City Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Call the meeting in order for the Ashton Board of City Commissioners. If you will all rise and take your hats off, we'll ask Commissioner Goode to do our invocation. Mr. Wirtz, if you'll lead us in our pledge.

I will. Let us pray. Lord, we come tonight thanking you for our city. Your word proclaims the blessing of the upright, elevates a city. And so we are grateful for those who faithfully serve and celebrate our community. We ask your Holy Spirit to enter our chambers and to preside over our meeting this evening. We ask for your wisdom and discernment over this board of mayor commissioners as we strive to make decisions that affect our city and its citizens. Bless our city manager, our staff and employees, and those in attendance this evening. We pray always in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand and salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Commissioner Good and Mr. Wirtz. We appreciate that. All right. Motion to receive and file the agendas presented.

So moved. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right. Motion to receive and file the minutes of the July 9th, 2026 meeting.

So moved. Second.

Any corrections or additions? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right, we'll move into our hearings in our reports. Mr. Martin, we can start with you today.

Okay, well, we'd like to welcome everybody to the meeting tonight. It's always an exciting night when we see the families out for fire department promotions, both for the... A member of the fire department who is being promoted, the other members, and the families, and we welcome you. Since our last meeting, the city was host to the State Firefighters Convention. I want to congratulate Chief Alley and the department for their efforts in the success of the event. APD held another successful national night out in Central Park. It was well attended. Tonight at the board's request, APD Major Ryan Connolly and Chief Kelly are going to make a presentation of the use of flock cameras in our community since 2023, two years before the board took office. So we're looking forward to that and thank them for the preparation.

Commissioner Goode. I just want to welcome everybody this evening. We have a lengthy agenda, so I'm not going to say much. But I just want to say I'm very, very proud of our new firefighters. And this is a great occasion. And I think we have the best fire department in the state. And I'm not saying that because it's an election year, OK? But I'm saying Eli Alley and Tucker Rogers, I had in football, it seemed like yesterday they were on the football field. And Carson Patrick, he was a Russell Red Devil, but he was a great football player. And I'm glad you came to Ashland over in the promised land. I'm glad we have you over here. And so I'm very, very proud of these new firefighters. And that's all I have.

All right, Commissioner.

Well, I just want to welcome everybody here tonight. We have a packed house excited for the paintings of our firefighters and promotion of a police officer. I want to wish the best of luck to teachers and students starting school back. My little nephew is five years old. He'll be six coming up. He started kindergarten at Charles Russell. Those days, for me, were exciting times. Marty was, I think, my sister's basketball coach there, Sarah, Nate's mother. But I just want to welcome everybody and looking forward to a great meeting.

Great. I think we all echo Commissioner Martin's compliments on our firefighters and everything. We did have a good, successful stars versus stripes. Of course, everybody in the town knows I lost. But that's okay. I can sleep in my own bed at night, so that's good. So we'll move on. I'll use most of my time. Our firefighters are anxious. Gentlemen, Firefighter Luke Wellman and Firefighter Patrick, Firefighter Alley and Firefighter Rogers, would you come forward with your families, please? I think this time I'm going to introduce all of our new firefighters to you and then we'll do a joint swearing in for each of you. The first I'll introduce is firefighter Tucker Rogers. He'll step forward. He began his employment with the City of Ashland Fire Department on August 12, 2025. He has obtained his IFSAC certifications as a firefighter and driver and operator. He also maintains his hazardous materials technician certification and holds a certification in welding. Tucker and his family reside in Boyd County. Tucker will be assigned to the 1st Platoon Central Station. Next, we have Eli Alley, a familiar name in the Ashland Fire Department. He began his employment with the City of Ashland Fire Department August 12, 2025. He has obtained his IFS 18 certification as a firefighter, driver, and operator. He also maintains his Hazardous Materials Detection certification and EMTB certification. Eli served with the Cannonsburg Fire Department prior to joining the Ashland Fire Department and remains an active member with that department. Eli is a third generation firefighter with the City of Ashland. He and his family reside in Ashland and Eli will be assigned to the 1st Platoon Central Station. Our next firefighter, Carson Patrick. He began his employment with the City of Ashland Fire Department on August 12, 2025. He also retained his IFSAC certifications as a firefighter and driver operator. He also maintained his Hazard Materials Technician certification and EMTB certification. Hartman served with the Russell Fire Department prior to joining the Ashland Fire Department. He and his family reside in Russell, where he still serves with their fire department. The department will be assigned to the third platoon, Central Station. Firefighter Luke Wellman. McGann is employed with the City of Ashland Fire Department of August 12, 2025. He has obtained his IFAC certifications with Firefighter Driver Operator Instructor 1 and Firefighter Officer 1. He also maintains his Hazardous Material Technician certification, EMTB, and various technical rescue certifications. Luke has also served with the Louisa Fire Department for the last five years. He resides in Louisa, Luke will be assigned to the second platoon, Central Station. All right gentlemen, if you all would stand forward. If you will each of you stand forward and raise your right hand. To you Fireman Wellman, Fireman Patrick, Fireman Alley, and Fireman Rogers, solemnly swear to continue to serve the citizens of the city of Ashland, Kentucky, in your new capacity as a compassionate manner, courage, and integrity, to put others before you and to accept the sacrifices needed to serve our community. And do you swear to uphold the laws and constitution of the United States, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and the city of Ashland? So help you God. If so, answer I will. I will. Gentlemen, if you'll allow your spouses to pin your badge, congratulations.

