle, we would put in here that we're looking for a missing person. But I'm going to use the other on this because we're just doing a test. So this is going to flag me for conduct that's not normal. So I'm gonna put in here that we are doing a test. However, normally we would put in the case number. So if that missing female was missing, we would put in the case number that's responsible for that. And we would put the reason that we would say looking for missing vehicle or missing person, but we're gonna still continue to put testing in here. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna look up the license plate of one of our police cars so that we're not looking up anybody else's plate that we know this is a plate that we have and I actually have it saved in here and we're going to use Arizona as the state and we're going to down here it shows the start and the end date right now we only have it set for two hours unless we go in and change it so I'm going to do the last 24 hours of any flock hits on our license plate from our police vehicle so this is loading the results you can see here what it looks like when we get a license plate reader hit No matter how close or far these license plate readers are to the license plate, you cannot see inside the vehicle. So even though the plate is this close or it's this close or this close, you still can't see who's inside. Here's a picture of another vehicle we weren't searching for and I still can't see inside of that vehicle as well. as well as this photo that shows oncoming traffic and I cannot see that person in that vehicle. So this license plate reader is basically just giving us information that if I was standing on the side of the road, I would be able to see the license plate number and the vehicle driving by. One of the cases that shows us a success story from the LPR system is the fact that we were able to find an elderly woman with dementia and Alzheimer's who had left her family home in her vehicle without water bottle or a wallet or a cell phone and her family was able to track that she had left the house within the last two hours and that she had a history of previous living in New Mexico. So the family thought she had maybe gone to New Mexico and we were able to go in and put that she was a missing person into the system and add her license plate into the LPR system. We were able to find her and tracked her through Globe and all the way to Safford, Arizona, where she was on her way to New Mexico. based on this LPR system because when we add in a missing endangered person with their license plate into the system, when they cross an LPR camera in the state, it will notify that agency that that person or that vehicle has entered that jurisdiction and where it was. So when we had noticed that she was in Safford, we contacted the Safford Police Department and we were able to tell them, can you go search in this area for this woman? So it's a good success story as we're not sitting here watching for license plate reader hits on stolen vehicles or looking up things. It's more of in the moment active investigation where we can really make a difference in someone's life. I can say with 100% certainty that this woman who went missing would not have been found within a reasonable amount of time without the license plate readers. I say that because time is of the essence when we're dealing with our vulnerable community and not being able to locate her in this type of heat in the desert is something we would have never been able to do without the license plate readers.

So as you can see, that's how flock is used here in the city of Apache Junction. Some of the things I think is important to know, we do listen to our community. We understand that there has been some incidents. We've had cameras that have been damaged. And I understand that. And one of the things that we've discussed internally is there are cameras that have been put out that probably don't need to be in those locations. I had a great conversation with a gentleman that his concern was for the cameras on Goldfield. And he's here tonight. And I listened to him. And we listen to him as a department. We're moving the cameras on Goldfield because we don't feel that they need to be in the residential areas. We want to cover our city that are coming into the city and the main access points of people coming in and out of the city. We get thousands and thousands of visitors that come into the city of Apache Junction. And when I talk about keeping the city safe and keeping our crime rate continuing to go down, it's by using these types of technology. And again, we want to hear from people. We want to hear what's being said from our residents of Apache Junction. I like that picture about as much as Commander Ewer does, but it is what it is. I can't change that face. We have since, because of everything that has happened, if you go to our website, we have included some videos. We talk about how we're using technology, how we use ALPR. and we address actually the misuse that was done. And again, it's not something, it left a big bruise on our department, and we're something that we're trying to rebuild. On our website, it talks about what the technology is that we use, how Apache Junction PD uses it, the FA, the frequently asked questions, our policy is on there, as well as some of the results and outcomes that we've used. This data that we hold is held only by the Apache Junction Police Department. It is our data. We do not share it with anybody outside of the state of Arizona. We share it with 60 other law enforcement agencies, local, state, and county in Arizona. We don't share outside. We don't share with federal authorities. This data is scrubbed after 30 days, and we, for us, we know If I can find it. Actually, I'll come back to that. We know that that's part of the question, is who owns this data? In our contract, it does say that we own the data that we take from these cameras. There's also a Senate bill that will take place on September 12th, Senate Bill 1552, that states that on September 12th, any ALPR camera Any data that is taken from those cameras throughout the state of Arizona will not be able to be sold by any tech company, any technology database at all. So that'll be an Arizona state law. When we talk also about the future of ALPR, one of my roles also is I'm the president of the Arizona Chiefs Association. So I work with chiefs from all over the state of Arizona. It is a technology I stand by. It's a technology that I know is keeping the city of Apache Junction safe. And it's something that I know will continue to do so. And I would be foolish to say that a misuse will never happen again. But I'm confident that the likelihood of that happening will not happen while I'm here. I thank you for this. I'm going to turn this over to our city attorney on some legal opinion because there has been questions raised whether this technology is constitutional or not. And I'll turn that over to Joel Stern.

Thank you, Chief, Mayor, and City Council. In 2023, this technology was brought to the city. The Chief did a wonderful job bringing that based on his experience in Tempe and other cities. We looked at the illegality. We had a public hearing about it. We looked at the contracts. And it was basically not illegal. The question is, do you have to have a warrant? Does law enforcement have to have a warrant to check everybody's license plate and do it the way the mayor of which flock is doing it? The answer is no. I've researched this myself, personally. Other city attorneys have come to the same conclusion. And at the request of the council, I did provide approximately 20 cases that talk about whether a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in public when they're driving their car and over their license plate. And the answer is they do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. It's in plain view. Anybody could see their license plate. And that basically, if you look at the cases, That's what the cases talk about. Now, people talk about, well, you know, you have to get a cell phone for a cell phone, what if a suspect has a cell phone? And you have to get a warrant for that. You absolutely do. And I have some other cases that I didn't put in here because I didn't want to confuse the public on what is illegal versus what is not legal. There is a GPS device where that's attached to a car. Do you need a warrant for that? You absolutely do. You did in 2012 and you still do today. That's a Supreme Court ruling in US versus Jones. There is the cell site location information called CSLI. Once again, the Supreme Court decided, and that's Carpenter versus United States, that in order to check someone's cell phone to see if you were, say you're a bank robber and you had a cell phone. That's what happened in a whole bunch of these cases. and they did have a warrant, it's legal. If you don't have a warrant, you can't check someone's cell phone. Now, there's some exceptions. They consent, but most bad guys don't consent. However, the police department needs a warrant to check people's cell phones. Cell phone is like it's part of them. They're moving constantly. That cell phone sends out signals from a tower, and the tower gets back to the cell phone, and it tells you, Tells the police where that person is. And sometimes, depending on the strength of the cell tower, it could be three to five times a minute that there's pings that go back to that cell phone. That's quite different when you have these cameras. AJ has, I think, 30 cameras. Some of these cases that I have cited, there's these larger cities where there's well over 100 cameras. Some, I think, one had 188 cameras in Norfolk. And yes, that was legal to have those cameras, even in that many. And did it track the car? It did, to a certain degree, but not every single second. In the cell phone cases, that is much more tracked. That's why you need a warrant. Geofence cell phone, also, to track, to see, that's a Supreme Court case, Chattree v. United States, very recent, June 29, 26. That involved robberies. Certain people had cell phones, and they tracked them. And they did have a warrant in that case. There were three levels of getting into the information, and that was the only problem with that case. So the answer is you don't need a warrant to do the ALPR process or system. Now, will that change someday? It depends on the Supreme Court. It depends on other circuits, but Right now, it is completely legal, and I applaud the chief for bringing this technology to the city where we have saved lives.

Mayor, real quick, did the Supreme Court rule on that?

The Supreme Court has not ruled on that exact issue, but there are cases that have led up to that where there's some circuits.

Did they rule on it?

Other circuits did, yes, and I've got about 20 cases here from different courts.

Ninth Circuit's what we're under, correct?

Yes.

They did rule on it, and they said it was not illegal, correct?

Yes.

Okay. So, thank you, Mr. Stern. Just in closing, before we go into questions, you know, we are an organization that prides ourself in this community. We love the city of Apache Junction. My daughter works at Walmart. I go to Walmart all the time here. I'm in this community. We want to do what's right for the city of Apache Junction. We appreciate everyone that's here tonight. When I walked in and saw everybody in red, I thought it was because they supported the fire department, but it's here for something else. And I appreciate that. I try to bring a little humor because I want this to be a good discussion. I want to hear from the men and women that are here that have taken time out of their busy day and to speak and to share with us. I think we can learn from that. But in closing, I want to just say that this community deserves the best policing possible. It is a community that has been overlooked often. It is a community that has not had the best service sometimes. We're trying to do that. We're trying to change that. When I sit across the table from victims of crime, it sticks with me. And there are certain cases that we have not been able to solve to this day because we did not have the technology that we have at our hands today. And those are specific cases that I remember from when I was in Tempe. And one of them was the victim we found out here, Adrian Salinas, and her body was out here about eight or nine years ago. And to this day, it's still unsolved. The reason I put a camera on Lost Dutchman and Meridian is because had we had a camera there, we would have caught the individual that took her and killed her. I am confident of that. And I'm here to answer any questions, and I will be as honest and open and transparent as possible.

Anyone have any questions? Go ahead.

