City Council - Regular Meeting

Jamie, Talia. Okay. Welcome to the Asheville City Council uh policy and finance committee meeting and I am um going to turn the meeting over to our city manager, DK Wesley. Thank you, mayor. Um today we have uh several items here uh starting with um approval of minutes. So I might have to turn it back over to you, Mayor. Okay. Yes. All right. I'm for I'm sorry. We're having some logistical issues here. We're on track though. Okay. So, um the first item on our agenda is a proclamation. I'm sorry. Approval of the minutes. Thank you. Sorry.

So, move. I knew I had to hand move that we approve the minutes. Thank you. All right. Um all those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Okay, the minutes are approved and now I will do the first item which is the HCA engagement resolution. Um, this is a resolution asking HCA CEO Sam Hazen to engage directly with stakeholders in western North Carolina. Uh, this resolution um comes recommended to us by the um Land of Sky

Land of Sky. Thank you very much. um and is being adopted by other local governments in our region. Uh this is of course in light of the ongoing concerns regarding HCA and the quality of care being provided to the residents of Asheville and western North Carolina served at HCA. Um just the resolution is on the overhead projector. This does not require any action on the part of uh city staff uh and nor does it have any expense related with it. uh but it is merely calling on uh the CEO to engage directly with stakeholders in western North Carolina. Any questions, comments, or a motion?

Do we um do we vote in this meeting? I thought this was a a committee that didn't have votes and that's why we didn't have public comment. Shouldn't we just consider this at the council meeting? Um Mayor, we have this on the consent agenda for the formal meeting.

Okay. Right. Yeah, it has it on here as an action item for vote in but we could but it doesn't matter because we're the full council. So, we can just move it to our council agenda. Um I don't know that we had decided never to vote in this committee, but we don't need to vote on this item. So, any other questions, comments before we move on to the next item? I'll just add that as our representative to the Land of Sky Regional Council, this was a discussion we had, I guess, last month, um, brought to us by the mayor of Bvard. Um and really kind of the intention is to ask for more thorough consistent meaningful engagement with HCA that the impacts of what is happening at our hospital impacts everyone in the region all of our communities even though they are based here in Asheville but it it has an impact for um all of our residents and the trajectory of HCA's um issues that have been flagged continue to be really concerning. journeying and so we're really kind of calling on more accountability. So that was the discussion. It was unanimously approved by Land of Sky and uh thanks for considering it today.

Okay. Thank you. All right. So more on that to come at the later council meeting. The next item is the CDBGDR planning recommendations and we're going to hear from Jamie Matthews, deputy recovery coordinator DRC. Thank you, mayor. Um, good afternoon, mayor and council. I'm Jamie Matthews. I'm the assistant to the city manager and serve as the deputy recovery coordinator. I'm here to give you all an update on um the CDBGDR planning funding recommendations. So, with key takeaways, we'll dive right in with the staff recommendations for these four planning efforts. uh the economic development strategic plan, a D review master plan, a comp plan and UDO update and emergency shelter development plan. So these four planning projects align with our long-term um the Bunkham County long-term recovery plan and also advance our priorities of housing and economic recovery. Uh if these allocations move forward, there'll be about 665,000 left for future planning efforts. So the CDBGDR planning program was developed through the action plan. Uh it's intended to update some existing plans and also develop new plans to increase our resilience and preparedness for any future events. after admin and comp costs are out, there's about 2.7 million left for um this these planning implementation. So, how did we get here? Uh the Helen recovery priorities survey and our CDBGDR action plan helped inform uh the planning program manual and the

evaluation criteria that we used uh internally as staff to bring these recommendations to you today. So, we heard in the priority survey that 82% uh of respondents uh thought that strategic land use planning uh was important as we go through recovery. 74% named affordable housing, especially for renters, lowincome, younger, and bipok respondents. And 76% supported business recovery efforts. So that leads us again to these uh recommended planning efforts that I'll go through in just a little bit more detail. Uh the economic development strategic plan will provide a roadmap for how we use city tools to promote economic growth and then also for how we show the impact that those investments are having. Uh we're recommending about 176,000 um with planning completed through September 2027. The deeper view master plan uh is a reinvestment and revitalization about 52 acres of city and hacka owned properties. The vision for this um project is mixed income housing along with educational recreational facilities. The update to the comp plan and the UDO uh will create new development regulations to help us build back better, help us build back more resilient. Uh the funding recommendation is about 1.2 uh with completion in November 2028. This project also uh is part of an HMGP application. So if that's awarded then this uh allocation or number will go down. Uh emergency shelter development is really a comprehensive plan for a new

emergency shelter again to help us prepare better uh for an emergency event uh and also in steady state have um more available shelter uh for people in need. So here are uh the recommended allocations. Um, again with about 665 left if these move forward with these uh funding allocations. So, we're back to key takeaways. I'm happy to answer any questions you have um and hear any feedback uh from you all. I just had a question on the UDO rewrite comp plan UDO rewrite for $1.2 million. So that one um we've also applied under HMGP to see if we can get it funded under that and

gotten some positive signals about that from the state in terms of the state supporting it. It's federally funded, but we know that the HMGP program takes a really long time to actually find out if you're going to get funded. If if we were to fund this through CDBGDR to go ahead and get moving on it, is there a way where we could reimburse ourselves with HMGP funds and um then go ahead and use this money for something else or is it like well once you funded it with another bucket of money, it pulls it out of HMGP?

No, we could use the HMGP. Now, some of the elements are not HMGP eligible so it just depends. So, we'll have to use some CDBGR for this project. So, it wouldn't fully free up 1.2 million, right?

Any other questions for Jamie? What tell us about the next steps for these recommendations? So, the next step, so it doesn't y'all don't have to vote and approve them. The decision is made by the city manager, but of course, we'll hear any feedback from you all. So, if this is it, so this is your chance to weigh in. Otherwise, our city manager will move ahead with these. Okay. council.

I did have a question. I was on a statewide call this week um included members of the Durham city and county leadership bodies and they were explaining that their UDO rewrite has bumped into issues with the state legislation and they're kind of at the stuck spot. Um, are we keeping tabs on what's happening in the state legislature so we can have some lessons learned and not spend a lot of resources and time running into the same barriers? I don't know if we can avoid it, but yeah, if

Yeah, if I may. Uh, thank you for the question, Council Member Rooney. Um, the answer the short answer is yes. Uh, the short session of general assembly has officially kicked off. Um, as with all short sessions, there's a limitation on what that body can take up uh during this this period. However, one of the bills that um fell into the qualifications to be considered is the Senate's bill, which essentially would undo the limitation on down zoning. That's actually what Durham has run into with their UDO rewrite. Uh that bill is seeming to get some interest amongst the legislature in the early days. In addition, several additional local acts have been filed even for uh communities in our neighborhood uh that are attempting to roll back those prohibitions. So, we're watching it very closely and coordinating almost weekly with our state lobbyist on that issue. Um we can't make any guarantees at this point, but it certainly seems like the possibility exists that there will be legislative action in this term um which would give us the authority to move forward with this as well as Durham. I

I I will just say you were really optimistic last year too, but Brad, I'm you've got to be optimistic. I think I asked this a couple of times and I'm sure I've been given a great answer and now I just don't remember what the answer was, so I know it's on me. The emergency shelter development plan, is that for a shelter to be used in case of natural disasters or whatever other kind of emergency? and or is it a shelter for folks who find themselves unhoused? Yeah, I'm gonna turn it over to Emily Ball. Okay, thank you. Even though don't you know Jamie could have answered that question.

Okay. Um, good afternoon. I uh I think it's both. I think it is a shelter for people who currently need emergency shelter that we don't have in our community. We know that we have a large increase in the number of folks who are unsheltered after Helen and continue to see that inflow as a result of Helen. So I think it's partly responsive to that. Um I think it also gives us another facility to have online as a tool in the toolkit for future emergencies. Okay. And is it for literally a shelter or possibly shelters?

That's a great question. It is for a planning process. So I think in that planning process it would become clear what the recommendations were about the the scope you know the number of beds the nature of beds the number of facilities the populations to be served the funding critically about how to cover both capital and operating all of that would come out in the planning process. Okay. Thank you. Would that include site visibility? Yes. Um

Emily, I um you know, we did a lot of this work a while back and to the point where we got granular in terms of number of beds needed, the types of services that would be needed, whether it could be housed in one location or multiple locations. There were even, you know, review of potential sites. Um, we we we had many many many many meetings around this and part of it fed off of and and of course interviewed directors of similar types of facilities and other places like Olympia, Washington and Flagstaff, Arizona and Providence, Rhode Island. Um what what do you feel like this study would provide that's additive to that fairly exhaustive process that happened um prior to it?

I think it I think it is uh project management to get us across the finish line is how it feels to me. I think we do have a lot to lean on from prior planning efforts and the current uh the COC has a current emergency shelter development workg group that has looked at some of those materials and sort of done a refresh. So are the is this still the right number of beds based on how conditions have changed in our community. For example, shelter capacity evolves over time. So as um ABCCCM added beds this past year for example, what does that mean for the the number and nature of beds that are still needed? So anyway, workg group has done some updated visioning but leaning on the resources from that prior planning work. I think for me we we need some capacity to really dig in on the the very concrete detailed nuts and bolts project management of putting together an actual comprehensive plan that's actionable and that is that's just beyond the scope of the capacity that we have on our staff team right now or that a work group would be able to do

and and the other that's very helpful and the the other piece of it that I think I heard that's a huge challenge in North Carolina because you know in every state these operations are funded differently. Some states even provide state funding for some of them and that is not the case in North Carolina. So would it speak to the operation of such a facility and how that could be maintained long term?