Thank you.

Can we get a picture behind him? Can we get a picture behind him? Can we get a picture with us standing behind him? We'll just stand behind him.

And I know some of y'all have to get back to work. So we'll, we'll take just a brief time to allow you to go if you wish.

date for work.

He says he's gonna make a brief

Congratulations.

You want to do a wheelie?

Thank you.

I'm sorry. This is the entrance to the church of San Gimignano.

All right, so we'll move on to our city managers report. Mr. Grubb.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just have two things. One of them I'd like to request for us to be thinking about a date and time for early next month to have a work session. And the next thing is the departmental report is by Police Chief Todd Kelly.

Before you start, let me correct assistant chief instead of major. Sorry about that. All right.

Chief, Mayor and commissioners. Appreciate the opportunity to get up and explain our technology that's currently being used within the police department to help us solve crimes. We also want to put at the end of it an opportunity to show you What we're wanting to do as far as officer safety, public safety, and it's just not only for law enforcement. It'll be fire, our public works, all of our departments, all of our infrastructure, and I have a small presentation at the end of that. Your request to give information on the automated license plate recognition program that we have. I know that I told you 2023 is when we started with the brand Flock. In researching backwards, we've been using that technology, license plate reading technology, all the way back to 2019, really. And before we talk about the technical aspects of the automated license plate recognition or ALPR or LPR technology, I'm gonna give you some background on why the department began using this technology and how it developed. So why we began is the department was first using ALPR technology in 2019. is primarily used as a solution to downtown parking enforcement. Following a federal court decision that affected the use of traditional tire chalking methods, the city needed another way to enforce parking time limits without physically marking or touching a vehicle. ALPR technology provided a way to document a vehicle's license plate, location, and time without physically touching a vehicle. technology was later considered again as the city looked into solutions to long-standing downtown parking concerns in 2025 with the direction and approval from the commission the police department resumed the use of alpr technology for parking enforcement using both vehicle mounted and handheld readers to document vehicles and determine compliance with the two-hour parking restrictions The different vendors for this technology was Clancy Parking Systems and now Clancy Vision. Prior to some of you getting into office, we also had the T2 system with the parking kiosks that were considered in the equipment purchase. We never got to fully implement it. That was also ALPR technology, a different brand. So we've used different brands throughout this whole period. again flock is just another brand name of that technology so later on alpr for public safety the department also pursued technology for completely different purpose public safety and criminal investigations beginning in 2021 the department sought approval to apply for kentucky homeland security funding for alpr equipment the proposed uses included Identifying wanted persons, stolen vehicles, dangerous individuals, missing or exploited persons, sex offenders, other individuals identified through law enforcement databases and vehicles associated with narcotics investigations. The equipment was ultimately funded in 2023 with the city receiving reimbursement through Kentucky Homeland Security. The grants process and approval receiver approved by the Board of Commissioners and both 21 and 22 to receive the funding. In 2023, the department was directed by the city manager to investigate damage occurring at the river or the renovated riverfront. We were having problems with destruction of the roadway, criminal mischief in that area, and we did not have any proper way other than just random patrols to try to catch individuals doing this. So as part of that investigation, we began researching ALPR technology. It was tested at the entrance to the riverfront park. The system helped.