Chief, you're... Your guidelines that you have changed for flock, one of the ones that concerns me a little bit is the 30-day retention before they get scrubbed. Now, realistically, every day I pass a camera, that 30 days gets reset, does it not? I mean, if I pass it September 1st, September 1st gets scrubbed October 1st, but September 2nd, it's October 2nd, so on and so forth, so it's never really being scrubbed. If this body makes a decision on the fate of the cameras, is there any sort of... I'd like to see like seven days. Is this something that could be achieved?

Yes, it could be. And again, as a body of law enforcement in Arizona, and I speak with chiefs from all over the state of Arizona, there are some cities that are saying they don't want these cameras at all, and the chiefs are bending to those and going away from them. Like I said, many are going to other cameras. But one of the things that we discuss is retention. And right now there is no set guidelines, but what we've agreed on that we've seen in cases that have helped us to solve cases is 30 days. The reason is because sometimes if you go away on vacation... you come back and you may see your house has been broken into or your business has been vandalized or whatever it may be. Sometimes there is delay in reporting and we believe that at 30 days is going to be the time that is best to keep. Once that data is gone, it is gone. We cannot retrieve it. We can't get a warrant. We can't get engineers to bring it back. It is completely gone. At some point, if the decision is made for seven days, at least we still have the cameras.

So another question. So could you tell me the, so Tempe said no more.

Correct.

And what are the other cities that say no more?

Right now it's Surprise, Carefree and Chandler.

So there's four altogether so far. Correct. So now if they don't have the system, that kind of defeats the purpose of the system other places, right? Because then you won't be able to work with Tempe or you won't be able to work with Surprise. You'll only be able to work with the cities and towns that have this camera. And the more they filter them out, the less it makes it what it is, correct? I mean, other than that, if it comes down to the point where Apache Junction says, hey, look, We don't mind the technology. We love the idea of protecting our citizens. But if it's not... enough to share with other communities, then what's the real purpose behind Flock if the real purpose is to be able to share our information with other cities and towns in the valley or in the state of Arizona? You see what I'm saying?

Yes. That is a part of it. You're right. Absolutely right. When you share data, it does help across. We know criminals that come to Apache Junction don't just stay in Apache Junction. They go to Mesa, Goodyear, Surprise, Flagstaff, Yuma, And that's where that becomes into place. What it does help us is when we have a fatal hit and run accident on Apache Trail and we use our cameras to identify a vehicle that's a suspect in that hit and run.

So if something happened in Tempe, they still have the ability to put that information in the database that would be picked up. It's not necessarily the flock database. It's just the state of Arizona's database.

That is accurate.

Mayor? Yes. Big issue. What are the safety protocols you have put in place right now since we did have a violation? And I want everybody out there to understand police officers are humans. They can make bad decisions. Anytime a police officer uses any government equipment for personal use, it is not good. And they should be dealt with and held accountable. Can you please go over what the safety protocols you put in since this happened in AJ?

Yes. Thank you, Councilman Soler. We have made several changes. One of them is we have taken access away from several of personnel in our department. We still have enough personnel that are operational that at any point we'll have the ability to look up vehicles. Now it's just not throughout the whole department. We also have a, if it's not an active investigation, they have to get supervisory approval. And it has to be cleared by a supervisor to run a vehicle through this database. We also have begun doing weekly audits, where our support services command is now doing weekly audits. It's the same command that oversees our internal affairs. And we look into anything that may jump out or stand out to us. Those are some of the things we did immediately.

And you're working on a bill to make it a crime.

We are, yes. And it's not just me. It is the entire state of Arizona. We're working with a few different senators, Arizona state senators, that are going to be looking at bringing legislation again this year to address this issue.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor, members of council. Appreciate it.

Okay. Excuse me. I will now open the public hearing. There is a five-minute time limit with a one-minute warning indicated by the yellow light. Please state your name and address for the record. If you're in a group, we would like you to speak. Wait. Wait.

We ask you to pick one representative to address the council.

And please be respectable of each speaker. All right. One of the things I wanted to emphasize the fact is we need to allow everyone to speak that wants to speak and be able to say what they want to say. If you agree or disagree with it, please be silent in the aspect on it. We'll accept some claps, but no booing, hissing, or anything along this line. We're definitely here as adults wanting to address an issue and have everyone make comments.

Hey, Mayor, real quick. We're not here against you or for you. We're here to have a good discussion, you know. I'm not a Big Brother fan myself, but, you know, we're here to discuss the pros and cons.

Your Honor.

Yes.

And we want to thank you guys for showing up. The reason why we put this on the agenda tonight, because we feel that the public has the right to speak their minds. And I'm glad we had a good turnout. Can't wait to hear what you guys have to say.

Okay.

Donna Carr, Apache Junction resident.

Sorry, Donna.

You want me to start again? Okay, Donna Carr, Apache Junction resident. Okay, I'm not picking on Chief Pulley here, but I did talk to him yesterday, and I said that... One of the things, I guess, that when he did the press conference, in the beginning of the press conference, he stated that the person, the officer, was doing a welfare check on a family member. In the middle of the press conference, somebody asked who the family member was, and he said a wife. When actually it's a process of being an ex-wife and it was a disagreement or something between them that is the reason why he was checking into this person. And my understanding is you just said that where you're from, that they use this technology. And they were getting along real well with it. But my understanding is Tempe has shut down 30 of their cameras on August 26. DeSantos in Florida, he shut down all the cameras on the state highways. The governor did. So across the United States as a whole, 214 cities, towns, or counties have shut down their cameras. Now, I am opposed to the cameras, yes I am, because I feel that my privacy, our privacy, has been sold and in return I'm supposedly getting security. And once our privacy is gone, you're not going to get it back. I would like to flock cameras taken down until that AI is smart enough where if an Amber Alert comes in and it's on a white vehicle with BHP as a license plate, and that flock is only scanning for white vehicles with BHP in the license plate and not taking pictures of every car that's on the road, I don't need you to know the date and time I went down certain roads and where the heck I was going, because it's nobody's business but my own. And like I was asked by Chief Pooley is, what about your cell phone? Yes, I do have a cell phone. Yes, it does have a tracker. And yes, I do have a Faraday bag. So I can stick it in there any time that I want to go someplace where it's none of anybody's business where I go. And I would also like to give to the city another 95 signatures from people who want the flock cameras back. What was the other thing? So I think that's probably it that I'm going to say, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of other people have something to say about it as well. Thank you for your time.

Hi, my name's David Day. I'm in the county. Merry Christmas. I'm opposed to the flock cameras. You know, the community I came from, one of the reasons I moved here was law enforcement. We have a law enforcement that we can appreciate and we can trust here. I have more faith in them yesterday than I do today. The flock cameras didn't build trust. It took it away. You know, it was said that he who sacrifices... Security for freedom gets neither. I don't agree with the flat cameras. I think the biggest thing is the people don't agree with them. And if you put it out to the majority, the majority of the people that I've seen are saying no, they don't want them. And ultimately, it should be their choice, not anybody else's. I'll end it there.

Good evening, council, mayor. My name is Dan Witter, and I live here in Apache Junction. I want to thank everybody for showing up tonight. Are we going to have a little speech? I'm sorry?

Your address, please.

4550 North Gold Drive. Thank you. You're welcome, Rob. Mr. Stern, you mentioned that the Ninth Circuit Court ruled on this. I can't find it. I have never seen that. APL cameras have done something that almost no other issue has done for decades. They brought people from both sides of the aisle together in opposition of one subject. I heard that a councilman said that conservatives love Flock cameras, and I'm here to differ with you. I never said that, sir. I spent a couple of hours watching the Flock contract discussion in May of 22, and a few council members who are no longer here briefly touched on the privacy in the Fourth Amendment. You're right. Supreme Court hasn't ruled on it, but you're on the wrong side of history. And the way things are going right now, it's not going to be long. You can set guardrails, chief. It's called the Fourth Amendment. Get a warrant. You don't need state legislature. You don't need the federal government to do it. You can do that yourself. During that May 22 meeting, the mayor mentioned that a woman had called him concerned about her being tracked to Walmart. And some of you guys laughed, but you missed the point. It's not about a camera taking a picture of a license plate. It's about the system built around the camera that tracks you everywhere you go. It's not just to Walmart. It's to gun stores, to gun ranges, to church, to political events, to doctors. It's building a database on you. The only person who voted no on that was you. And I appreciate it. quite understand why I watched it, but I'm not sure why. I was shocked that nobody brought up the Fourth Amendment, nobody brought up privacy issues. These cameras are invasive, and the way this technology goes, it's getting more invasive every day. Another council member said, well, it's not all constitutionalist. Well, I'm here to tell you, you should be. Because everything you do, every law you pass, Every law the state passes, every law the federal government passes should pass constitutional muster. Okay? You need to be a constitutionalist first. You can't just be a constitutionalist long enough to put your hand on a Bible and swear in and swear to protect the Constitution and then say, oh, well, I'm not a constitutionalist anymore. It doesn't work that way.

The Chandler police chief, and I'm going to quote him, said, transparency, accountability, and public trust are the hallmarks of a high-functioning police department

And I would argue that Apache Junction's failing in those areas, Chief.

I heard you talk about a couple of these.