Yes, absolutely. I think part of the, you know, I think the the need again is just some capacity to do that detailed work, but I think the work to be done is very clear, very comprehensive plan for new emergency shelter that accounts for everything you need to be ready to to act and to open the door. Um, including what's the funding mix for operational costs. I don't I don't expect that we I don't expect it's possible that we will have a single funer for any operating costs or for anything ever. Um but I I don't expect it's feasible to have a single funer for operating costs. I expect it will need to be pieced together from multiple funding sources. So this would be capacity to do that due diligence work to um put that plan together. Um yeah, I have some I guess pause questions about this one of um similar highlights that the mayor is bringing up. Um and maybe this is just my ignorance, but I don't know if we need more planning. I think we need like strategic capital raising that if if we had the bandwidth to pull together a capital campaign and found $5 million in a site, we would figure out the other stuff pretty quickly. And so there's a part of me that feels like the real barrier isn't that we don't know the right number of beds. it's that we haven't been able to leverage pulling off fundraising to make it happen. And so I have a hesitancy to do what feels like planning we've done again when maybe the planning we need is really more around identifying the real estate, having a capital plan, having a fundraising strategy. Do we really need to know the number of beds or do we need to know how to pull

off the real estate deal to find it in a place that's going to work?

Absolutely right. I think it's all of those things that you just named are included in the scope of this planning grant. That's that's what we're seeking some capacity to help support. It is also dialing in on the number of beds, but I don't think that is I think we have a lot to lean on there. You know, again, the the current work group has done pretty good data analysis around what has changed since that prior planning effort and how those numbers might need to be updated, especially after Helen. Uh, so I don't think that is a focus of the planning grant more we know we need more emergency shelter than we currently have. How do we get it done? How do we find the capital in order to get it done? What are the site options? What are the site considerations? and then working through that full project management process. One um one thing to note about this last iteration is that it did go out uh I mean the county put out an RFP uh for it a after the development of all the elements that uh that we were looking for and the response is I mean basically reflected the fact that we don't have the capacity in our community for one service provider to provide these services that need to be um coupled together or not not just coupled but brought together. Uh we had folks in the you know providers in the community that said well we could probably provide this part of it or we could do this other part of it. But it became pretty clear that it's, you know, I think when some people say, "Well, how come you don't just go find somebody to do this?" What will because you've got to have um you have to have a deep enough bench or enough capacity in your community to be able to uh bring that together. So, I I'm assuming that this planning process would also help us think more um about how to do that and how to enable these partners to come together to to to bring

what they do best to the table to to create a full a full suite of services that would be provided to individuals. I I'm sorry. Well, because I I know we imagined that it could include coordinated entry. It could um you know it it could include all all anyway a lot of different types of services. That's exactly right. And I think that service mix also heavily relates to the funding mix because different service components are uh eligible for different pots of money or come with different pots of money that are already attached to them perhaps healthcare or behavioral healthcare related for example right

so I think that's right. I feel like um how this is scoped is going to be very very important because I almost hear like it's going to answer all of our questions which in the past when we spend a quarter of a million dollars on planning that gives us something pretty high level that doesn't actually address the barriers that we're facing on this and so I personally would love to get more information before being super enthusiastic about like what the real targeted outcomes of this are because um getting a real estate site like a site selection feasibility and capital stack is a very different plan than five of the other things that have been mentioned here and so some precision and focus so this doesn't become something that's super high level that we don't move the needle on

I think we we already have the high level which I think is is what you're identifying I think That's true. Um I think the the budget here is two basic eligible activ two basic activities. One is contracted services as needed for things like site evaluation as we get that far down the road. But um also for project management capacity. And it I think it is really adding staff without,

you know, we certainly are not in a position to add an additional position to our team, but we've got to have somebody who wakes up every day and thinks about this and is able to pull all of those pieces together um with pretty complex stakeholder engagement, including around funding and um yeah, and and partners.

I share my colleagues pause about this. I just don't want to reinvent the wheel, but to the mayor's point, if we're looking at different maybe innovative, creative solutions, for example, um I would like to uh see if this study for spending $242,500 for a study if they can look at um a day program, a day work program with our day labor folks in the community and uh getting a pipeline um off the streets and out of homelessness and back into the productive workforce. Also, July 2027 is a long way away. I mean, for $242,000 and $500, I think maybe moving that up um 8 months or so. Again, I think if we narrow the scope and maybe cut down on the amount of money that we spend since we already have a lot of the highlevel stuff and we focus on some of the stuff that we haven't studied, uh maybe we can move that date up. Thank you.

I just have a couple procedural questions, I guess. Go ahead. Not for Emily, though. Right. Yours are for Jamie. I don't It's a little both. Yeah.

I mean, I guess I'm just a little confused because and maybe I've missed something, but we're talking about emergency shelter development planning and I'm over here thinking we've assembled the COC, we've charged them with this endeavor of bring back to us what it looks like and I've been kind of like waiting on pins and needles like when's the update coming? Did we find a spot? So, I'm a little taken back by let's do another study plan thing. So, I'm getting a little plan fatigue, but and I hear my colleagues saying, you know, there's some new components and there's more we need to learn. And I hear you saying we don't have a project manager. We don't have an ombbudsman on this. We don't have a staff capacity. What how does this sync up with the COC? Like are we giving money to the COC or is the city of Asheville kind of champion the process for the COC?

Great questions. Um first let me clarify. I Well, we're not proposing we're not proposing a study in this. I don't perhaps that's confusing. Um it is project management capacity. So it is a project manager. It's a job. Okay. Contract project manager to get in the weeds. um who would then be would function as support for the emergency shelter development work group of the COC. So COC is sort of steering the ship but giving them some meaty capacity to do that very detailed planning work. And so when the COC is moving into these initiatives, are we going to be footing the bill every time or we we're just because we have the DR money. The COC does not have funding, right? And we have the money. Have we determined that we actually want an emergency shelter?

I you know, I'm just a little process. happening because I feel like we were in Is that the outcome that was desired by council by the C? Well, I feel like we have I personally feel like I have relinquished the expertise and advice about homelessness in our community to the COC. So, if the COC is coming back and saying, "Hey, city of Asheville, we figured this out. We need your help with this next step and this is what it looks like." Is that what's happening?

That is accurate. Yes, that's exactly right. So, the the COC is a three-year strategic plan. And I'm going to share more about this in the manager's report later. Um COC has a three-year strategic plan adopted last year and the number one priority is to decrease unsheltered homelessness by expanding emergency shelter. And so this is the next step and we're we have the DR money and the ability to pull it off. And they have a work group that's focused on this. I think we're just not up to date. I'm just not up to date. So is this the high access shelter that we met about with Dr. Hardy? Yes, that he's part of his group. Yeah. Got it. Okay. All right. I'm linking it all together now.

But to count to vice mayor's point, is it a plan of where such high access shelter will go or is it a plan on do we need a high access shelter and do we need three? Like what's the plan? What how do we know more about I don't think that the the COC is clear that we need new emergency shelter. So I don't think it is a plan to determine whether or not that is needed in the community from the COC perspective. Uh I think this is a a project plan. How do we actually get those doors open?

And the the thought is that once we have the emergency shelter underway, it can also be utilized by others in case of a natural disaster.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Excuse me. or if we have extreme heat during the summer, it doesn't One of the things I'm hearing in the community is that the emergency shelter expansion during winter was so helpful and that we need it all the time. And so when I'm hearing our neighbors talk about the why and what the difference was this winter, um the fact that it was 87 degrees in the first week of April was telling um are we going to need um shelter or some sort of cooling day shelter or some sort of capacity this summer or a future time when we not only have cold weather but also have hot weather?

Yes. And I I think it it in my view it again just would bring on a facility that is another tool in the toolbox. so that we have options to work with as conditions change and as needs arise. But something's missing between the COC meetings that I'm attending and this conversation and it we've had our personal conversations with members of the shelter workg group, but it seems like a connect is needed between council conversations and COC. like can we get an update from a COC workg group on what the plan is and why we need it

because it does it does kind of like present as another study. I would second that idea. I like that. Does everybody receive Emily COC update email updates? I guess not. I'm not Yeah. Does everyone on council receive them? Yes.

They're pretty thorough. Emily, you do great job um updating us. So on this presentation today, it refers to this as emergency shelter development plan. And I think I think what we've heard from the community is enough already with your planning and and your consultants. And so we're kind of reacting to that a little bit. And I think what I'm hearing you say, Emily, is this isn't we're not hiring consultant to develop a plan. This is for a position um added to your department to be able to focus on this particular effort. And so maybe if we could edit this this document that is out there in the public realm. Uh to so that people understand what what that is. Uh that would be I don't know just a suggestion be a little clearer.

Contract project management is is what we're

right. You're not hiring a a new employee position. You're not creating an FTE. You're you because this is a specialized thing and for a set period of time. It's not an endless um thing. I I think the other thing I would add because I completely agree with what you're saying on the plan fatigue is that um when we adopt a plan or fund a plan there's not a lot of accountability metrics of like what are we getting out of this and what community members and I have seen is like we get a lot of words that tell us what we should do if we had money and then it doesn't help us prioritize what they are and it it like I understand that from a technical standpoint as staff you need some of the strategic guidance, but I think it would be nice if we're greenlighting certain plans that it has like and this is what we expect the outcome to be so that afterwards I can say and we spent 242 million of disaster money to get to X Y or Z and in kind of the information we're getting here. I don't see that yet.