Chief, is that the first fixed location that there was?

That was the very first fixed location that we tested in a demonstration. And I believe that was 45 days. Am I correct, Chief, on that? Yeah.

You were there.

Um, so, um, during that period of time, um, we had several incidents occurred through witnesses, uh, information, uh, things of that nature. We were able to use that ALPR technology searching, um, database for vehicles that may have been entering that location during a period of time on a certain date. In doing so, we were able to locate a, not only the vehicle, that was described, but the license plate was also visible and we were able to follow up and identify suspect and that person was charged with damage to property for the city. Um, from that point on, um, we found out that that experience demonstrated that ALPR technology could be useful beyond parking enforcement and, um, that provide investigators with an additional tool for identifying vehicles connected to crimes and locating one or even missing individuals, which we've done in the past. We've had golden lures where we use technology not only in the city, but expanded to another state and found an older gentleman that we were able to find basically at a dead end of a hollow in West Virginia. Based on the success, we received permission by the city manager to grow the program through the city. what it does and what it does not do and the assistant chief will cover that probably a little bit more technology-wise than just my description takes a photograph of the vehicle's plate converts the plate to text records the location and time of the photograph can compare the plate information against databases can generate an alert when a vehicle matches information being sought by law enforcement what it doesn't do it doesn't record video It didn't capture facial images. Used the news facial recognition. It has officers continuously. We don't have officers sitting continuously in a police station or anywhere watching video photographs or anything like that. The amount of volume of traffic that we have. That that's not efficient and that's not an option or a capability that the system does. Um, it does not automatically result in a traffic stop or an enforcement action, and it does not do intersections for red light enforcement or anything of that nature, speed or anything. Uh, Kentucky is a state that does not allow that only in work zones. And that was passed just this year. When alerts received, officers respond to the location, must positively identify the vehicle. Personnel must then confirm through the mobile data terminal or communications dispatcher that the vehicle and the information received through the system match before taking any action. LPR is not a replacement for police officers, investigations, or good police work. It's another investigative and public safety tool. The technology gives officers information that may otherwise be unavailable, particularly when attempting to locate stolen vehicles, one or two dangerous individuals, missing persons, or vehicles associated with criminal activity. Police Department's goal is to use this technology responsibly, within established policy and law, and with appropriate safeguards, while providing the community with an additional tool to help prevent and solve crime. So, I'm gonna let Assistant Chief Conley take over from this point on. When he's completed, I'll call our guests up for another tool that we can use.

So, you have to, put a license plate into the system. You just don't go randomly, you know, looking at or maybe you can search on a certain license plate, correct?

I we can search with a valid reason. And then chief will cover that here in just short. We're in a very strict policy.

And we're even more strict than the Kentucky rise statute is is Ryan going to review the state statute and the city policy? It might be good to mention that before you instituted the use of the equipment, you had to adopt a policy and you did that and it's since been revised. Yes. And it this statute requires that this be publicized. Where is it located? That people can find the policy?

I think you can. I think you'll cover that in the trance, what we call a public transparency portal. And it's covered in that. So I'll let him explain a little bit further. Okay. But again, your question was, It's searchable, but at the same time, as I said, the databases through NCIC, the National Crime Information Computer, hot list that are established maybe by us that we're looking for a suspect or a dangerous person or whatever. We have to have that backing. And it could trigger on a plate that we know is associated with that vehicle. We're just looking for it. Triggers both in the officer's vehicle, through his hotspot, and through his MDT. And he cannot do anything until he locates that vehicle. And then he has to confirm it. He has to do a lot of things before he actually turns a set of blue lights on and pulls you over. Got you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chief.