First of all, look at this room. This doesn't show public trust. This shows public distrust. Transparency. On July 7, 2026, I filed a FOIA request requesting search terms, audit logs, copy of the flock contract. It took 27 days for Chris Marino of the Apache Junction Police Department to get back to me and say, well, you can have the contract, but you can't have anything else because we're just not required to give it to you. Running out the clock 27 days on data that's only kept 30 days isn't the way to operate a transparent police department. It's not. I paid for that contract on August 20th, and I still don't have it, Chief. Accountability, your officer violated flock rules. According to the chief, the investigation started in April and ran into July. The officer was allowed to resign before termination. No criminal charges were filed. It should not take three months to investigate something that you can pull up audit logs in seconds. This searchable database, you can see what people did immediately and interview a few people and close it out. The delay was highly suspicious. Arizona has criminal statutes that can apply to these unauthorized use of law enforcement databases. There has been no real accountability. Based on all this, we've entered into the era of pre-crime and the minority report. Investigations have now turned upside down. It used to work a different way. Okay, thank you. All suspects now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council. Thank you to everybody here and watching at home. I'm Barbie Engel. I live at 4980 North Idaho. Sorry, Ironwood Drive. And I urge the Council to make... to stop the city's use of Flock in ALPR surveillance cameras and devices. When I say Flock, I'm using a brand name such as Kleenex to Tissue, and I am referring to all such devices and the system. The system creates a detailed record of nearly every vehicle's movement without warrants, invading privacy, and raising serious Fourth Amendment concerns. Such as how far does Apache Junction Police and government surveillance actually reach? How many of those agencies, 60, 100, we've heard different numbers. How far is that reaching? Who are they? They also undermine the due process when the information is assessed in non-emergency situations. Many of the flock systems, be they on the side of the street or in a drone or temporarily in a parking lot or at an event, can do much more than just read a plate. A typical roadside flock LPR is not just a plate reader. It builds in searchable, visible profile that the car and logs and where they are and when that car was seen. And in general, it does not officially name or biometrically identify the driver, but the broader flock video, audio products and AI components that are coming online now when they weren't online in 2023, it is the issue now. As those are being updated and brought through, that software is layered on top of the cameras network and can be seen and searched much more than just a plate number. They affect the First Amendment by chilling freedom of speech, assembly, and association. People avoid rallies, protests, political meetings, places of worship, knowing that their travel is locked, sorry, logged and searched or searchable. Even their claimed benefits such as locating a missing person or responding to a welfare check do not erase the constitutional problem. When the government builds a continuous searchable record of nearly every vehicle's movement and then queries that database without a warrant, it is still conducting a search of private location information. The fact that the outcome is sometimes beneficial does not transform a warrantless search into a lawful one. Courts have long held that good intentions or successful results do not excuse violations of our Fourth Amendment. The same technology that can help find a missing child can equally be used, and we've already seen that here in Apache Junction for personal tracking under the guise of a welfare check. As the infrastructure of mass surveillance exists and improves with AI, the temptation and the opportunity for misuse are permanent. The 14th Amendment also implicates the due process risk from errors that lead to wrongdoing, wrongful stops, and... by potential for unequal application across communities. We have already seen officer misuse here in Apache Junction, as suggested tonight, or stated tonight, and it resulted in a resignation. Chandler, Arizona, and Tempe and others have also discontinued the use of their systems. What exactly is Apache Junction getting in return for this extraordinary level of surveillance, please consider restoring our constitutional protections and public trust by ending the use of this continuous camera surveillance of We the People. The funds that are currently being spent on these systems could instead be used to support the rights Respecting respectful approaches and that could be hiring additional police officers that could be enhancing training and investigative capabilities that could be strengthening community policing and targeting patrols. all of which are tools that put more officers on the streets, give people jobs, improve public safety without creating a warrantless record of nearly every resident's movements. Thank you for your time. And also, there is two cases out of Virginia where the judge did rule in favor that it was unconstitutional to the Fourth Amendment. Thank you very much.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, staff, community members. My name is Pam Bradshaw. I'm a resident of Apache Junction. I live at 3405 South Tomahawk Road, number 58. And I've been there for 30 years. I'm not a criminal. I'm a law-abiding citizen, yet these flock and flock-like cameras take every vehicle that passes, mine included. They are recording location, time, make, model, and more, 24-7. As technology improves, these privacy outreach devices are updated to see more and more of my daily life, as well as yours. Anyone with access or who can buy or misuse the system can follow where I go. If someone has a grudge, they can use that data to harm me or my family. There is little real recourse or ability to sue or correct the damage. Once it's done, it's done. We already saw this risk here in Apache Junction when an officer used the system to track his wife. and he resigned before being fired. These cameras also watch the vehicles of young children and families. Constant tracking creates opportunities for harm that no parent should have to accept. Finally, this is mass surveillance by a government agency of innocent people without a warrant. That goes against the spirit of our Constitution and citizens of the United States. We are becoming a communistic-like country with facial recognition and more at the fingertips of our government and governmental agencies. Data collected here can be shared far beyond our city. Once it leaves our control, we have no idea who sees it or how it will be used. Sites like mapsdeflock.org show just how widespread this network has become. Tens of thousands of these cameras nationwide mostly flock, creating detailed movement records on everyone. I ask you to reject, not to renew, the tracker contracts and remove these cameras from Apache Junction. The Constitution is important to me, and it should be important to you. Protect our privacy. And now I'll give you an example. A friend of mine, let's just call him Jack, went to have his oil changed at the normal person that he's always had his oil changed at. He was sitting in the outer office, and 15 minutes into going over his vehicle, the attendant came out and said, Jack? have you got a new license plate? And he says, no, I've got the same license plate I've always had. Guess what? Somebody had switched his license plate. I know that seems like a facetious thing, but somebody had done that. Had it been a police officer and this license plate been somebody that was a robber and had the brains, which some of them don't, to go and take a license off of a car, and now this person would have been pulled over, had the license, oil change person not found it out for him. It's a possibility. Things like that can happen. People aren't stupid anymore. They're always looking for a way out when they're doing bad things. So please think again about these cameras. I know that's only one and I hope I haven't given anybody the idea to go change the license plate on somebody's car because guess what? It's December of 27 instead of October of 26. Thank you.

Good evening, Council. My name is Nathan Taylor Taft. You have my address on the speaker card, and I'm the co-director of East Valley Unite. So we have members all over the East Valley, including many here in Apache Junction. I first want to list the Arizona cities that have ended flock. They are Sedona, Flagstaff, Sierra Vista, South Tucson, Pinal County, Chandler, Surprise, Tempe, and Cave Creek. It's not just three cities, as the chief seemed to imply. Arizona is actually the state with the third most flock contract cancellations and two-thirds of Arizona voters with majorities across party lines oppose ALPR use. I'm not here today to give an opinion that is anti-police in any way. Rather, I am conveying concerns shared by many of your constituents about the dangers of flock and ALPRs and why you should immediately terminate the city's contract with it. I want to make clear that it is irresponsible to continue the use of flock cameras, especially after one of Apache Junction's own officers used them to stalk his wife and kids. That is morally wrong on every single level, and claiming that it's fine because an audit uncovered it and the officer resigned is ridiculous because it ignores the fact that the issue wasn't prevented, it was enabled by the ALPR system in the first place. Flock and other ALPRs are cameras that capture information on every single vehicle that passes by. This includes, but is not limited to, a car's license plate, date, time, location, make, model, bumper stickers, dents, scratches, cargo carriers, anything else that AI can pick up. Further, despite what Flock claims, Wired has found that cameras can track people and can identify characteristics such as their race, height, clothing, et cetera. This type of dragnet surveillance is what violates our constitutional rights. The ACLU argues that using ALPR systems gives the government unprecedented powers of surveillance that upset traditional expectations of privacy in violation of the Fourth Amendment. That's the exact reason why the Pinal County Sheriff, Ross Teeple, canceled his contract with Flock. They also have a list of cases related The police department has a list of cases related to courts saying that there isn't a reasonable expectation of privacy in public, but you can't convince us to not believe something right in front of our own eyes. With thousands of agencies with access and over 100,000 ALPRs, this is ridiculous. This is an example that applies to all ALPRs, not just from Flock. This includes other companies like Axon, Motorola, Genetic, Leonardo. Cities around the country have adopted ALPRs with almost 140,000 reported across the country on the crowdsourced D-Flock map. Flock, again, just one ALPR company, scans license plates 20 billion times each month. This means ALPRs document millions of cars under the guise of fighting crime without a warrant. At this scale, this is mass surveillance, and it is not just done without consent, but against the will of the people organizing to oppose it. The Institute for Justice keeps a database of cases of ALPR misuse. There are 190 instances so far, including 50 of stalking and four in the Phoenix metro area that have been discovered just since August 7th. Here are some examples of misuse from across the country. In Texas, a sheriff's deputy used 83,000 flock ALPRs to find a woman who received medical care at the behest of her abusive partner. In Georgia, a police chief tracked his ex-girlfriend and her teenage daughter roughly 600 times. And then here in Apache Junction, a police officer tracked his wife and children. Depending on the company, error rates can be extremely high. In Roseville, California, an analysis by the police department found that in 71% of alerts, Flock's machine learning software incorrectly read the license plates. Despite Flock claiming that in favorable conditions, 96% of license plate characters are identified correctly. This has led to numerous wrongful arrests. Here are some examples. In Volusia County, Florida, a Flock capture led officers to misidentify a driver's car as one linked to a fatal accident. He spent 13 days in jail before the error was found. In Sherwood, Arkansas, a camera misread a digit on an innocent couple's plate and flagged it as stolen. Officers ordered the couple out at gunpoint while their six-week-old baby remained alone in the backseat. In Toledo, Ohio, a camera misread a seven as a two. Officers detained a driver at gunpoint, deployed a police dog against him, and held him for several hours. When the public starts to realize what is being done, ALPR companies do everything they can to stop contracts from ending in order to protect their profit margins. Flock has a whole guide for police departments on how to speak to city councils and the public about ALPRs to try and convince them that the technology is useful or good or necessary. That guide instructs police to avoid the topic of mass surveillance entirely because they recognize that they won't be able to convince anyone it's not. I urge the council to immediately terminate its contract with Flock and instead become a leader in the fight to protect our Fourth Amendment rights by banning this unnecessary and unwanted technology before more abuse can harm more innocent people. As Benjamin Franklin once said, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Kimberly Carroll, and I'm a resident on 6280 East Roundup Street and a small business owner here in Apache Junction.