So yes, and this is not the last you'll be hearing of these plans and how these move forward. this is like our first step in getting some of these funding recommendations and these details and things can come back to you for sure to provide more more of that information that I think you guys are looking for. So the intended outcome I'll keep in my notes is that by the end of this resources we will have had the staff capacity to get the workg group aligned around identifying potential sites funding flows capital stacks. Okay. Yeah. All of that is a part of the the project plan for this study. So, absolutely. We'll provide you with more detail around each one of these projects.

Great. So, I had similar questions on the um economic development strategic plan, which I'm very excited for. We don't have any highle stuff that's been city-led and so I think we need the high level. Um but really understanding what the outcome is of that would be great. And again, that's actually is a study rather than paying for someone. Yes. Right. Also called a plan though. Yes. I mean it is it's it's a review I think of like what our tools are that we use now, how we can use them better, how we can track that investment, and then also actionable steps to help with economic. Oh no, I think they don't have to jump and that was just I was just clarifying that point.

Could could you but um I have one more question. I wanted you to ask about the D-r question if you because I know you guys talked about that in HCD and yeah we had a great talk at about Dreview and it is super exciting $475,500 are we the sole funer of this endeavor I believe for this planning effort yes and then it is going to give us a deliverable of some kind of master site planning massing capacity units roll out timeline line costs, right? Because that's a big number. Yes. Why is it so big? I think it's a big large complex project that has a lot of partners

because it involves both the redevelopment of D review and the development of the land plus the purpose-built community capacity. Okay. I just want to make sure I understand what we're paying for because these are all really great things. It's a very big number. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Um, I did I was missing a slide here and I don't want to, you know, drag this out, but I do want y'all to know that this did go to the infrastructure recovery board and they um provided some feedback very similar to what we're hearing from you, making sure that the implementation uh, you know, it leads to outcomes. It leads to the actual projects happening. And I think that's the goal. And I think these plans get us closer to that uh implementation and these projects actually being able uh to come to fruition. So that was it. Also making sure that we're building in resiliency when we're going through these planning efforts and going through the actual building of these projects. Um but there was general support uh from that board for these projects. I just wanted to make sure that got in there uh and lift that up to you all. One last thing, the development and strategic planning um economic development are we is that um how we can grow our own activities as a city is it about taxation and community food and bev tax like what is this

the economic development? Yeah, like what's the what does it encompass? I um I think it is that it's whatever what our city tools are to help us invest. Okay. So looking at and looking at holistically in the community what's happening where we can partner. Um so it is a focus internally but also um would it encompass things like if we knew we needed this transit tax we needed to lobby the state those kind of things or not so much about new revenues? I thought it was more No, I thought it was more that's what I was trying to get out economic development because I'd support the other thing too. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. My bet would it would be like right now we have incentives if someone relocates here and that's kind of scripted and set up but we haven't looked at those for a while cutter stuff. Okay. Like like if we do an economic development incentive for relocates that's one of our tools. I would also say that um us running the nature center is an economic development incentive because it brings people into the community. Is that like what are the current roles we play in economic development and

building a new performing arts center would be an economic development st is that part of it or is this really getting the framework to clarify because we as an organization don't even really know what our roles are that too supporting small businesses but in that Rachel if you can come and share a little bit more as well

up there um yes so part of uh what this will do is to kind of help us articulate how the city as a whole participates in economic development. So some of those ways are the traditional kind of what are the programs in our development toolbox I've been saying. So our incentive policy is part of that. Um it's also things like the nature center um like our activation of our public spaces of our downtown. So um by kind of articulating that understanding how we work together and kind of uh streamlining our our internal operations we'll be able to provide better customer service and core delivery with that. Uh we'll also be able to track impacts. I heard a lot of discussion around that and those are uh uh sort of tools and resources that we don't have the ability to track right now and to be able to clearly communicate that um is something that will be able to come out of this uh planning effort. I wonder too if something that should be scoped in isn't just around the operations and programs but is facilitating a leadership conversation amongst council for us to really say like what do you think economic development should be? Should we be in the job creation business? Should we be in the workforce development creation? Like I don't know that we've talked about that before and that opens certain doors and closes others. Should we really lean into redevelopment that also gives us property tax base and grows urban core? Like those are pretty big conversations that I don't think I see a lot of clarity from our comp plan or our council leadership on. And so I almost think that might be the front end more important so that we can talk about what we think it could mean and then understand what tools fit and don't fit because um it could be a little lopsided if we don't have the vision level because I I don't feel like we have a coordinated vision or conversation um from our comp plan which would be the place for that.

Absolutely. there. Um it's I think I believe been about 20 years since we've had a strategic economic development kind of plan. Um we founded a literal dusty one as we were cleaning up the office. So um it's it's definitely time to kind of reset that. Um there's still a lot of time to be able to leverage available funding sources. So, um that incorporating uh Eurol's input um and aligning with other planning efforts both uh coming out of the city and with our community partners is definitely where we want to get to with this. So, uh we'll definitely articulate that more clearly in our scope.

Have a question. Um I know a number of cities across North Carolina are taking um positions moratoriums explicitly on data centers as far as a land use concern. Um my understanding from our previous moratoriums like the the hotel development moratorum was there's a specific window of time um that you put the moratorum in place and it's to determine how you use that land use development in the future and it's usually what about a year. So, if we were to take that position, could this be considered as part of the economic development if it's going to be outside of it? I'm a little unclear on what happens if we don't fund this study.

So, I I can try to answer the first question, I think, which is well, very quickly, yes. Generally speaking, um the allowance for local governments to institute moratoriums uh has an end date. They cannot be permanent. There is a pretty strong suggestion that a year is sort of the maximum for those things. Um and again you have I think correctly stated the point of a moratorum which is the requirement that use that period to solve the problem that you're trying to uh hold things down for which in this case talking about data centers would be how are we going to regulate data centers uh and certainly like many places city of Asheville doesn't have any specific regulation on that right now. I I think I would defer to others on how that might affect funding or not funding this as a result of that. Yeah, I guess that when I'm thinking about like land use and strategies, if we just continue as business as usual, we have policies around um living wage or wage floor. Um policies about asking for um returning citizens to be considered or inclusive workplaces. Um we've supported local businesses growing and expanding the um services they already provide. Um, and we have limited amounts of land to develop. So, it it's unclear to me why we what happens if we don't fund this using these dollars because it it hasn't been a strong case for the planning when I hear so many people including my colleagues say when are we going to start using the money to be doing instead of studying again? is

the transit study was I asked us to reconsider that to do a pilot of frequency on the corridor that showed the need and how we would have used that that pilot to study in real time with actual service. Um and the push back I got was then people would get used to having more frequent transit. Um so it isn't it isn't a great u selling point unless I understand why we what happens if we don't have a study. Well, I think there's a level of detail and expertise that we will not be able to get to absent these this funding in these different areas. We don't have the capacity uh through our general fund and other funding sources to be able to move the needle and get the information that we need to get the get to the outcomes for each of these programs. So, I would if we didn't fund this through this uh resource that we have now, I'm not sure we'll be how how soon we'll be able to move the needle on any of these different projects.

And then to follow with that, um these kinds of activities take staff time. So, because we're having a really tight budget conversation and we're not growing departments, that means we're spending staff time on studies and that means they're not doing other things. So, what other things are coming off of our list as we're adding these to the work plan?

Um, I think each department has considered their current steady state and where they are with their staffing and in order to move forward. This this will give them the capacity to do it. So, this doesn't take anything off of their plates that allows them to do more things, different things to be able to move this forward. So there's nothing if we did not do these plans, it wouldn't add more capacity at the staff level. Does that make sense to do other things? So these plans allow us to bring in outside expertise to add capacity. That's a great reason to explain what happens if we don't have the plan. Thank you. Um I have one last

Yeah. And I just following up on that. I so for the economic development strategic plan there are also dollars set aside in the economic recovery bucket under CDBGDR that are under our action plan designated for um I'm I think some of it's like job training or there's some there's some other development 5 million workforce development

workforce development so I'm a little here's what my worry is we we haven't done anything with that funding yet. And and in fact, when we were struggling to think about what we're going to talk about eventually is how to reallocate some resources to cover the single family home repair program, there was um some discussion about the fact that that this is just brainstorming um about how that funding hadn't been used yet. And I said, well, you know, I you know, when I think about that money, I think what what what we've labeled it in terms of under the action plan is very important to the community. However, I have seen the city attempt to endeavor to do things that are outside a traditional city wheelhouse. Um, for example, we tried to establish a small business loan program. Oh, remember that? Shenica's nodding her head. And we we did it and we set aside some money for it and the staff, you know, went and studied how to possibly do this and and it didn't happen because we just couldn't figure it out. It's just not it's not our thing. So one of my concerns here is that DK when you when you look at how to implement this study and when you look at what it's product is going to be what its results will show us um you know I I I trust you to take a focused look at that to think is the outcome is the recommendation here going to give us a roadmap for how the city will be able to grow on on the role it already plays in economic development. You know, we already partner with um the county and with the economic development commission and we provide some funding to that to create the 5x5 plan which is an economic development strategic plan for the entire city and county. Um we don't put

that much money into it every year. I'm sure this will probably pay for three years of that funding. Um but you know I is it is it really going to give us a roadmap for something that we can deliver on and that that's really just my question or is it and and will it have any interplay with the other funding under CDBGDR economic recovery to help guide our use of those funds or will we eventually determine you know what we don't really know how to do this we can either find a partner that will do it with us or we need to reallocate these resources for something that I mean there's obviously endless things that we could be funding that are helpful the workforce portion now

or it could be that or it could be there's a couple there's a couple smaller items they're small but they're still millions of dollars but I think those are coming through peed early summer so there staff has been working on some of those I just you know all I do is flag that concern that that we don't bite off more than we can chew that that's or that we can further produce plans on the shelf are no good if we aren't able to pro provide the service called for or it doesn't, you know, it gives us something that we're just not I think that's the frustration we hear in the community when we endlessly plan and then don't enact the plan. So, just give us something that we can actually bite off.