He covered most of it, so one of the things I wanted to show you, we get a lot of open records requests on it, and hopefully this will help. I didn't turn on some of the public requests because we have a forward-facing web page as a transparency portal. It's available on the web. It has been for a long time.

Well, when you say on the web, I'll give it to you.

So what this does is just to give the overview of the program. In this case, this is specific for flock because that seems to be the hot topic. These portals populate them populate themselves based on our activity. So it's like in real time. If we had any more cameras or got rid of any, they would be on this portal. This is also, I think some people have posted, I've heard other websites that gain information about collecting all this data from all over the country. Most of that is taken from these public facing sites. This company actually provides you the opportunity for the agency to do this. We do it. And I think a lot of that data is probably stripped from there and then republished in another site that's more collective. One of the questions we get a lot of is how how the data retention, how long are the photographs of the cars stored? Well, we currently store those for 30 days. That's about 66% less than the state statute requires right now, which is 90. We're already looking at reducing that was talking to some representatives this weekend and I think that that they change that so we'll be able to reduce that to about 7 days because that's been a little bit of a concern of how long the picture of someone's car stored. The total cameras is 12. We actually have one that is down at the river. You remember the one you used to be able to log into and you could see all the riverfront? So it's very similar to that. It's not an LPR, though. It's just from this company, so it's counted in there. It comes with their bill. And we have one spare.

So all those are stationary? All those 12 are stationary? Ten of them are stationary. Ten of them.

You have two that are mobile, is that correct? One is not an LPR at all. One is just a live camera down at the riverfront.

Could you describe the locations of the stationary cameras?

Sure. I wish I brought a map. They're basic. Do you have it?

I mean, I know generally where they are, but the public needs to know.

Sure, yeah. So we tried to put them at the main entrances to the city is what we did. So it was Blackburn and 13th. Roberts and New Buckley, Winchester at 55th Street, 15th at the railroad tracks. That's going through the flood wall. Winchester and River Hill, the Walmart entrance to River Hill, Valley View Drive at Hurricane, 29th and Blackburn, and 13th at the outgoing bridge is where they are. Some of those were determined by the officers where they were having the most trouble those three that were kind of in the city instead of on the on the entrances and a lot of that at the time what the idea had to do with pursuits and If a car came through there they were they had a better chance of getting the plate instead of continuing to pursue or if they just discontinued the pursuit then those were the kind of the Patterns that people use which was almost always to get across the bridge as quick as they could So that's how a lot of that came about So the hot list, they're alerted on NCIC, NECMIC, and Amber Alerts. So those are the every day, at least once a day, those are dropped in. So things like stolen vehicles, Amber Alerts, and that's what the camera's looking for if it gets a match on the plate. They ask who we share with. There's actually a full list on this website as well as who we share with. Generally, it's Kentucky agencies, because we can all investigate felonies in Kentucky and enforce them. And right now, we're set at a 200-mile radius. And basically that is because we're sitting in the tri-state, and usually when we get a call of a stolen vehicle or something similar that would require us that someone would probably be heading out of state, that's about a three-hour drive, about 200 miles. So we've got it set pretty tight, but it also gives us a chance to see if they left. And this is all if... The other places allow you to share like we're just sharing right we don't have automatic access so we share with some and that's our limit is Kentucky agencies and then 200 miles that you and all those people are on that list chief when you say share are these agencies it's on the on the screen here and on this folder are are these agencies that also use the type of cameras or readers it would only be that brand okay so if they have so you can't go to the other brands no sir OK. That's why I think the name, and I think Chief mentioned it, is the name is, this just happens to be the biggest network of these cameras. These are not the only LPR cameras. I mean, like you said earlier, we have three brands just at our place, one for parking, the one from the grant, and then the flock.

Chief, what about with federal agencies? Do we share with federal agencies? No.

That is a great lead to the next slide. What's detected is license plates and vehicles. What's not detected is facial recognition, people, gender, race. Acceptable use policy is data used for law enforcement's purposes only. The data is owned by APD and is never sold to third parties. We've had that question before, but we don't sell it. It belongs to the city.

When you say law enforcement purpose, it's not traffic enforcement.