I'm here about the 30-flock license plate reader cameras on our streets, and I'm asking you to end the program, not just to review it.

We already know it's been misused. Officer Joshua McDaniel used our flock cameras to track down his own wife. He resigned. That's not a hypothetical risk. It already happened in this city with our data. We're not alone in facing this. In this last month, Tempe cut off outside access to its flock database. Chandler ended its contract after an audit flagged unexplained activity. Surprise canceled its contract. The Pinal County Sheriff walked away over Fourth Amendment concerns. The Attorney General has opened a statewide review. These cameras don't just catch a plate, they build a digital footprint of a vehicle, where it goes, how often, what's nearby. Across 30 cameras moving around our city, that's a record of our neighbors' daily movements, doctor visits, churches, custody exchanges, protests, etc. And this isn't just a policy question, it's a constitutional one. And it's not settled law. In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that even though any single trip you take in public is visible to anyone, the government can't assemble the whole of a person's parts. No court has struck down a network like ours yet, and I want to be honest about that. But this year's Supreme Court ruling in the geofencing location, Daddy, is already fueling a live appeal challenging Flock's own cameras in Norfolk, Virginia. This question is being actively fought over in courts right now. Apache Junction doesn't need to wait for its own lawsuit to find out what way it lands. Our department says supervisory appeal is now required for outside case searches. I don't doubt that's genuine, but that safeguard was written after the misuse, not before it. And I want to flag something else. This isn't just flock problem. Cities that dropped flock elsewhere have simply switched to companies like Axon, which now sells its own pole, camera, and a streetlight retrofit built to do the same job under a different name. A camera that installs into existing streetlights infrastructure in under an hour doesn't need a visible pole or a public bid, which makes it easier to expand without residents even knowing. There's also a cybersecurity problem here that has nothing to do with our policy at all. In January of this year, Flock confirmed that some of its camera feeds were exposed to the open internet. Outsiders could watch live video, scroll through a month of archived footage, and even delete it. Independently, security researchers have documented other weaknesses too, like unencrypted data and exposed administrative logins, serious enough that two U.S. Senators formally asked the FTC to investigate. Flock says those issues were isolated and fixed. Maybe so. But that means the safety of our residents' movement data doesn't just depend on our own department's policy. It depends on a private vendor server staying secure indefinitely against everyone from bored teenagers to foreign intelligence services. So I ask tonight is two things. End the Flock contract completely and commit publicly that Apache Junction will not quietly replace it with license plate readers, facial recognition, or any other surveillance hardware hidden in streetlights or city infrastructure from Axon or anyone else. Any future surveillance proposal should come to this council and the public and open. as its own agenda item. Our safety does not require surrendering a permanent record of where every one of us drives and lives every day to a private company and a database we can't see into no matter whose name's on the poll. Thank you.

My name's Rodney Martin. I live at 1665 South Meridian Road here at Apache Junction. Chief Pooley, I wore blue and red. Because I support you. I think that I have the utmost confidence in our police department here. We just have a good faith, honest, difference of opinion on this matter. And regardless of what happens, I'd like to work with you on coming up with some better solutions on that if the council decides to keep this program. So with that said, I'd like to address, I've seen comments online where this argument has gotten conflated to, If you're against flock, you don't support the police. I worked 35 years with law enforcement. In a prior life, I was a judge, and I worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police, a member of the Latino Police Officers Association, and I have known three officers, two personal friends of mine that gave their lives in the line of duty. So anybody that says my opposition to flock means I don't support the police. I beg to differ with them. I'm not going to belabor the issue, and I'm not going to sit up here and demand that you cancel anything. I want to give you some plain language information. You can deal with it as you will. I looked at these cases. I must say, my good friend Richard here, we're going to have to go to lunch and talk about these. I'm not sure all these are on point, especially the 1967 case. What a lot of these cases omit is the AI technology and the tracking. Sure, your license plate's fair game. You're fair game in public. Anybody can take a picture. I don't like it when some stranger comes and takes a picture or the cop points a radar gun at me when I'm going five over and I'm sweating bullets that he doesn't pull me over. And I asked a number of police officers out here if they were going to take pictures of my license plate and they said only if I'm going down the street. So I have their assurance. But what's gone missing in this is courts are generally behind technology. And that's where we're at right now. Sure, there's been ancillary cases that have touched on this. They've made clear decisions on phones. There was a recent case that says Google Maps clearly requires a warrant, which is a tracking situation. But the tracking situation compounded with the AI has not reached the high court. There are cases in Ohio and Virginia and Oregon, I believe, that are working their way up. There's a reason why all those municipalities in the state of Arizona have canceled this technology. I might add, isn't it wise just to err on the side of civil liberties instead of a cheesy company, tech company that's making millions to usurp civil liberties? I mean, it just seems a little cheesy for public representatives who represent us to say well yeah let's not dirty our hands let's get a private tech company that's making billions off the data and don't kid yourself they have that data there's a reason why Tempe cancelled it then promptly went over and put covers over those cameras because they're still recording data and that's going to flock I mean if you can read the articles and I would encourage you to Google And I'm going to go there and I'm going to say the uncomfortable. And I apologize, Chief Pooley, but you know as well as I do, there is the human element in every agency, whether they're soldiers in the military, where me and my family come from, and the mayor comes from, to police officers and fire. There is the human element to do things that they shouldn't do and flock, mayor and council, is more than a good cop should be tempted with, and it's a heck of a lot more than a bad cop should have at his disposal. I encourage you to go and Google officer abuses flock and look at this. In one case, one investigation and one officer netted 19 individuals that abused flock in one case. One case netted 19. And then I also want you to Google. I mean, this is a suggestion. Google persons who were misidentified by flock. You will find a lady who an officer drove across into an adjacent jurisdiction and read her the Riot Act and issued her a summons for stealing a package saying her car was positively identified by flock. Problem was, wasn't her, wasn't her car. Another lady in Virginia spent 17 days in lockup. Turns out it wasn't her. It wasn't her car. Oops. How do you give her her 17 days back of freedom? You can't. All based on AI technology. Now, those are resulting in lawsuits against the municipalities. Who pays for that? Not the AI company. Heaven forbid. Not the officer that relied on it. No. The taxpayers. The taxpayers should not have to pay for this. And finally, thank you. Thank you.

My name is Sean Riley. I live at 1209 South Cactus Road.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight, Chief, Mr. Mayor, Council.

I hope to make a few good points. I Not a public speaker, so I apologize. My thoughts are many and jumbled. I will do my best. A lot of people are touching on a topic, but nobody's really saying it. Government tyranny. You know, a lot of people are referencing the Fourth Amendment. But what this does, we don't need GPS because every one of these cameras has its own point. We know where this camera is. It has its own GPS coordinate. We saw it on the videos. As these cameras, when you just plug in a license plate and it gives you every position this car has been. We don't need GPS signal in the car. We've got it on these cameras. So we watch where that car went. I go outside. I expect everybody's going to see me. But I don't expect that a profile is being built around me. And the reason this is important is because we're creating a shifting baseline. Yes, now we have the cameras. We don't look at people's faces. But how long until we've accepted the cameras and now we're looking at who's in the car? Because we're shifting that baseline. And it's important because as we move and we have this flawed technology, and I'll touch base on the man and the woman in Sherwood, Arkansas, that were pulled out at gunpoint because it read the license plate wrong. Why the officers didn't run the plate and the vehicle description, I can't tell you. We're all human. The officer in Haines, Haines City PD, Christopher Goods, 700 times he used this. to stalk his ex-wife.

You know, we're going to, and again, here we go with the mic.

I apologize, my thoughts are jumbled. But he's got access to it, you know, because he's part of this government who can use it however they choose to use it. And if they decide that we are not part of what they accept, you know, we are not doing anything wrong, so we don't have to worry about it. Well, when do we have to worry about when they change what wrong is? 2022. the FBI declared a group that I was part of, a terrorist organization, low history of violence. It's called American Contingency. It had zero history of violence. We didn't even organize in rally, but we were a dissenting group. It was labeled a terrorist organization. That changes so many different things as to what I'm subject to. So where do we draw the line? Now we have this technology that's out and on a daily basis creating a profile. There's a case in Washington And it's not going to stay low. It's going up the courts right now as we speak. The data from these flock cameras is required now at that state level to be saved past that 30 days. They're required to save it off onto different hard drives because of the Freedom of Information Act. So when does that change? So where does that go? I mean, there's so many different opportunities for this to be used against the people and not for the people. And all we have is a government says, yeah, we're going to go ahead and check ourselves and make sure that we're doing it okay. There's nothing there for the people to stop it. That's all I've got. Thank you.