Yeah. And I think towards this plan, I think looking at other cities our size or cities that were growing into their size and see what do they do? You know, like I don't want to hear what New York City does for strategic redevelopment that is not relevant to us. But folks that take a more or like you know, I have a friend who's the mayor of Memphis and they do some really really cool workforce development stuff. Memphis has a really different context than us and is a much bigger city with different resources. So, like, you know, I think what I'm taking from your comments, mayor, is like I don't want this wish list of like, wouldn't it be great if we were this massive player in economic development? Because the reality is right now we aren't we don't play a central role in that, but what would what would doing our current role better look like? And what would potential strategic growth that doesn't um get overly ambitious and unrealistic, but what does it look like,

right? I mean and that and and part of that is a function of the way the state of North Carolina works where where incentivization comes down from the state to the county and then the city is like chipping in towards towards the end and that's just how it's generally structured and our community colleges play the role of workforce development and so on and so forth. So it's not I I don't want to make it sound like we're we're laying down on the job. It's just that cities, I think, of our size, try to figure out where where can we best play a role in this in a meaningful way and and just figuring that out.

Yeah, I think this is really good feedback. Um, some of the questions y'all are asking were questions we asked ourselves as we went through the applications because we we hear that and we understand that we're in plan fatigue and that we needed to make sure we put something forward that could be actionable. So, we'll take that feedback and before we, you know, make any actions on any of these, we'll come back and have more discussion about it. I recognize that this is, this didn't come to a council committee. It went to the recovery board and so there were lots of similar questions and dialogue uh similar to what y'all are having here. So, we'll make sure that we make those connections and you all have the detail you need. I just have one last broad comment about the process and that is um I don't want to be insensitive to this other conversation that is about to begin which is how to process and handle and address the shortage of funds to fix the single family homes that you know are a little mistake. Um so this particular pot for planning is only 3.7 million. It's one of the two smallest pots in all of our allocated pots. So, I'm not going to stress it too much, but I, you know, when we're looking at $3 million to fix houses and we need so much more, I'm wondering what's going to happen with the $665,550. And if we I I don't want this to get out to the community without the community knowing. We're about to step into that process, too, right? We're not just doing this and moving around and making some plans and shelving some ideas without knowing that that is also looming and needs fixed, right? Um because I think we're talking about it on the 5th at HCD, right?

And you know, because it just feels a little sensitive to that conversation when we're in the silo. Well, well, to be clear, we actually started talking about it in December and January, and it went to the housing recovery board, and there was significant push back from that board and also, frankly, some um other activists in the community. So, I noticed you said we made a mistake. I think what staff presented to us was the best they could present to us with the knowledge they had at the time because there was no broad understanding about what the program would even look like much less what it would

and that's and that's great. I don't disagree with that. I I guess the sentiment I'm trying to evoke is that I know there's community members waiting to hear what's going to happen and how it's going to be addressed. So I don't want to be insensitive to that. Interestingly, some of those same comm community members who are upset with the dollar amount now were against increasing the dollar amount in December and January. So, Sage, I think you do you you raise a good point and you know, DK and I were talking about this and I I I had a lot of concern that the state would hear our conversation today and hear us talking about moving these planning dollars around without yet addressing the issue of how we're going to fund single family home repair. So, we we they did ask to meet um and we we had a really good meeting with them uh whenever it was. it was last week. Um, and assured them that we are going to fully fund the single family home repair program. Um, and that if they hear us talking about using CDBG DR dollars that they need to know that we will fully fund the single family home repair program and that work is coming. Um, you're going to hear about it next in HCD. Right. So, because I did have that same concern that you that you did.

What I'm trying to think is the public is hearing this conversation. That's really it. We know it's coming. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I know we're all on different schedules of getting this information, but the words fully funding the single family home repair is not the information I got in my check-in was that we were moving 10 million and the anticipated amount to fully fund it was 3 to 40 million. We would have a lot. That's that is all correct what you just said, Kim.

So, that's not we're not even close. No, but no, we have not fully identified what other buckets of CDBGDR or other money need to be um tapped in order to fully fund the home repair program, but we really have no other option but to fully fund the home repair program. Okay. So now we need to have a a bigger conversation where we sorry

everybody has the same information and um if we're going to promise the state that we're fully funding the home repair program then we need to dig into every corner including this one even though it's small. Um, so one of the curiosities I had, which I wasn't going to bring up today because I thought we were talking about this narrow scope and we weren't going to zoom out, but since we're zooming out, it was curious to me that the the 10 million that we're talking about moving from infrastructure into housing was an option because that's a very large sum of money that it seemed that there were other funds available for. So, once we get all looking at the same information together, because I know some folks haven't done their check-in yet, I need to know if there's other pools of funding in our plan that are also as flexible, especially if we're making promises to fully fund a program that we don't know the full amount of yet. That's a big important issue for our community to wrestle with, especially if we're going to be amending the plan. Thank you.

All right. Yep. So the so the next I mean I don't want to speak for the manager but the next time will be in HCD where you'll be looking at the first half of that funding being moved to fund the single family home repair program. Um and then we you know based on the timing that the state has relayed um we can probably do the second half towards late late summer. They will not know exactly how much the full cost of the program for Asheville is until they're done with their um evaluation of each of the applications, which they project to happen closer to the end of September. Um so, you know, one one hope and dream was to be able to know whether HMGP would fund the infrastructure projects in the infrastructure bucket for CDBGDR in time. uh but based on the how slow HMGP is versus CDBGDR that's unlikely. So some educated decision- making will have to happen. So because today is the only day that we're talking about this. It seems out of order to me that we would need to know how many dollars we need to move to fully fund the home repairs and then talk about the remaining funds because that seems like a pretty big amendment spread. my suggestion. It just makes me wonder about some of these plans and the dollars and I don't want to get too in the weeds because I know this is the city manager's decision making and we've allocated these funds to these buckets. But I guess what I would say is in light of this and the sensitivity in the community around how we're going to get these single family homes repaired, you know, will you as you go through this process have the purview to look and say like, oh well de actually the bid came in at 400, so we're pulling the 75. I mean, will you have you have that kind of

Yeah, we'll get more information as we go along. I would I would worry especially about the UDO conversation about delaying the award because we do not have any

funds to move that forward outside of this bucket of funds. You know what might be helpful when we have and you already brought it up or maybe you brought it up when we have HCD if we could learn about other potential buckets from which to pull whatever the perceived difference in cost is. So in my mind we're now at 22 million but we think it might cost 30 to 40. Are there any other areas without making a decision where we could utilize funding from?

Yeah. And what we'll share with you all is the whole allocation where we are in each of the different pots. Um it takes a substantial amendment to make any adjustments, but absolutely at any time those adjustments can be made through the process. So we'll we'll share at HCD uh full picture of all of the funding opportunities that we have within CDBG with the understanding that fully funding is a movable target because we don't know what we don't know yet. Right.

Right. Correct. They've just given us a a window of 35 to 38 million. But in talking with Stephanie McGara, who heads up the program for the state, she said that um the attrition they're seeing in the program in western North Carolina through folks opting out of it because maybe they've received um a charitable organization, rebuilt their home or something like that. Instead, she said it's higher than in their past experience. So they're u not yet giving us a firm get not yet giving the city a firm number and that might be happening because we're taking so long.

Actually this moves is moving really fast compared to other hurricanes in eastern North Carolina that were previously administered which I know sounds shocking. Well no I mean the the decision to move it over because staff you know what we'll chat. Yeah. Well, and and I think I think to your point, it's very important that the community not think there will be enough resources for this it for the program.

Any other um any other discussion on this item before we go to the next item? when I feel like we have a lot of questions. So, I I would like to know like when we'll see information again because I I wouldn't want the next time to be like approving a contract. I think I think that we there was a lot of questions about this. So, is there another interim step before y'all hit go? Yeah, I think it's based on y'all's feedback. It's going to be important that we bring back, you know, more information, more detail for you to have a deeper dive in understanding what the intended outcomes of all of these scopes are. Great.

Um, we have one that's coming pretty soon with the RFP already out for the UDO. So, we'll bring back some information specifically likely on that one sooner than and that one I feel like we tal I heard least about tonight. We've talked about in other things. Okay. So, so in terms of the moving funds, the proposal to move funds for single family home repair, it would go to HCD and then it would come to council, right? Uh do we know the timeline? Yeah. Do you have it with you? Because I know it requires an already back to council on May 12th

for the for and it's technically a um amendment to the action plan. Okay. And so, well, Nikki's jumping up. Do you agree with that timeline, Nikki? So, yes, we are going to provide an update to HCD on May 5th alongside the multif family housing award recommendation. Then the multif family housing award recommendation will come to council on the 12th. We will also share with you the financial information that's been discussed here, but then a substantial amendment would not come before council for a vote until June after the public comment period because there's a period. I was going to say that's too we have to publish the reallocation

funding. We have to publish that and then come back to council for that formal vote to submit the substantial amendment. So that'll be at the end of June. So in terms of follow-up information from you DK, thank you Nikki on these items. Could it be timed in such a way that we're able to I don't know. You'll you'll think about it. You heard everything that we said here and so you you you'll put the parts feedback. I think we'll go back and and make sure we understand all the questions and be able to respond. I think definitely within that time period. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay, Nick, let's just move on. Let's do something easy now. Just kidding. Okay.

Oh my goodness. Sorry.