No.

And I think that's a misconception, too, that we're using them for that purpose.

I mean, short of a hit and run, you know. Right.

That's actually, I think you mentioned it, against state law. State law says you can't do that, except in a very, there's a new exception, but it wouldn't apply to anywhere within the city of Ashland.

Yeah, because I think I've heard people talk about speeding, stop signs, red lights. None of that. No, sir. prohibited uses by our policies, immigration enforcement, traffic enforcement, harassment or intimidation. You should usage based solely on protected class and personal use.

So how do we audit? to make sure that those prohibited uses are not used?

Well, that's a great question, and it's one of the things we pay for, is every time one of the officers logs in, they all have a 2FA or two-factor authentication login to the account, and basically all their activity is logged. So if they search for a particular plate, that activity, date, time, plate is logged, and the officer who would have searched it. One of the questions we get sometimes is you delete those logs, but we absolutely do not. Those are permanent logs. Like the data that I'm talking about that is automatically removed is the citizens' cars, you know, and the picture. And I'll show you the picture in just a minute. That's what goes away.

Is there a periodic time when you review who's on there and what they're using it for?

Yes. Well, we you know, one of the reasons we have this system is because it keeps track of every time we do it. But we do we do an audit log in addition to that every 90 days. So we review it for 90 days.

Yes, sir.

And we provide that to the chief just to see, you know, they know what they're looking for in the logs and to see what place and to make sure that they are following the policy. And obviously, if there's any complaint, we can immediately go to the the audit log to see if there was any validity to it.

OK. While you're on that, Chief, and I know we've talked about this, but I think it's House Bill 58 that recently came out, that was recently adopted. I think it came into effect July 15. There has always been the option for a penalty a criminal penalty for misuse of license plate readers. House Bill 58 actually codified that very specifically. Is that your APD's understanding as well?

Is that how you read it? It is, and it's in our policy. As part of the policy, it's not only a violation of the policy, but we also warn and talk about the state law.

There's always been that option, though. I mean, a different charge or something like that. But the state now has codified that. That's my reading of the statute. Mine as well.

And to be fair to this company, they've come a long way in a short period of time. When we first started this, this was basically you got hits on the cars that came through. And since then, they've taken in what law enforcement has asked them to do. And they've just done a good job in their Their area has expanded, and I think now that is what's causing the questions to come about, and then states are reacting with law. So we've always tried to be a lot tighter than that. We're aware of that. We're just trying to protect the citizens. We'll go over some myths. These are the questions I get asked the most. LPRs can track people and show police everywhere they go. What happens here is the LPR takes a point-in-time image. So you can see on the image, I'll show you, it's the exact date and time of that, basically the back of that car and the license plate in that second that it takes the picture. It doesn't continue to track the vehicle. Any of the images not used in an investigation, so something you didn't store as evidence, are deleted. And the courts have consistently found that taking of that image of public documents, which in this case are license plates on public roads, is not a violation of privacy. And LPR is really a 50-year-old technology, so this has seen the courts before. LPR has violated the Fourth Amendment. You hear this a lot. The appellate and federal district courts in at least 14 states, including the 9th and 11th Circuits, have upheld using evidence from LPRs as constitutional without requiring a warrant. Flock sells customer data, compiling it all into one national database. So the data that – and the data in this case is these plates are owned by the city. They're not owned by Flock. So Flock does not sell that data. We – obviously, it was one of the very first questions we asked – So the data is available for us to share. So agencies would request via their program if they have the same system, you know, would you share this data with it? And that goes back to where we share with Kentucky agencies and then that radius. That's who we share with. And that, again, is that data is automatically deleted, but not the audit logs. Phlox LPR uses facial recognition. It does not. I don't know much more to say about that. It doesn't capture any kind of human characteristics. In fact, what I can do here is this is what you get. This is the image of what we would call a hit. because LPRs excel providing hits. These are the vehicles that have already been determined to have been involved in some sort of NCIC activity, such as a crime or missing person. A hot list works a lot like a smoke detector in your hallway. It sits quiet all day while thousands of ordinary cars go by the same way your detector ignores your cooking every night. It only speaks up for the one specific thing that it was told to watch for. In this case, those NCIC entries. So that might be like a stolen car, an Amber Alert, something to that effect. So it's waiting for one alarm. And that's how you get the alert. That's what they call the hit.