Thank you for this time today. Appreciate you guys listening to this. Non-speaker, nervous as hell. I moved here in 1973. I lived here until 83. I went to superstition, junior high, and the high school. Graduated there. Moved back six years ago. I've dealt with crime in this city back then. Biker gang. I lived at the base of the mountain up here at Bulldog. And biker gang, rape, suicide. Camera would not have done one thing for that. They were all instantaneous decisions that were made by people. It wouldn't have helped at all. So I have a very strong opinion about being tracked. There was two sheriffs back then. One was Boesel. I went to high school with him and his son. And if it wasn't for him, I don't know what I would have done.

You give your name and address.

Oh, I'm sorry. Rick Adair, 1480 North Mountain View Road. Apologize about that. I still have a lot of concerns of who has access to this data. I know we've heard a lot from people today that have questioned that, so I won't go into it any further, but it is concerning. 2020 and COVID, there was lockdowns, and people were being arrested for going to church and parks and skate parks and so forth. This is fine as the rules stand today, but what if they change the rules on us? Then what happens? Then where does this go? Is that data going to be used against us if we go to church, if we go to a park? It's just the rules that apply today. Those rules will change at any time. So it's just my opinion. Human error, not to knock anybody here in this room, but there's human error. I mean, we all do it all the time. You type in the wrong number, somebody's arrested, somebody's pulled over for no reason, but they've got to prove themselves innocent, and that's not how this country works. Drones, by the way, I just want to touch on that real quick. I don't disagree with the drone information you gave. What I don't understand, though, is when I went to the park here at Lost Dutchman Park for the, I think it was called the Blues and Brews, there was a drone flying the whole time. So I understand safety, and I understand wanting to be concerned about keeping our public safe, but is that really what we want? And what are they looking for? And I don't know. It might be all up and up, but it was just something that triggered me as an individual going, what is this? So this might get a little off the rails a little bit, but Hunger Games movie. I watched it with my son when he was younger. And the one thing that I reflect on is there was cameras everywhere. And it was a game. It was being played. And we're being tracked. And I just can't get that out of my image and my mind and image of what's going on today. So it just makes you question things. I believe a contract was signed. It was without the vote of the people or our wishes. And I don't know what's behind it, but I believe that it's something that if you can't get out of, at least be honest with us and tell us what that is. But I just got a lot of questions around the contract and why it wasn't presented to the people first. Fourth Amendment's been brought up a bunch of times, so I won't bring that up again. And then again, the money that I think can be used instead of these camera systems in this contract could fix our roadways around here. So that's all I had to say, but I appreciate the time.

Good evening. My name is Marissa. I live at 927 East Granada I just have a few questions to run by stuff that I've been hearing stuff that I hear people whispering about Also stuff that I know Being my age seeing all over social media questions people have just to kind of clear up some information If this is something that the city continues who's to say when flock or whoever can change the parameters I i.e. you have someone who is high in IT and can easily go in through that firewall or safety or whatever security that is that the lady was showing us in the video from the police department. There's people who are worried about insurance purposes as far as tracking. Let's say you have a kid who's in college and your kid is under your insurance plan. Well, your kid doesn't live with you, your kid goes to college. So who's to say that at some point in time, your insurance company now has track of, oh, this is a license plate associated with that car. we're not gonna insure that car anymore, we're not gonna say anything, then you have a whole insurance fraud of someone not being insured, causing an accident, who knows. Why aren't the other cities using them? I feel like that's a big question to ask, specifically the cities that are large, that are growing. Surprise, also another weird thing to point out, a gentleman said Flagstaff, stuff like that, Sedona. Apache Junction is primarily red. We have very little blue in this town. It's kind of weird how they're all blue cities and are all, I wouldn't say sanctuary cities, but all want to be for everything that is going on right now that is just crazy. That's kind of odd too. Will it change from just license plates to go to bumper stickers to go to looking through the car, better cameras? Flock doesn't have to say anything about that. The CEO already come out and said, hey, these are all the different parameters we can use it for. Just because you buy the physical camera doesn't mean that we can't install some software update that now allows it to read how fast you were going, or where you were going, or if you're even from that state, or if your license plate had been switched, and it's the same stickers, but it's a different license plate, stuff like that. There's also, a lady said it earlier about Axon, that is headquarters here in Scottsdale, address is 1,000, or 17,800 North 85th Street in Scottsdale, and it is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, supplier of body cameras, also worn by police officers, located here in Arizona. Another issue is what if a police officer gets a call in and someone says a description about a license plate or a car, it's invalid. It's a wrong number. It's a wrong color. It's a wrong make. Now you have a car that's in the database that has a different license plate or a different color or completely different car altogether and they're being tracked and it could be someone that like the lady that was, thank God she had her own dash cam to prove that it wasn't her that committed that crime out in another state. Also, swatting is a big thing as well. If someone gets access into that, again, touching back to the IT aspect, how easy would it be for someone to say, you know, call AJPD, this car, this person driving a black Highlander with this license plate is, you know, I just saw him leave a Circle K with a gun and they're threatening to shoot people and that person isn't even, you know, it's just going on their normal day-to-day life or maybe they got in disagreement about something. And a few more things I want to touch on real fast. Arizona also has Vera Mobility, also known as American Traffic Solutions, which is the largest licensed infraction company. And it is also headquartered here in Mesa. And that supplies most of the valley's red light and speed cameras. So just a few things to think about.

Thank you, Council. Brian Kane. Brian Kane. 1918 South Stardust Drive. Just a couple of things. If your logic is telling you that because there's a fatality hit and run accident in our city, it's okay to surveil me and thousands of other law-abiding citizens... how long before your logic tells you that because somebody commits a heinous crime with a firearm that you're going to come after our guns. Another thing I wanted to point out is, regardless of what you think about the database and how secure it is, before I retired, the fire department that I used to work for, which had every security and firewall conceivable, was hacked by a foreign entity to the tune of $100,000. So nothing is safe. And I'm afraid that the tracking of my vehicle and the collection of my data is going to go out there in the ether world. And that scares me. There was something else I wanted to bring up, but I'll let that go. Maybe I could meet with Chief Pooley on next Coffee with a Cop. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Brooke Labrake, and I live at 1022 West Escondido Court. Just a couple of things. I'll keep it quick. I was listening to the chief speak, and the risk that we're taking with this technology is quite large. This is going to take a lot of trust, trust for us in the police department for this not to be abused. And I know that the chief will do his best to prevent that, but there's only so much he can do to stop future abuse. And also, we're going to have to really trust the flock as a company, because I know that we're going to be signing contracts, or the chief will be signing maybe a contract with them. But we've seen a lot of large companies, Facebook, all these other companies, do things illegal, break contracts, and just get fine slaps on the wrist. And this is a large risk to be taking with such a large company. We have to really trust them that they're not going to be breaking the rules here. And one last thing is that I do know that the city attorney said that right now, this is not technically illegal. But the phones, tracking the phones are illegal because it's tracking every step that you're taking. But at some point, it's just going to turn into semantics because how many flock cameras have to be so close to one another before you're tracking every move that I make? from when I leave my house a mile up the road, a mile up the road, a mile up the road from there. So this might be illegal soon. But yes, thank you.

Catherine Meek, 1327 South Bel Air Road. I feel like this is, we're kind of dealing with the canary in a coal mine here because I've got a Fitbit, I've got my cell phone, I surf the internet, I'm on Facebook. All this stuff is tracking us. I go to Safeway and want to get the specials. Safeway knows everything I do now, so does Fry's. I want a special at the local restaurant. They know what I like to eat now. And with AI coming in, it's all tracked and it's becoming more centrally tracked. I think people are finally waking up to the fact that, yeah, we have no privacy. And between AI and the domestic and international threats out there, nothing is secure. My medical history has been hacked every hospital I've been to. So I get basically at least one letter a month telling me, oh, my medical information is Insecure. Gee, thanks. I don't know what the answer is to this. I had family members with dementia. I would have loved to be able to track them down. I'd love to make sure we catch all the kids. But at some point, I know the pushback's going to happen. It's a matter of how much we're willing to accept for what we do. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Heather Gerson.

I'm at 1130 South Wickiup Road.