All right. where our last item uh for today's meeting is a discussion of real time intelligence center and acceptance of the community project funding award and we're going to hear from interim police chief Jackie Stepp. All right. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, uh council members. Thank you, uh for the opportunity to be here today uh to discuss uh in greater detail uh how the funding, Chuck Edwards funding, uh grant money would be spent. As we begin this discussion, I do want to acknowledge something upfront. Concerns about surveillance are real and they're valid. Um, many people worry about privacy, overreach, and technology and how uh technology like this may be used. Those concerns deserve to be heard and taken seriously. At the same time, I hope that we have demonstrated through our actions, policies, and openness that our approach is grounded in trust and transparency. Our goal is not to expand surveillance for its own sake, uh, but to responsibly use tools to enhance public safety while respecting the rights and expectations of members of this community. We are committed to clear guidelines, accountability, and ongoing open dialogue. Uh, and this only works if the public understands what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how safeguards are put in place. I look forward to constructive conversation today uh where we can address concerns directly, answer questions honestly, and continue building trust together. I'm also very fortunate today uh to have uh some Axon and Flock representatives here with me. Uh I've got Andrea Swan from Axon and Holly Balin and Will Baker from Flock

Safety. So, as we get into kind of granular details, uh you'll see me defer to them uh throughout if needed. Uh just they flew in from out of town uh and they are here to answer any questions about those two platforms that you might have. I want to start with going over a little bit of a timeline just to kind of where we uh where we were where we are where we're going uh in terms of technology. So, we signed anou with Bunkham County Sheriff's Office uh in December 2022, and that was to utilize the Fuchious platform, the same platform we're asking for through the grant. We still have access to that platform. We've had limited access since 2022. Um then fast forward a couple of years to um the uh we've installed fleet or Axon fleet cameras in our cars. Now uh along with advancing technologies we we get what's called upgrades as we utilize that technology. uh we have what's called tap upgrades and part of that uh was replacement of our fleet incar cameras to include uh license plate readers and then in May 2024 the then city manager uh approved authorization to apply for this funding and then we had a government shutdown nothing happened we didn't get the funding we didn't get the funding and then all of a sudden we we get a call that we've got the funding but also want to point out that in September 2024 for when we applied for the grant, we also applied for a JAG grant. And in that JAG grant, we specifically stated that some of that funding, approximately $60,000, would be used to start the upfit of a real time intelligence center, and that

went before public safety and council. Um, so this is not the first grant that we've asked for to start building our own real-time intelligence center. And then uh February 2025, we installed um we we signed a contract with Flock and have 11 LPRs uh throughout the community. And then now we are where we are uh with this grant. But I will say, and I wish I could fit on this timeline, but as you see the the writing is small. I can barely read it myself that part of this timeline I think uh what's really missing and and maybe I should have made it the most important is you know right now we're asking for a real-time intelligence center and I'm sure some of you are saying why do we need two we already have one you just told us you have access to fus I think those are valid and important questions uh what I will tell you is that my staff uh Jimmy Wingo myself met with Sheriff Miller and and his staff who operate his real time intelligence center as well as Dr. Carter who oversees 911 dispatch. We came together to talk about what's this going to look like if we have two real time intelligence centers. Do I think it could be successful? Sure, I think it could be. It's proven elsewhere to be successful, but the sheriff and I both walked away and agreed one is better. Uh so we are working together to see what that consolidation will look like. Uh, and I'm very optimistic about those conversations as well as potentially bringing in a dispatcher into that room. So, very optimistic about uh the sheriff and I aligning in terms of technology and how we're going to consolidate into one real-time intelligence center. Any questions around that before I move on? So, just to give you because that timeline's small, a little overview of

next steps, 30 to 60 days. Um, I'm here today uh presenting before you then city council vote on acceptance of the grants uh will be sometime uh hopefully. And then I want to give you a heads up that you'll hear Fus again uh because we we are consolidating an our overall Axon contract. uh just timing. Uh we're due for that and part of that um is is a budget savings. We were able to save a lot by consolidating all under one umbrella. Um but part of that would be the fuchious. So if you hear that again, that's just the contract if it's approved to move forward. Uh so then that would go to council as well. Uh and then the education campaign, we're already doing it. We're doing social media. Uh I'm looking uh just presented to uh Darn on Sunday uh downtown residents. Uh every opportunity I have in the neighborhood citizens police academy I'm out engaging trying to provide factual information about what this looks like in our community and we will continue to do that. and then procurement for uh process for construction and the video wall would begin and also uh the space that what will be are the real-time intelligence center uh 911 dispatch currently occupies that space with their backup center so they are slotted to move out in June um so that's what the next 30 60 days and then 90 days out uh again education will not stop I assure you that uh we will continue I think this conversation uh even months years down the road needs to be ongoing around technology and all the things all the tools that we have and use. Um, we do a great job in our citizens police academy of like a behind-the-scenes look, but really looking at ways to expand that on a more regular basis and then construction phase.

There's been I feel like there's confusion around real time intelligence center and fuchious. So, I want to take just a second to make sure that everyone understands the difference. A real time intelligence center could be this room. It's literally just brick and mortar. I have a computer and a person. This could be a real-time intelligence center. So that's where we just sit in a room, bring all the information together in one space. Uh, Fuchious is the software platform and it aggregates data, maps, floor plans into one unified screen. So it brings um as an example it would bring your flock camera, your drone camera, your body camera, any camera that a business or resident would want to register or integrate with us into one pane of glass. So instead of remembering a hundred loginins that we have now to to various cameras throughout the the community, you have to remember this login and log into this DVR, it brings it up on a map. A crime occurs and you see where the crime is on the map. You've got your CAD that's also integrated, your dispatch system, and you're able to draw kind of a circle around that crime, and all cameras registered or integrated automatically pop up. So, it allows us access depending on the level that's set by the business owner or the camera itself to be able to see real time what's going on. We're able to do that now through our drone technology, but there's only so much from an aerial perspective, 400 foot in the air that you can do. So, being able to link that with, you know, ground level uh cameras uh would really enhance public safety. Are there any questions between the difference and RTS and Fuchious? Fuchious does not store data. Um that's a the a miscommunication that's been put out there. It literally just aggregates all those systems into

one place. The data storage is up to the camera system itself. Okay. Um Chief, I'll ask one thing. Um I guess in the community we heard and I guess at public comment last time that the Fusa system is hackable that anybody can log in and see it. And can you speak to that? I mean that this isn't stuff that is accessible by the public despite we had some people come tell us that it is. Yeah, that's correct. And we'll probably roll through some of that as I roll through these. Okay. Uh but even the vendors themselves do not has have access to our data. We own all of that data.

Um Flock I came to Flock today and uh my technology specialist is out and I needed to to log in and they're like we're sorry we can't log into your system. We don't have access. So uh that just goes to show I can't even ask them to get into my system because they just don't have that right to do that. or Zach's son. So I have a question about that. Um one to clarify is the majority of the community concerns I hear are actually around flock um not fuchious um to be clear as around around the hacking.

Um so communities that have canceled their contracts with flock the list is growing Denver Flagstaff Eugene Oregon um Hillsboro North Carolina the list goes on and on. Um, but there have been issues, documented issues with hacking of flot cameras, which are a license plate reader contract, which I think you in the timeline started in February of 2025.

Um, but additionally, some cities would add that if there are requests for access to our data that that would become part of the public record. Um, and so it is easy for members of our community to find out what other communities are doing to grow that transparency that you spoke to earlier. So what would it look like when let's say that Florida Fish and Wildlife, which we do have an agreement sharing based on our public record, requests our data? Um, how how would we get that information in a transparent dashboard format so that we can at least address that concern? I've actually I'm going to ask a question if I if I may, Councilwoman Rooney.

The the the focus of this conversation is not for me and for what we're asking for is not around flock. So, what I'd like to do is I I have some slides at the end that address LPR specifically, but I I really want today's conversation to be about what the ask is. So, can I defer that question till the end and then I'll invite Holly up. Sure. And she's prepared to speak on uh the wildlife. she's prepared to speak on the potential hack uh that is going around that flock had. So, could I just defer that? I just wanted to make sure because Sage, you had brought up the community concerns around hacking and I've heard the same thing. Yep. And we we will address it here in just a few slides, but I want to just try to stay focused on what what the actual ask is here for council and what the vote is about.

Yeah. And I thought we were actually reducing flock cameras as part of it. So,

so um I want to go back to the ask again. I want to talk about the funding breakdown. So the physical space uh believe it or not a video wall which just means TVs on a wall integrated into the computer system that's in the room is so far roughly uh still uh looking for quotes once we get approval is going to be around $400,000. It's incredibly expensive. We've reached that RIT division cannot do that. Uh they don't have the capacity to do that. I wish they did. So that's what that's what the large chunk would be spent for. 467602 would go directly to pay for fuchious for approximately 7 to 8 years. This is not a one-time one-year payment. And we're going to come back to you next year requesting additional funding. And then the remainder, which is about 250,000, would be uh spent toward construction, physical workspace, computers, chairs, things like that for the employees to be able to work out of the room. So that's a that's a breakdown of the funding and that was in the application as well. So current fuchious uh I want to take just a second to talk about what we what we APD not Bookham County but what we currently have we had a platform under Axon called respond Axon purchased Fuchious rebranded so we basically have a a basic version of Fuchious now and uh what that is is you'll see a screen TV screen you'll see kind of a map in the background and on top of that you'll see officer locations we have access access to their body one camera, their fleet cameras and our drone cameras. So that basic fuchious that we have now integrates our Axon equipment and our drones. Um future full access again it covers eight years and then integrates all of the camera fees for people who choose to register or not

register uh or integrate or not integrate. And then additional cost. We don't foresee any right now, but as those come through, they would be um you know filtered through the standard procurement process uh through the city. But there's no additional staff uh being requested to support the system today. All right. Fus isn't about watching people. It's about helping first responders get to emergencies faster, solve crimes more efficiently, and keep the community safer with less intrusion, not more. Um, again, we've got uh faster emergency response, more efficient investigation, less burden on small business and residents. And what that means is currently when a crime happens, we're knocking on people's door. Hey, do you have camera? Can you submit it here? Uh this would really eliminate some of that uh business owner. A lot of times at night uh the businesses will be showing us camera feed but they don't know how to access it. So they have to contact their business uh manager in the middle of the night. They may or may not come out. There's additional followup the next day that they have to do to be able to get that camera feed submitted to evidence.com. And then of course transparency and accountability. It also integrates floor plans. And this is huge uh for us because if you take this map and say it's a school and you've got an active shooter um and the active shooters in the bottom right hand corner, you can see all the green little boxes. That's cameras. That tells us where the cameras are. So we would be able to get into those cameras and keep an eye on the shooter and be able to evacuate children that don't necessarily need to hunker down in place. Uh so I think floor plans are very valuable and how they integrate with fuchsis and there's been some talk around Palunteer and Paragan. So I want to take just a second to talk about the three.