We've had several successes, not only an amber alert, but criminal activity. And do we have a number or how many that's done?

It's pretty constant, really.

And the thing is, is we were in our first testing phases. And we within so many days, stolen vehicle report, person came out of it, we confirmed the vehicle stopped it. One person inside of it, stolen handgun 26 grams of methamphetamine all on the license plate was in the computer as a stolen vehicle. So

And again, not, you know, I don't mean to cut you off, Chief, I'm sorry, but of course the officer has to verify this. Right. You know, they are not perfect. We're aware of that. We don't know many things that are perfect. If the officer finds the vehicle, because they're not sitting where the camera is, you know, we just know that this hit came into our AOR, and so they verify if that is actually the plate. We have seen it not be the plate, and you would never know. You know, hopefully we didn't bother anybody. So... The other one is what we call a bolo, so that's the be on the lookout. That is the search feature. The way we used to do a bolo was you would have, say, a robbery, and you would get on the radio and say, you know, it was a silver sedan, plate ending 47, headed toward the bridge. That's the information you would get on a bolo. You would send it out on the radio. The dispatch center would send it out to neighboring agencies as far as they could reach by radio, and then they would send it by computer through the NCIC machine. What this program allows the officer to go ahead and put it in that system to look to see if that car passes through, and that's the same thing as a polo. So when I think someone asked about a search earlier, that is how they would use a search feature. They would be looking for that vehicle just like we would do a polo.

So how does that notify the agency? So for instance, let's say this was a stolen car. How does that and it goes by the camera? How does that notify the agency that that camera has or that that vehicle has passed that camera?

Two ways. One is they have their own app. So when the officer's on duty, they flip that they're on duty, and then the app is active. And then our dispatch center monitors it. So they have a separate screen just for the dispatch center, so it pops up as well. So you can do it by computer. It's just that the guys are in the cars, so they use the app for the most part. But they can use either the login on the computer or not. But it's tied to your login, your agency, and you've asked it to give you a hit, and that's what it does. So when they're off, they turn it off. As for the data, that's more like I try to equate this to it's like people trust the bank, not only because the teller couldn't steal, but because every transaction is recorded and checked. So theft would get caught. Our policy guardrails work the same way, and we update them regularly, especially over the past few years. This technology is so fast. We really try to stay ahead of that.

The data is owned by the department. Yes, sir. It doesn't go to any other agent. I mean, only if we walk or whatever. It stays with this.

Well, actually, I think we own it.

Yeah, that's what I just said. Right. It is stored, you know, on their servers. That's the service we buy. But it is not like we own the data. So if we don't want to share it with anyone, we don't share with anyone. Right. Okay. Um, the, the hits, the NCIC hits are, you know, of course that's, that's dumped every day. So that's not, you know, those are, those are already known crimes for the most part or missing person. Um, but you know that, uh, I told you earlier, like we're, we're already down to 30 days, which we've always been 30 days before the house bill came out, uh, as Mr. Wheeler pointed out. So, um, Our policy has always prohibited everything I've heard, so we're trying to be a little open up about it, so a little more. I guess people don't know as much about it, so I don't know how to do more than that, but we're here if you have any questions on that. Before I close on it, I think it's fair to point out that Flock, because we use this company, has become a... The name people say, the way Kleenex becomes the word for tissue. But it's far from being alone. Other companies now run their own plate reader line. It's growing a lot faster than the laws can keep up with. When one brand becomes shorthand for the whole industry, the debate quietly shrinks from how should this technology be governed down to that one company. And that's a lot less useful conversation for all of us. So I just wanted to make sure we understand that this, you know, this is a, this is an LPR technology thing, not really a vendor thing. And to Mr. Martin's point, I, you know, the data, since it belongs to us, you know, we really try to keep those guard rails tight at any time, you know, we need to do less or more. Uh, we, we, we can do that because we have the data. So the city uses axion. Is that, is that we, so for tasers, yes.