And thank you, Mr. Chair and council members for allowing me to speak this evening. My name is Heather Gerson, like I said, a resident of Apache Junction. This discussion focuses on the ALPR policy. Today I carry with me a petition with 61 signatures. 10 from Apache Junction and the remainder from cities throughout Arizona who oppose the ALPR policy. The number of signatures are growing in strength. Let me share a bit with you regarding flock cameras. that have a significant error rate, including misreading license plates. Misidentifications have led to wrongful stops, detentions, and other serious consequences for residents. In addition, 1% of vehicles scanned by FLOC are ever connected to any crime or wrongdoing. The fact is, the majority of the data collected is unnecessary surveillance of law-abiding citizens. Even though the cameras captured license plates, and not faces, the data can reveal sensitive personal information, including places you frequent, social interactions, and patterns of life. In Apache Junction, an officer used flock cameras to track his spouse, prompting resignations and policy changes. ALPR cameras constantly track, log, and store the movements of every vehicle, creating a detailed digital record of residents' locations, affiliations, social interactions, and daily routines. Legally, ALPR data collection raises concerns under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Tempe and Pinal County have canceled contracts with FLOC due to potential Fourth Amendment violations. Data generated by these systems can be vulnerable and misused both by law enforcement and potentially by hackers if not properly secured. The Arizona cities that have denied the ALPR contract, Chandler ended contract after an audit found unexplained system activity, Surprise canceled contract after an officer was found to have potentially misused the system, Pinal County, Sheriff Ross Heaple announced non-renewal over Fourth Amendment and privacy concerns. Tempe shut off all 33 ALPR cameras and canceled contracts citing privacy and misuse concerns. Cave Creek ended flock contract alongside Tempe and other jurisdictions. Flagstaff unanimous council vote to terminate after citizen petition and privacy legal concerns. Sedona canceled contract amid public backlash over privacy and data sharing issues and South Tucson ended or declined to renew the contract as You may agree people including myself are concerned about the lack of privacy Legal and safety issues that are prominent in the use of a LPR cameras I'm going to step up to the plate and state we all want transparency and not politics, as we are more alike than the subtle differences portrayed in daily life. In summary, we respectfully encourage your consideration of removing all ALPR cameras and to cancel all contracts pertaining to the ALPR invasion of our rights now and in the future. Thank you for your consideration to this matter.

Hello, my name is Kristen Rodriguez. My address is 12141 East Serena Road in Gold Canyon, Arizona. I know I live in Gold Canyon, but I do spend a lot of time in Apache Junction. I also run a nonpartisan group called the Lighthouse Group, and I have a lot of members in Apache Junction as well. I want to begin to thank the Mayor, Vice Mayor and City Council for allowing me to speak. I believe everyone in this room can agree on that nobody wakes up hoping crime goes up. Nobody wants a rapist, burglar or drug dealer moving into their neighborhood. We all want professional police officers who protect us, solve crimes, and do their jobs lawfully, regardless of how people voted for their political party. So disagreeing with the use of ALPRs of any brand does not make someone pro-crime or anti-police. My concern is not whether Flock can help solve crimes or benefit the community, clearly it can. My concern is what happens when we create a system that records the movements of innocent people, makes that information searchable, and connects that information across jurisdictions and agencies. We were previously told that flock couldn't be abused. Apache Junction now has a real example showing that it can. As Chief Police shared and other members tonight, an AJ police officer used the flock to locate his wife for personal reasons. He did resign. And according to the chief, would have been fired if he didn't. I appreciate that. Our department investigated it and held people accountable. But it proves something important. Safeguards do not make abuse impossible. And this isn't just an Apache Junction issue. In Colorado, a flock system wrongly flagged an innocent woman, forcing her to demonstrate that she had done nothing wrong. An officer was recorded saying, quote, you can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of this place without us knowing about it, end quote. In Wisconsin, an outdated flock alert contributed to a high-risk stop of people who weren't connected to the underlying investigation. And my understanding is that police showed up with guns on people that were not connected to whatever they were investigating. In Mountain View, California, officials discovered that flocks network sharing configuration had allowed outside agencies to access local data without the department's knowledge or approval. The examples of misuse, abuse, and overreach seem endless. They aren't simply cameras sitting on Apache Junction streets. They're part of a network. And once information exists, we have to depend not only on today's officers, but future officers, administrations, administrators, agencies, vendors, contractors, and future governments to use that information appropriately. That's why I believe the safest data is data we never collect. It isn't about whether I trust local police. I do. I think the intention is genuine. It's about whether I want my privacy or my neighbor's privacy to depend on every person who will ever have access to this system to do the right thing. We don't protect innocent people by telling them to trust the system. We protect them by designing the system so that unnecessary information about innocent people isn't collected in the first place. Public safety matters, and so does freedom. And when we have to choose between collecting information on everyone just in case we might need it someday and collecting what we actually need when we have a legitimate reason, I believe the choice is clear. The safest data is the data we never collect. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jessica Duff. I live at 2075 South Geronimo Road. A lot of what I'm going to say I feel like is an echo of what's been already said, but I think it's my responsibility to voice my opinion as well. One of the greatest privileges of this country is that every day we have the opportunity to make hundreds of personal choices from what we eat to where we go to who we spend our time with and who we share the inconsistencies of our daily life with. But with camera systems such as FLAC, we're never really given a choice, and we're no longer getting the choice with being attractive everywhere we go, even if it's every rolling 30 days. We're told that these systems are for our safety and security, but even with the people who have sworn to serve and protect us, our law enforcement have been caught misusing and abusing the system as stated tonight. If the people who are supposed to protect us are doing this, we can only imagine what criminals and others will do with this information if they get their hands on it. These systems can collect much more information than just our license plates, even if current contracts are only set up given a certain way at this time. And there's very little to no transparency, oversight, or regulation on how they collect, store, and use this data in the long term, especially with a private company in the long run. We should be frightened thinking about how dangerous this information is, like knowing where you go every day, your daily habits, and whether you are home or not. And it's not just for us, but it's for all generations ahead. We are given the excuse that cell phones track us more than camera systems like these. But one big difference is that we have the choice to carry a cell phone. Unlike the information being captured with these cameras, the information of our cell phones is protected behind a warrant. These camera systems create a system of guilty until proven innocent rather than following due process of innocent until proven guilty. As a whole, I strongly urge the City Council to reconsider these contracts and cancel them and remove all cameras that have already been installed. This also means that we do not sign other contracts with companies like Axon with similar capabilities or other companies that could be created. Please uphold the Fourth Amendment and protect both us and yourselves. Thank you.

Good evening. Chrysler Rizzi, 1755 South Sunboro. Just ask code compliance, they know where I'm at. Mayor, vice mayor, council, community members. I come with a little bit of a different perspective. When we, as a former council member who served with several of you at the time that flock cameras were brought to Apache Junction, we would have welcomed a room full of people to share their opinions on the cameras. But unfortunately, we didn't have that. There were, I think, a few people that did come. It wasn't packed, and there were not a lot of people disputing it. Undoubtedly, I'll just share this. I was also on the council and had the honor and privilege of helping to hire Chief Pooley. I always tell Chief Pooley it's one of the best decisions I ever made as a council member. I am a daughter of a retired New York State trooper. And so I'm a huge proponent of law enforcement as a public servant. I don't think there was ever a time when I served on that dais that I would vote against something that the police department needed. And undoubtedly, this community supports our Apache Junction police. I don't think... I don't think the public in the community fears our police department and distrust. I don't think there's distrust in our police department. We come out, we show up for our police department. They have a distrust in these cameras, and there's a reason why. When they were first brought to us and presented, we were told what they would and would not be able to do. That was four years ago. Pinal County brought these cameras on seven years ago. We have to think as a community, we have to, as people in general, we have to remember how rapidly technology expands. It increases and how rapidly it changes. So the intent, when they were first brought to the city council and we had to make that tough decision, it was never, they didn't have the ability back then probably to do what they do now. Technology changes like this. We're looking at now a community that doesn't want surveillance. They're telling you, Your constituents and your community members who support you guys and who support our police department are telling you that even though these are intended for public safety, they're telling you they don't want it. I think the situation would be a lot different if this was something that we were doing for the safety and protection of our law enforcement agents. I don't know how much these cameras are used to do that. If they were to ask for... protective vest or some kind of protective equipment, I have no doubt that the community would be absolutely in support of that. It's a little bit different. These are intended to help the community and help protect us and they absolutely do help solve crimes. I talked to my father. When he was a New York State Trooper, he served in the 1960s and he did his job without this technology and I asked him what he thought about it. And his opinion was, it goes too far. Just, it goes too far. Human error, absolutely. It's unfortunate that our police department, we have an amazing police department, I'll say it over and over again. People make mistakes. They make bad choices. Unfortunately, it reflected on the police department. But you can see our police department, how transparent they were. They came out. They talked to the community. The chief is here. They're answering questions. If you make the decision to do away with these now, that doesn't mean you can't bring them back in the future. These can be brought back, and I think the chief said it well. During the investigation, he said, I wish it was a crime to do what was done when these officers are breaking the law. It's not right now. and maybe bring these back when that is a law. So I just ask that you guys think about this. It's not a law. Right now, if they break the law, they don't get in trouble. Let's watch and see what our state representatives do. If it becomes a crime to do that, then maybe the public will feel a little bit better about it. Your people are telling you they don't want these. And I hate that I'm even here saying this. I'm a huge proponent of law enforcement. I think they need to go for now, see where the people are down the road. And I thank you all for your time. Charlie Kirk Memorial at Flatiron on 910 at 6 p.m. Can we take a five-minute break?

Is she the last one? Anyone else want to be wanting to speak? Okay.

We're going to take a five-minute break. I'll take a break first? Yes.

Old people, old bladders.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

That's why I really couldn't open it. Thank you. I will tell you this, Bill Feast has many mentions. I don't know if he's serious or not. I can't tell him anything.

Thank you.

Meeting back to order again, please.

Amy, you made it.

Okay, we'll continue on with the Excuse me. Public hearing?