Um and luckily I've got Andrea here uh if I need her. But uh paragrin functions as functions as a search engine engine uh takes reports um license plate data investigative leads and it focuses on streamlining those workflows uh for data making paperwork easier. Fuchious again that is strictly owned by the police department not accessible by by vendors but it provides uh live it serves as a force multiplier because it provides that live camera feed during critical incidents and then Palunteer is big data analytics and integrates into massive databases to identify patterns and support long-term intelligence. We APD nor Axon partner with either one of those. Fuchsius is completely independent and and we don't partner with either one of those. So just want to take a second because it seems like again it's kind of like real time and fuchsia everybody's trying to integrate all of these things into one. So what's registry versus integration? Um registry is I can just ask you if you want to register your camera with the actual police department. You give your name, your email, and your business location, and you register. You tell us you have a camera there. Um, we actually started that years and years ago, even before Fuchious was a thing, because we wanted to know who to call if we had a crime in that area. So, we've got a very, very limited database that uh hasn't been updated in years. But, this is not new. I was going around asking if you have camera feed. So, that's what registry would look like. If a crime occurred, I would know to pick up the phone and call you say, "Hey, could you look at your footage on Thursday night between 7:00 and 9:00 and tell me if you see anything and share that with me." That's how that looks. But integration means real time connection and it uses what we call a fuchsia core that's

placed onto your device and allows authorized personnel live view into your camera. That doesn't mean 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It means whatever you want it to mean. If you have a business 8 to 5 and you don't think you have a need uh for any live view from 8 to 5, okay, put it 5 to 10, put it 5:00 pm to 8 a.m., whatever you want. You set the parameters and we cannot override those parameters and it also alerts you when anybody's accessed the camera. Anybody have any questions between the two? This is just a quick

Yeah. When you say you can't access, do you mean literally are unable to access outside of Sorry. You said I a business owner could go um my business closes at 6:00 and doesn't open until 8 the next morning and if they go don't access it. Does that mean you literally cannot access it? Correct. Okay. Correct. All those are all those are put in place on the front end. Okay. Oh, I have a follow-up question.

Let's just say let's just say that they're registered or they're integrated, but they give you a certain time period where you can opt in. Let's just say that they deny access for whatever reason, but there is an active investigation. Will they receive a subpoena for you to be able to go back and look at their stored camera footage? She can't subpoena anybody. Yes. Well, can you issue go through the process for the person to be the I can answer that. So, if it's a criminal issue, all of that would be handled through the district attorney's office. Um, but yeah, possible. It's kind of possible now. I mean, it's it's possible now. I mean,

possible now. Exactly. It's possible now. Whe whether this was in place and whether there was integration or not, wouldn't have any effect on it. The DA, if there was a camera, would have the ability to subpoena evidence as part of a criminal investigation. Um, and in that case, it wouldn't come to to us. It would actually go to the owner of the property and the camera. There was actually a very bizarre case in Bunkham County a couple years ago where the offender charged had a Furby camera over their dog food bowl and it was used to prosecute. Wow. So you Yeah, they can. But that was the DA getting the That's up to the district attorney

and we submit everything goes into evidence.com um and and case specific they have access to view that uh data and then they have to renew registration and integration regularly, right? It's not one whoever the business the res they do it every year or they sign up until they unsign. Oh, I guess I thought it was a renewal thing but maybe I heard you wrong. deferred it. Great question. Thank you for allowing me to speak for a minute as well. So when it comes to cameras for business, introduce yourself. Andrea Swan from Axon. Thanks for having me here today.

When it comes to business owners who are integrating their cameras, we do what's called conditional sharing. And that conversation is had upfront with the business owner before any kind of cameras are being shared. And then it's going to be decided between the police department and that individual business how those cameras are shared. So when it comes to that after the fact, let's say a 911 call comes in for a burglary and process, right? And those cameras are conditionally shared during a 911 call. The business owner also on the back end of this has an audit trail that allows them to see every moment in time and they also have access to I know Chief showed the map of what Fus looks like. They have the same access to that map for their cameras as well and administrator privileges for all of those pieces of information. So there's never a time where any member from administration at EPD can jump into a camera without having some kind of an auditable trail in the back end for that business owner to be able to look at or respond to or have those conversations with. It is truly to capture that moment in time. If there's a burglary in process, if an alarm goes off, if those things happen to be able to give the PD real time visibility to what's happening for that suspect if there is one and have a appropriate response.

While we have you, may I ask a test a technical question? Maybe. Because that kind of sounded like there's a special type of camera or module or something that makes it work. Like I work for a business downtown that has cameras on it parking lot. Does my any old camera that I bought on the internet is it compatible or are people actually saying I want to work with this so I need this type of setup? It's a great question council member. So no the answer is no. We work with every kind of camera that exists out there and what Chief Stepp mentioned about this core. It's basically just a small little box that attaches to the network

for that camera for business owners so that that camera can then populate on screen and that's all it is. And to go back to your question around how this works, if a business owner wants to register their cameras, they can go right online. they can purchase that core piece of technology themselves and then it's an annual fee just like it would be other things for you to re-register every year should you want to keep that relationship going and at any point in time you can renegotiate what those conditional sharing privileges are with the PD as well while you're here um can you explain how the Amazon web services fits into the Axon network and how it's used for real time

I may have to bookmark that and get you a better answer on that. That's an engineering question. On the back end, I do know we also have a site called Axon Trust which gives you all of the siege is compliant, all of the data around our data security and privacy pieces that's publicly accessible as well. Thank you. Of course. U so as far as the data piece, I know Chief was saying that we own the data and for how long do we keep that data? Do you want to talk through that in terms of retention? There's also presentation.

Sure. There's there there are retention schedules. Um state law is 90 days unless it's tied to a misdemeanor or felony and then those would extend. Misdemeanor believes 5 years 20s felony homicides forever. Um so there's just different retention schedules, but anything after 90 days that's not linked to an active investigation is automatically purged. Flock uh they they have a 30-day retention. So, anything after 30 days captured in an LPR is purged if it's not connected to a crown. And I know you've got a lot of this information in your presentation. So, do we want to finish the I'm just a little bit worried about the time. I

I just have one more question about that. So, I know we purge that data. Um, we don't own the servers. Um, I'm assuming so that data somewhere. Does Axon or Flock still have access to that data even after that time frame? No. And let me be clear that Fus on its own is a software overlay on top of evidence.com. Evvidence.com is where the police department houses all of their evidence for court cases, for prosecution, for all of those pieces. Fus is a moment in time. So the fus feeds that have those cameras from local business owners or cameras around are literally there until someone in administration at PD decides to do something with it. So if they're just live, they're not stored. There's nothing sitting in uh in like a clearing house somewhere for any of that. When and if that information is then sent to evidence.com to build a case for prosecution is where it's stored. Once it's deleted, and I have this conversation very often with my agencies, there's no getting it back. So, if you have accidental videos or things like that, once they're cleared out of the queue, they're gone. They are not able to be retrieved. And again, to be redundant, we do not have access to any of that evidence or any of those systems on the back end.

Thank you. You're welcome. And we've actually had that happen where an officer didn't categorize a body worn camera uh and then we went to court and if it's deleted, it's deleted. We can't get it back. So, that's happened here. This is just a quick overview of what Charlotte and Atlanta look like in terms of registry versus integrated. Uh registry is on the left and integration, full integration is on the right. Uh Durham is in process. Uh but they've received kind of the same funding uh channel that we did. Wait, we have to go back to that. I've talked to three council members from Durham who said staff pulled it because it doesn't have the council support. So really,

I was told by staff to contact Durham council members and I did. Can you say that again? I think I think um to for a little more clarity around that it's been continued until June. That's correct. That is not what I'm hearing from multiple council members that staff have pulled it. I'm just saying what it said in the press yesterday. Yesterday. So I just want to make sure we're giving information that this presentation says it's in process. That would be news to the I mean it's in the

Okay. So I guess the point I heard was that a lot of cities are still in North Carolina are getting access to this funding and some are choosing it and some are not and then do we have any context for why some are not or I guess I'm just trying to I want to address council RO's concern too but I also want to make a point of misinformation here. So Durham is actually looking to partner with that first paraguin um not Fus point of clarification there I'll try to clear the air which which has different

which has different safeguards around it and F Axon is the parent company for Fus which is why we're trying to move and integrate over to to an Axon system away from Flock, away from these things because it all integrates and works together seamlessly is from what I understand and it was helpful to understand the difference between all those three companies because I think it is confusing and I think the public just puts them all into one but really they're completely different.

They are completely different and in terms of Durham, I work with Durham as well. I'll give you the information as I have it up to today. So, Paragrin, which was the contract that was put in front of city council about a month ago, was pulled. They declined having that conversation and that funding was not approved. I think it was 500. I'm not sure the exact number of that. I was actually not present at that meeting, but I was part of the the follow-up afterwards. So, we still have a work session May 28th or May 21st for the Axon contract, which includes Fus, and then the city council vote is June 1st. Okay. Well, that's better context. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's everyone was right. If I may, council, also, uh, just just to fully close this loop, I'm I'm communicating as we speak with the Durham City Attorney on this to try to give you as much information as I can. Um, everything Smith said corresponds with what she is telling me, but also, for whatever reason, they are calling it a real-time crime center. Uh, so they wanted, for whatever reason, to distinguish that from a real-time intelligence center. So our our probably because intelligence has grown to have a negative connotation. It might be. So uh that is apparently what they have uh currently tabled for a couple months primarily what I'm being told is because of the paragrin element of it.

Mayor to that point I I and chief I I lament the name the real time intelligence center and surveillance. It does kind of have this dark connotation especially with the context and the times that we're living. really the more appropriate name is real time public assistance center and um because that's really what it is when we're from um what' you say? Where did you get that? What? My first time hearing that term. Ella, I just You just came up with it. Okay. You just came up with

Well, I mean, when I'm thinking about the children, you know, that are lost that we can um immediately find within minutes. um uh while an officer is responding um the crime analysts who are civilians who aren't even officers can be um communicating with those officers where that child is wandering. I'm thinking of all the animals I'm thinking about rescues during tropical storm Helen. Uh, I'm thinking about uh when there's a shooting downtown or when there's a sexual assault or I know in one of uh the case of me when um someone was bullying me for being part of the LGBTQ uh community downtown and I called the cops and he got away. Um I'm just thinking of times like that um where it's really a public assistance thing. Um, and I think that understanding of what we're actually using it for and what we're not using it for and um is important.

I think it's critical. I think actually in the input I've gotten thus far that distinction is the most important because I have not encountered anyone that is what I'm encountering is people that are afraid. We're using it in ways that currently aren't being asked of us that currently aren't happening. And that is the fear. And the fear is, you know, if we agree to it, will it become that afterwards? And so on. And I think you're going to do a you've got a presentation. We're interrupting you. And I think you're about to get to some of these details, but I just want to appreciate what you just said because when it comes to the crime component, when we hear the successes of battling crime, I am seeing support. We've got to balance it with what are the controls around it not becoming what we don't want.

Sure. Very fair. Thank you for the feedback. Um, San Francisco Police Department, uh, they credit their real-time intelligence center to a 30% overall drop in crime. Uh, the mayor stated that the the center is a turning point, uh, for public safety in San Francisco. Uh, Axon, again, I already said this, Fucus, uh, does not have access or retain data in the fuchsia system. Remember, it just brings it all together in one pane of glass. They will pull in live video stream connected through the Fus core that we talked about, but they will not um pull in AI technology. So, if you have a camera and you've got facial recognition on your camera, Fuchious will not pull in the facial recognition part of that camera. Uh real time uh benefits. Um, we've talked about the real-time investigations, effective policing, uh, internal accountability, uh, safety enhancements, transparency, risk mitigation, and force multiplier, but also, uh, improved collaboration across the city, uh, departments, which we've already started to expand and build on with our drone program. And we would hope that this would just be another platform to allow us to do that. These are just a couple of images. Uh, partnerships. This is how we partner with the fire department. This is the Goodwill fire. They were slated to be out there for multiple days, but through our thermal technology, uh we were able to to give them more of a specific direct um operation to where they knew where the heat source was coming from. U they were able to to put that fire out in a day. Um so just examples there. Um this is just some of our success factors. This is a a point talking point that I wish we could share with the community. I wish I could put images up and really talk about how these tools assist in investigations, but a lot of times we're just not able to do that uh because of state law. So, it makes it

seem like we're not being transparent, but we can't release almost all of the footage uh because of state law. We also have access to real time 911, which means we're here in the call as it comes in to dispatch. Uh, and that's where this real-time information center, we can really build upon it because not only do we have the caller, we're listening, deploying drone real time, but now we're able to get kind of line level view, whatever cameras we have access to in the area. Uh, we have cameras in our interview room. Most felonies and all interviews of minors have to be recorded. Uh we've had contact cameras, which are just stationary cameras that have absolutely solved a number of homicides uh in this community. And then courtroom testimony. I don't know if you listen to Mark Starling, but myself and the district attorney were on last week and and this uh very topic came up. We also did a podcast together on it. But jurors now expect technology to enter the courtroom. Not only do they want to see it, but they want to see it in high definition before they believe it. So, that's an expectation now that's expected as we go into the courtroom.

Can we put a pin here because I feel like the the community is struggling with this new reality. Um, when I first came on council, we had a pretty poor clearance rate. And even now victims of crime and families of crime victims have been living with a frustration because sometimes in the investigation process APD will let them know that in order to move this investigation forward effectively we need an eyewitness and we live in the no snitch culture and even outside of that people afraid to come forward because of retaliation. So speak to um victims of crime and let them know what this technology will do in effectiveness with investigation and your clearance rate.

Such an such an important fact. Uh and we hit on that in the podcast and in Mark Stling, but you're absolutely right. Especially in our most vulnerable neighborhoods, you've got people unwilling to come forward because they're scared. It's not that they don't want the crime solved, but they're afraid of retaliation and what might happen if their name is brought up and they're subpoenaed to the courtroom. This technology allows us to bridge that gap without that witness testimony. Uh, and it's really imperative. I know uh Sheriff Miller when he first launched his uh there was a news article where it helped uh he credits his real time intelligence center for drop 15% in crime and played a role in solving 17 homicides. I mean, it's absolutely critical for victims who are scared to come forward. Thank you for pointing that out. Uh, this is just a a case um where we used uh multiple different technologies uh LPR drone and this is this is what we're able to do. This is what we're able to get off the street. We're not out looking for insurance violations or stop, you know, tail lights out and things like that. Uh we're very we don't respond with our technology unless there's a need and a crime in progress to do so. Uh this is a case uh where they stole a couple of offenders stole $350,000 worth of jewelry from the Grove Arcade right here downtown. And through license plate readers, contact cameras, which again, this is a context camera that you're looking at here in Black Mountain, we were able to identify these these offenders are from out of town. Without technology, the case would have been unsolved. And then again, this is just pointing out that the real time intelligence center takes all of these things that we've talked about here today and brings it in together into one place. Now, I want to go quickly into flock because u uh Holly's flown in from out of town.

So, I want to give her some opportunity uh quickly. We have a transparency page. We have all of our LPR uh Axon and Flock on our transparency pages. They've been there uh since we implemented them. APD owns and manages all ALPR data. That's automated license plate reader. Vendors do not have access. I said that to you earlier. Uh limited access. Only trained authorized personnel can use the system. If you're not up to date on your training as a police officer and you didn't you don't have a sign off, you're not authorized to use the system. Um uh secure storage. Data is encrypted. It's encrypted while it's being used in transit and at storage. uh very similar to what your bank uses and we do not use or track or report immigration status. Uh sharing all requests for shared data access from other law enforcement agencies has to be approved. Uh we we uh our technology manager approves that. uh if shared uh with another law enforcement agency or prosecuted prosecutor only for an official criminal investigation upon written request and then we conduct conduct quarterly audits. We're actually in the process of conducting our quarterly audit uh first quarter audit of our LPRs. Now this is a case just to show how difficult it is to share especially with agencies uh that are not law enforcement. But we had a uh this is a drone that was uh we had a we assisted Bunkham County. We had a suspect shoot the drone. Uh he had crouched under the porch. Uh had his firearm ready uh we believe to take down an officer who was going to come for an apprehension but luckily they threw the drone flew the drone around and he shot the drone out of the air instead of a deputy or an officer. But we have tried to get the drone repaired, but we cannot even

release this to the FAA without a court order because they're not a law enforcement agency and this doesn't go before the court until May. So, just telling you that we we just can't say, "Hey, we had a drone shot down. Can you fix it? Can you help us? Can you investigate?" Uh, we have to go through that process as well. We talked a little bit about retention categories. Uh, flock is 30. uh Axon is 90 days, state laws 90 uh unless uh you're preserving the data through a federal search warrant, federal or state search warrant, a preservation request. And what that means is if you have a case and you've linked that to that case every year, you have to go before and continue that ex extend that you still need access to that data. I'm not sure the state thought that through because if you have a homicide or something, that's really lifetime. So yearly, you're going in and requesting to preserve that data longer than the the state law retention allows.

And then I want to come back specifically, Councilwoman Ron, to your questions around license plate readers. Holly,

hi, I'm Holly. Uh, I work for Floin. you had a couple of different questions, so I want to make sure I address all of them. So, the first one I think was related to the so-called hacking. So, one thing we should be clear about is all of the allegations of hacking have been made via social media via mostly um YouTube. We are Flock is SOC 2 type 2 certified. We use an adversarial testing firm. It's the largest in the United States. It's called Bishop Fox. Their literal job is they are on retainer to try to hack into our hardware and software in order to find bugs in order to make sure that we can actually go and find them and fix them if that happens. In addition, the um limited cases that you're talking about, the the things that have been brought up on YouTube, they're all referring to the devices at the device level. I'm not a cyber security person, but the way that my CISO has uh sort of explained this to me is that this is akin to me going to the coffee shop down the street, leaving my iPhone without a password on the barista's uh stand and someone grabbing that and sending a bunch of pictures to themselves because I left my iPhone unlocked. Flock's cloud environment has never been hacked. It has never been breached. So that is an important acknowledgement. Does that answer all of your questions around the hacking or did you have any follow-ups? I want to make sure I address that.