My name is Brenna Sandoval, and I live at 231 West 20th here in Apache Junction. And I didn't have anything planned to say today, but I think it's important to be part of protecting the community and upholding our Constitution to go ahead and make a public comment. I agree with most of everything that everyone else said, so I'll try not to kind of repeat those things. So I don't really have a whole lot to add, but I do oppose the flock cameras or any brand or similar technology. And I know the chief of police, he had a very eloquent presentation. And there was a lot of focus on the vulnerable members in the community. So I'd just like the opportunity to take this opportunity to say that instead of the cameras, I think it's important that Apache Junction has a behavioral health unit. And that could be part of actually protecting and serving the community members. And I think that'd be a really important thing for Apache Junction to have here. And I see a lot of success other cities that have it. Also, I wanted to mention that as a private citizen, I have my personal cameras for my self-protection at my home. And the way that I have my cameras placed as a private citizen protects the community because I don't have them basically seeing the cars that drive by. I have them placed in a way that it doesn't do that. Just as a private citizen to protect my community, I have the logic to do that. And also I wanted to mention something that I think I heard anyone else mention. I know that they said that these cameras are not going to replace law enforcement. However, I don't think that that's going to be true in the end. I think as we see technology grow and grow. There will be job loss to save money when technology can replace it. We see that with many companies and corporations. I'm experiencing that in my own job. Probably in a few years, I won't have a job because of technology. So I think that that's absolutely something that will happen in the police department as well, which will be detrimental to the community. And then also, I also wanted to add that one of you made a comment, I don't remember which one of you it was, and he may have made the comment as well, that we understand that law enforcement officers are human. Just like all of us, we make mistakes. There's bad people in law enforcement. There's good people in law enforcement. And because we do that, we do know that, why was there nothing done proactively to have safeguards in place? That seems highly irresponsible. So thank you for letting me make a public comment.

Hi, council members. Nita Soler, 22 East 13th Avenue, Apache Junction. I want to make this quick, and I'm probably not going to get applause, but I do feel that flock is necessary. There was just a case where a mother, this was in another state, I don't remember what state, but a mother put her two-year-old in a car seat, loaded up her groceries, she had her car started for the air conditioning, went to put the cart away, somebody stole her car. Within 15 minutes, they found that car with the gentleman driving, I shouldn't say gentleman, with the scumbag driving, in the backseat with the little girl claiming he was just comforting her. You know he was going to rape her and kill her. If it wasn't for FLOC, they wouldn't have found that two-year-old, and she would be gone. So I do think FLOC is a good thing. I do think there needs to be protocols in place, which I have great respect that Chief Pooley will do. Vice Mayor said maybe only keep the data for one week. They keep it for 30, maybe compromise two weeks, something like that. And as most of you know, my husband, Councilmember Soller, has been in law enforcement forever, for over 30 years. As a police officer's wife, I just remember him coming home so many times that they lost a child, somebody hit and ran. Somebody died. They couldn't find the person until days later, and then it was too late. If Flock was in place back then, maybe he wouldn't have so many horrific memories. So I think we quit talking about the bad that Flock does, and let's think about the good and how we can improve it to keep it and help keep our community safe. Thank you.

Jeff Danford, 3299 South Conestoga Road. I wasn't going to come up here tonight and talk. But after watching all these people, y'all have a perception issue. Now, some of that perception is based on some misinformation, but a lot of what I heard tonight was based on very careful fact-based research. I have heard some comments over the last few weeks on social media that this is a blue issue, this is a defund the police issue. It's not. In fact, most of the people in here wearing red, a lot of them I know personally, and they are not conservative. I mean, they're not liberal. They are conservatives. But they have concerns. And that's what you folks, our elected officials, we voted you in to make these decisions. And we expect you to make the right decisions. All we ask is that you consider the opinions of the folks that are your constituents. It may be a good idea. I'm not anti-flock. I'm not pro-flock. I'm still doing the research on it. But we have a condition where, yes, they might be valid, but you also have a perception issue from the public. Can you afford to lose the public's trust? So all I ask is, when you sit down and deliberate this issue in the next few days and weeks, Please consider the opinions of all the people in the city and make the right decision.

Thank you.

Mr. Mahmoud Mayadeen, 2304 North Cortez Road, Apache Junction, Arizona. I heard that this flock camera has been over there for four years. I guess this one officer has violated and that he resigned. How many of you have complained before that? I never heard any one of them. Child got abducted. People get sick or they are in Alzheimer's disease and all that stuff. They get lost, old people. And then who help them? Police department. We are driving down the road, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler. They're taking a picture. If you are speeding or you are crossing the red light, how they find you? their license plate and they send you a ticket at your house or they serve you over there. These fly cameras, if they don't abuse it, it's a great thing for the safety or for the public. If somebody kidnaps the kids, ask their mother and father how bad they feel. If they can find their kids, that's the best thing. If they've been abused, that's the worst thing. And You guys hear from the public what the people want and all that stuff. You guys make the wise decision. That's how I feel. And I think it's a good thing for the safety reason. I think it's a good thing for the people who commit the crime how to find them. That's the best thing. And look at the logs for the last four years. How many people they find it? How many people they cause it? committed a crime and they traveled through Apache Junction. Apache Junction police arrested them and turned over to any city where they committed a crime. That's how we look at it. People think this, you know, this Fourth Amendment violation. Look at your cell phone. You have every information everywhere in the world. Everybody has it. That's not a violation. It is. And a lot of different things, things changing, technology changing. City has to keep up with the technology. If need to change the codes on it, have to rewrite it, that's the best thing. City has to stay on top of it and make it happen and make sure people are comfortable, people are safe. Thank you.

Andre Meek, 1327 South Bel Air Road here in AJ. First off, I'd like to say thank all the people for being here, packing this place. This is the way it should be every meeting. So please come to the council meetings. Mayor, Council, Chief Cooley, what I'm seeing tonight isn't so much rejection of a camera system, it's standing up for their rights to privacy. Now, I myself, you know, I'm a rabid pro-police, pro-red light camera, pro-speeding camera, and pro some of the aspects of flock. But you look at a speeding camera, you look at a red light camera, that's instantaneous. You got that car, boo, you got his picture. Same with the red light cameras. And I believe we need them here because we got idiots on the road. I've been at lights where I've seen three cars do a left turn on a red light camera you know, right in front of me. And, you know, of course, you know how speeders are, they're everywhere. But point is, it's people have come to the point to where they're tired of being observed, tracked, uh... you know scrutinized in many ways it's they're done you know it's unfortunately the flock type cameras you know they go in there they just they grab a handful and they'll pick out what they want that stays in the bucket so it can be used it can be abused And I think people want it to stop. They're just tired of it. They're tired of being surveilled. You look at the drones the police use. I think they're great. I got no problem with them. You know, I got problems with other people flying drones over the neighbor's swimming pool where the 14-year-old girl's sunbathing or something like that, you know. Police aren't gonna do that. But I think it's time for the council To really review, you've seen what the people have been asking for here. I mean, it was just, you know, pretty much everybody that was here pretty much had something to say against it. And it's, you know, not so much that, you know, the flocks don't do good at times, because they do. You know, I mean, they have solved crimes, they have saved people, you know, everything. But the biggest problem was that it was just thrown out there, and they said, hey, guys, have fun with it. And they did. And a lot of people abused the hell out of it. And, you know, it's like you heard tonight over and over again about the officer here that abused it. And, you know, okay, he did. You know, the police jumped right on it. That's not going to happen again. But the thing is, it's the way flock works. It's that grabbing of everyone and picking out one or two but holding on to those. And I can see it working if it didn't. working that way, and I mean, the way technology's going, it's going to be something that, you know, I believe we're gonna have to set it aside for a while and find out what the heck technology's gonna do, because, you know, it's just, you know how technology is. Like, every 10 years, it's 100 years ahead of us. And so, anyway, I'm pleading with the council. It's in your hands now. Make a good decision, and I thank you.

My name's Ed Kale. I live at 5934 East Shiprock Street. I'm here because this is a constitutional tug of war. I really, it hit me hard seeing this come in this town. It is surveillance. Apache Junction is just the renters. We rent from these mass data collection, these surveillance companies. And who's watching them? Who is watching what they do with it? We have problems with trafficking in this country. And who's to say that the wrong people can't target someone, their license. I've got daughters and I spent a lot of time making sure they were safe because that was something I was always worried about when I was raising them. They're grown now. I still worry about them. I hope to be a grandfather. The information in the wrong hands, i.e. these officers that are misusing this stuff or possibly whoever has access to these companies and that data. It's already been proven that these things can be hacked. Anything can be hacked. I'm asking that this town that we live in get rid of these until this stuff becomes more secure. I don't believe that this stuff belongs in this town. I don't want to be surveillance. I wonder if there's people that are afraid to leave their house because they're under surveillance 24-7. I know people that don't want to leave their house because of this type of stuff. Now, I suppose some people might call me the bad guy in the room. I'm the one that backed over your camera. So I'm going to pay that price. had a good conversation with the chief and you know I believe that he's here to do his job the best of his ability and these tools likely help him and other officers I've got family and law enforcement we've had those discussions but I've had phone calls from around the country on people that don't want these in their towns and I don't think we want these in this town and that's That is why we are here. We're talking to you folks about getting these out of here. Because it's a tug-of-war with our constitutional Fourth Amendment. We're riding that line, and there's going to be tug-of-war, and I think it's on its way out. I don't really want to be here. over this, but I think it's necessary. And I hope that this town does a better job at listening to its people, and I hope we get these out of here. That's all I really have to say. I hope that the decisions made that takes our combined concerns, and I hope that we make the right decision getting rid of these so that we can Live free. That's all I have to say.