Questions we'll have to hear from the community when we have a meeting that has public comment. Can I clarify what you just said though? I don't think I interrupted. You were the one who had asked about it. Yeah. So um so wait, I just want to make sure I understood that. So yeah, if I have cameras at my business, I'm in integration with APD and a video shows up that shows my business has been hacked. You're saying that it is actually my hardware, my my device that was hacked, not the So, I'm talking about the flock cameras specifically. I don't want to speak for Andrea about how Fus does cyber security for the flock cameras. What happened the the social media comments that you're referring to.

Uh, someone got a hold of a factory re a factory settings camera. So, this was a camera that had actually been purchased potentially illicitly. took several minutes or hours to actually break into that device. And what they were able to identify was basically images that someone could take with a cell phone camera on the side of the road. What that camera had copied, similar to how my home security is doing. It was the actual camera. It was not the cloud environment where all of this data is stored encrypted. That has never been breached. And the camera just happened to be in the flock system. So they're kind of It was a flock. This was a flock camera. This was a camera we built. Yes.

Oh, it was a camera you built. Okay, that's what I was getting confused. I know it's confusing. It was It was a factory settings camera. I mean, to be clear, you could have any camera though. I mean, you could have certainly and also a phone and also any piece of software. The cloud environment where everything is stored that has never been hacked. That is fully encrypted. So like a full scale someone hacks into like the APD database and then they start looking through and they do a search for their ex-girlfriend who they're stalking and that couldn't happen.

So what you're talking about there is a little bit different and I want to make sure I differentiate to be as accurate as possible. So you're talking about potential misuse of the system, right? That's different from like me Holly not a law enforcement officer hacking the system. Now, to speak to misuse, uh, Andrea talked about auditing a little bit. Flock has the same thing. Every single search conducted on APD's cameras is fully audited. It requires a search reason. So, there's actually a drop- down field that's based on standard crime categories like homicide, animal cruelty, hate crime that you talked about.

The officer who's searching has to enter that offense type. That audit record is saved in perpetuity. If there is any sharing in the system, if APD shares with Hendersonville, Hendersonville PD, any searches that are on those shared networks, also saved, also audited, also available to be seen by both agencies. That's in order to make sure that any misuse is prevented. But to be clear, someone outside the agency couldn't hack into our That's never happened. That that has never happened. I'm never going to say never. I'm not a cyber security person, but that has never happened. I I kind of went down the rabbit hole in all of this the past couple of weeks and met with the YouTube rabbit hole

community well no not the YouTube rabbit hole but uh but meeting with IT folks meeting with security folks meeting with community members who were concerned and um I think that was one of the major things and they kept saying side door like there's a side door access B side door access so I went to the IT folks and I said what is this side door access like this sounds so scary and they're like oh that's when a person misuses it and they look up they're within the and I was like oh I it seemed like you know some like open door in the software that someone could hack into but really it was misuse by a human

and misuse is absolutely not okay but it is identified often by the very audits that we're talking about and we all have a policy that actually is very clear these are acceptable uses these are not acceptable uses like for chief you talked about immigration. That is not an acceptable use in Asheville. So, y'all actually um through our team put the immigration filter on your flock cameras. So, even if that search is attempted to be done on Asheville cameras, they will never hit the cameras. Okay. So, can you say that again? The immigration Yeah.

Yeah. So, we have what's an immigration filter. So, remember we talked about that drop down of like homicide could be a reason, animal cruelty, etc. Even if within Asheville or any external agencies who are sharing your cameras conducted a search that was not allowed by your policy on immigration, it will never hit your cameras. That search is filtered out. Thank you. Yeah, I have other questions not specific to Flock. So for for Yeah. So go ahead if you have others.

I have a question for staff but it is related to Flock. Um, can we get before we have to vote on these decisions the flock contract and the axon contract sent to council? Um I know the flock contract has been um distilled by the community and one line that gets pulled out is the customer in this case the city of Asheville hereby grants to Flock a limited non-exclusive royalty-free irrevocable worldwide license to use the customer data and perform all access may be necessary for Flock to provide the Flock services to the customer. And I think that's the kind of language that asks that has the community asking the questions they're asking. But it would just be helpful if we could review the contracts for both Axon and Flock.

Yeah, not to speak for the city manager, but I think it certainly can provide both of those contracts in the very near term to council. And uh my office will in addition to that provide a specific um legal opinion to you on those that particular provision in the contract.

Can I offer a little bit of an explanation if you don't mind on the um perpetual data license because we have gotten totally fair question. and we have gotten questions on that. So, Asheville owns all of your data. There are two provisions uh in which we are allowed to use your data. Number one, to provide the services. You said that to provide the services you're paying for. Number two is there is a small subset of um training data that is taken. It is not um any sort of like the actual images attributed to crimes in Asheville. It is for training purposes of training the machine learning. So the best example I have of this one is we'll often have to develop new machine learning algorithms in order to accurate accurately identify vehicles. The best example was um when the cybert truck the Tesla Cybert truck came out our systems had never seen that kind of a thing before. We had to build an entirely new machine learning algorithm in order to identify what a cyber truck was. And so that's the reason that a very small subset of that training data is actually used. It's to train those algorithms in order to actually accurately provide the evidence and categorize evidence. It's a totally fair question. Thank you, Chief. Um I had a question, a couple questions from the community. Um, one I didn't quite understand because I'm I'm still learning so much um about this process, but um just because the question from the community member was just because the Axon and Fus Axon owns Fus, we keep forgetting to tell people that just because Axon and Fus says they won't use the facial recognition. There was a concern that APD actually already uses facial recognition or we have existing contracts that we do. So the question became does APD use facial recognition or not already and is it related to this at all? Because I guess clear view and AI companies are we doing these things already?

We've never had a contract with clear view. Okay. Uh and we do not use AI techn well we do not use facial recognition um or anything like that. That's correct. You don't? Okay. Correct. Okay. See this is there's just so much information out there and I feel like a lot of this information as well. And then another question I received from the committee member which I just really want to share with our council is that um I mentioned some of the locations I knew that were being surveiled and uh one of them was hacker properties. So I reach housing authorities

housing authorities sorry housing authority property. So I reached out to the executive director just to be like how's this going? Is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? And there I I don't want to quote them. I actually think maybe we should contact them to see if they want to issue a statement. But what she did respond to me was that they found it was a critical tool for keeping residents safe. especially in the recent uptick in crime and that they had seen the value in the strong surveillance and the APD coordination and so I guess what I'm getting at is I mean that's helpful to know right and in the areas that it's already happening how is it working but are there other examples you can bring to us at the next meeting because we're about to run out of time around where this is in the community already what we're doing with our existing surveillance already is it is it just crimes are we watching people sleeping in doorways what are the limits what will council be able to do to massage this if they want to around what will we not watch. Do you know what I mean? Like we need more context. I think

Yeah, I think that's important. Uh and I think that's where the education continues. I want to clarify something because when you say housing properties are being surveiled. Oh well that is not true. Okay. Okay. We do not generally monitor any camera. We have said from the onset of technology years ago, we will not generally surveil or monitor for any reason. It's in our policy that we will not do it. Now, if a crime occurs in housing in response to crime, absolutely. If we have an ongoing investigation, will we? Absolutely. But it has to be linked. There has to be a nexus between crime and when we log into a camera. I just want to clarify. Very clear. Thank you.

Was here at the last meeting. I'm sure she'll come again. But I appreciate that clarity because that is so it is always in the response to crime and that's a very clear point. They were not just it's not a surveilling of all general activity. That's correct.

Thank you for making that clear. One last um question um slash comment um in my conversations with people who are kind of like me um in that they're single and e looking for um ways to feel more protected or individuals who are felons and limited in the ways that they can protect themselves and their families. They want to lean into this type of technology, but their question is what will this council do or public safety do to make sure that there's fidelity around data storage, transparency, and auditing?

Yeah, I think I've covered a lot of that today and and all I can do is you to link me with those members of the community and bring them to the police department, do a behind the scenes. You know, I'm going to continue education campaigns. Um, you know, we we're meeting with community stakeholders, but but really for people like that, I I need them to come forward and and see it and touch it and feel it and and let us demonstrate and walk through our policies, procedures to make sure that they have an understanding. But I think it's twofold. I think the education is one piece, but the responsibility of council, yes, is another piece. So, and specifically public safety committee, like what are we going to do to make sure that

folks are safe, but also their privacy is not being exploited. Absolutely. And I think you've taken the first step by pulling it off of council to learn more and I I respect that decision. I'm glad that you did because I want you to be fully informed before you make a vote. I'm not here to sway a vote, but I am here to make sure that you are feel educated enough and informed enough to make a vote. Thank you. And thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so thank you, chief. So this would come back to council on what day? May 12 or May 26, is it? Okay. So I think y'all will strategize about that. And will it go to public safety?

Oh, do you want it to go back to public safety? No. No. No. I don't think Yeah. I feel like we did a pretty thorough It is public. So, mayor, I would also ask we do have a contract with Fuses Axon that needs to come back and I think it would be helpful for those to come back together and so we'll talk about May 5th, I mean 12th or May 26. Is there a deadline with the grant? There's not. Okay. So, we have time to political deadline, I would say. We have a little time to sort through.

Okay. Uh, all right. We will we are adjourned from our work session from our public public uh sorry policy finance committee. We'll be back here in four minutes after we put some food in our mouths. Everybody.