Elsie Westcott, 840 North Idaho Road. Mayor, Councilman, I really didn't intend on speaking tonight. However, I'm going to be the least favorite person in the crowd. And I am wearing white, judge. It's the white flag, OK? But I was a victim of a crime. And there was no cameras. The second time, victim of a crime as well. Only there was cameras. We need technology. You're only as good as your technology is. My family comes from a long line of military background police officers that fight for your constitutional rights. And myself, as an RN, it's the Supreme Court, Councilman Sawyer has ruled, it's not a violation of our rights. When you're a victim or you have a family member that's a victim, you want this technology. We are behind the state of Arizona in technology. As a traveling RN, I've been flocked from the east to the west coast, and I've been pulled over. I appreciate that. Traveling alone, I want that safety net. I remember a time when I lived in Ahwatukee. You didn't stop in Apache Junction going to the Lost Dutchman. You didn't stop because it wasn't safe. Now people want to live here because it's safe. Why is it safe? Because of our AJ Police Department. They need this technology. Let them do their job for us. Thank you.

Hi, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. Hamza Al-Baroudi, 4720 South Orbit. About two and a half months ago, I left FLOC. I am no longer employed by FLOC as of two and a half months ago. My time there came to an end. With that said, one thing that was brought up into this room that's valid is the misreads of license plates. I would love to know what Chief Pulley's policy is to avoid taking action on misreads. If I was a betting man, I would guarantee that he's going to come up here and say, we verify and we verify and we verify before taking action on a stolen vehicle hits. I have full trust in Chief Pulley and his police department from countless conversations that I've had with him about the Flock platform. I want to talk about an isolated misuse that Chief Pulley took accountability for and put processes in place to ensure it doesn't happen again, but not the 34 stolen vehicles that were recovered or the rape child that was brought back home to her family alive. My daughter was in the youth academy here in Apache Junction. Shout out to Sergeant Pennington. I don't think I saw him here. He took a 13-year-old girl that was not excited about going to summer camp. And day two of that summer camp, waking up in the morning, he told me, hey, we're about to be late. Let's go. So shout out to that program that you guys have here. We live not 10 minutes away from City Hall. And I want law enforcement to have the tools to protect us and our families. Your vehicle is not being tracked if a search is not done. A search has to be done for your vehicle to be tracked. Love the search demo done by the commander. I do wish the demo could have been done with a search without a search reason. A message would have come up saying a search reason is needed to conduct a search. Flock doesn't sell data. They are in support of legislation that LPR companies doing business with law enforcement are not allowed to sell data. I heard a Prescott Council meeting a couple of months ago that discussed Flock. One thing that at the time Chief Amy Balmy brought up was a particular case where a vehicle was stolen out of Pinal County and went into Phoenix, kidnapped a child, took her up through Flagstaff, who had just canceled their Flock contract two weeks prior, then through Sedona, who had canceled their Flock contract a couple of months prior. And then through Cottonwood, where a stolen vehicle hit, did happen, and alerted the police department in Cottonwood, who did have the flock platform. And they were able to make an arrest and recover the child. That's the real consequence we're talking about here. Again, I have full trust in the police department. The police department is telling you, if you trust us, give us these tools. Give your law enforcement the tools they need to protect us and our family. Again, you said that we trust this police department. Let's just give them their tools. One thing that I'll add is I'm not sure how many people in this room are aware. Over 50% of the fentanyl that is trafficked through the United States goes through Arizona, right? I had the pleasure of taking my kids trick-or-treating October 31st of last year, but the unfortunate reality is we did that with Narcan with us because we don't know what we're going to encounter. Again, that's the real consequence. Give them the tools that they need. Thank you.

Okay.

Don't see any other movements, so I will now close the public hearing. Any discussions from the council? Mayor? Yes.

I would just like to thank everybody, everybody that came here. Everybody had different opinions. And I really want to thank you for being professional and respectful. And we'll take all considerations that you have. Remember, we're here to do the will of the people. And we might have to go out to the whole city and see what everybody thinks. But it's something we've got to take a long talk and a long Take a look at, you know, I love the technology. I'm a police officer. I love the technology. And I think it's really, really worth keeping myself. But there has to be strict guidelines, rules, and there has to be absolute punishment if you abuse it. And that's the fallout I saw with FLAW. It was out there, and there was really no guardrails on it. And now we're putting guardrails, we're putting in safety mechanisms. But we'll all sit and talk, and we'll decide what we're going to do. But we are here to do the will of the people, and I appreciate you coming, voicing your opinions, and being professional. Thank you very much.

OK. Well, we're going to go on to the call of the public. And I got two responses here to address. I'd like to remind everyone to call the public as a courtesy and not required by law. It's a time for the public to express requests, communication, comments, and suggestion. Requests to speak forms must have been completed and handed to the city clerk before the end of the city manager's report. All issues shall be presented in a professional manner without personal attacks. Underneath the open meeting law, the council cannot engage in discussion on the issues presented. but may respond to criticism and may direct staff to follow up with the speaker directly or place the matter on a future agenda for a council discussion. There's a three minute time limit with a 30 second warning light indicated by yellow. And my first one is Lori Smith.

Listen, it's 9.35. I appreciate this very much. My husband timed me. I'm just under three minutes if I read quickly. Good evening, everyone. My name is Lori Smith, 4073 East Scorpio Place. I'm here tonight to highlight a critical gap in Apache Junction's municipal code, feline hoarding. While your current ordinances address dogs and livestock like horses, there's zero framework to address feline hoarding. I've been involved in animal rescue for over 30 years. Here's a little background. Last December, I was introduced to an Apache Junction resident who had approximately 80 cats at that point and who'd been subject to animal hoarding complaint just one month prior. By April, they had 125 cats. By June, 150. After receiving the most recent complaint just last month, they claimed to only have 70 cats, where the other cats go. Even with only 80 cats, living conditions were unacceptable, many of them sick, dying, and in desperate need of medical care. The cats are fed once a day, fed once a day with food being rationed because there's never enough food. 20 to 25 cats to a litter box. Always dirty, full of urine and feces, flies, the smell. They also have 9 to 10 dogs. Law enforcement has been to their property twice without a warrant and have cleared them to carry on with the sad situation based on current codes. Absolutely nothing about the situation is acceptable. Under current code, municipal officers have clear legal mechanisms for dogs, large animals, but severe cat hoarding exists in the legal gray area and remains unchecked. In Phoenix, for example, individuals face class one misdemeanor if convicted for hoarding. They're also ordered to receive a mental health evaluation and may be ordered by the court for periodic or regular property inspections and or prohibiting the individuals from taking in any more animals or even owning animals in the future. Feral free roaming cats are not subject to this so they can continue to be fed by their caregivers. There are public health and safety dangers. environmental and structural hazards. Concentrated cat urine, feces, extreme ammonia, buildup biohazards, airborne contaminants, it's unsafe for humans and animals. Firefighters, code enforcement personnel entering these structures face severe respiratory and health hazards without proper protocols or early interventional tools. Burying dead animals on your property is part of hoarding. Burial of dead animals on private properties not allowed in Apache Junction or anyplace else. Yet this property has a sizable mass grave where they dispose of their dead animals, primarily cats. I respectfully ask the city council to update the municipal code, formally integrate inside cats, pets, and to existing animal welfare and limit ordinances alongside dogs and livestock. Establish a multi-agency protocol, ensure code enforcement, animal control, fire department work together. Rather than acting as individual agencies implement clear humane cap thresholds or permitting guidelines for high density companion animals a stab sure established structured diversion pathways pairing legal enforcement I Would like to add that there are a number of us that are available in any capacity to assist with us Thank you. I didn't make my three minutes. Thank you. I appreciate it Donna car

Donna Carr, Apache Junction resident. I gave a paper to all you guys about wanting to have it revamped and revised, the future plan of Apache Junction. And let's not wait until everything is already said and done with all these three-story apartment complexes that wanna go in. I'd like to see if we could get it together where the people can choose what they want in the city. Because I know I was told that 7,000 people voted for this. that's going on right now. But how many people actually came and looked at the plan? And how many people just went like, sort of like in high school and colored in the bubble? So I'm just saying we need to revamp and revise the future plan of Apache Junction. Thank you.

Any comments from the council?

Your Honor? Yes. Can we get a work session on this cat issue? Cat hoarding. Yes, we'll definitely get that on the agenda. Okay, and then Are we gonna be doing an executive for either a work session on? Further discussion about the cameras.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, we can get that on as well I

Do you want to move any session? I'll be covering the session. Do the cap thing and set up a meeting.

Okay. I'm going to make one quick comment concerning the revise. Revise of future plan is when it was being presented, we had many, I don't mean one or two, I'm saying many, open sessions, discussions. We had our people at different events where they went out and talked to the people about what was coming up and what was on the plan and how we addressed it. And I really and truthfully want to emphasize the fact that I think that they did a terrific job to show everybody what the plans were, what was being changed, and what the the different sections of the community was, and how it was all working together to include the areas to the south. OK.