I'm just looking at another page in this.

Yeah, we have Axon, Motorola, Flock, hopefully a new company coming on board. We do our best to bid these things out and see who's the best in the industry at the time. But Axon is one, for instance, that has introduced similar cameras, and they've been testing. I mean, it's a whole nother rabbit hole, we can go down about what's capturing license plates. But at the end of the day, for us, you know, we we get to pick who shares and these are like Kentucky law has done a good job. I think I think it might. I'm not having studied other states was the only law I keep hearing people talk about. And so so good for them so far.

Great. Any other questions?

I do want to add that Kentucky is a very proactive state as far as the state law and policy. As I said on the model policy for the Kentucky League of Cities for law enforcement, we were already dealing with changes and up-to-date movements in that policy. And we had it. we've had it in place since the day it went into play so that it was before july 1st so we we basically um took what and and and the attorneys they have on staff national international national uh some of the best for law enforcement support and you know, evaluating what law enforcement is doing. I think it's one of the best model policies in the country, because I'm starting to get asked for it.

No, I think you adopted a very responsible policy for the community. And it's been very beneficial to to the city and its residents. And it's a lot more restrictive than the state statute. And I thank you for it.

That's the QR code for the, I know you asked for the web address, but that's it. Use your picture for it. Good. Got it. I'm so used to doing QR codes, I'm sorry. I'll get to the actual address. I'm sure it gets me there.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Well done. I do want to add, so getting ready to introduce a couple gentlemen, Brad Phillips and Don Redman. They're with Brink. The police department has also drone technology that we use both during investigations and crime scene documentation. And recently we've run into a situation under federal law that the current drones that we possess we can no longer use. and we're into a need to come up with a another drone program uh another uh type and it has to be a u.s manufactured and um this uh this company brink i'll let them enter introduce more about them but rather than um kind of having a large one that's in the back of a vehicle, this is a way to deploy it almost 24-7. And for officer safety, first responder safety, monitoring our very, very important infrastructure that we have for homeland security in the city, I'm about them, but you need a second to hook the computer up or your guy. Okay. So I'll let them speak on some of the technology that we need to move forward on. Other other cities in Kentucky are doing this. Not just because it's not because we want to, I think we have to. This is to keep up with not only officer safety, but protecting the citizens. So gentlemen,

Thank you for your report, Chief Kelly and Chief Conley.

Thank you.

How's everyone doing today? My name is Brad Phillips. I'm with Brink Drones. We are a USA-made drone company. We're based in Seattle, Washington, and we are NDA compliant. We want to kind of walk you through a little bit of our technology that the city is looking to potentially adopt. And with me today, I've got our vice president at DFR. His name is Don Redmond. Don's a wealth of knowledge. He's a subject matter expert for us. He was a captain at Chula Vista, California, which was the first DFR implementation in the United States, and I believe in the globe as well. And he was a part of that team that actually established the first DFR program. So I invited him here today to speak to you all and really answer any of the questions that you have on our technology.

Thank you. Thank you for having us here today. What I'm going to do first is there's a short two-minute video of what drone as a first responder is, so we have an understanding and a couple quick slides just to explain what DFR is and then answer your questions. Can you click on that? Maybe just, there you go.

9-1-1, what is your emergency?

I think I'm being robbed. Do you guys have my story? They have a gun. What is the address? Jackson Street, Mark. 163-16, North 80, Dark Street. Responder 1 approved. Arrival in 45 seconds. 9-1-1, ETA 30.

Caller says two white males standing outside, possibly armed. One white male inside the store.

We have learned a new version of this practice.

Battle on property and progress. Pull up the drone, Pete. Yes, sir.

Three suspects are on foot. Alleyway to Jesus, the blue part. Wait, is that just a lighter? It's not hard to imagine how this situation could have gone different.

is building a system to give first responders more information before they arrive at emergencies and lower response times.

Specialized drones are pre-positioning robotic charging stations at strategic locations for our community. The system is integrated with 911, computer-aided dispatch, and other software to deploy the aircraft to comics in seconds. drones can deliver life-saving payloads faster than ever. With an onboard two-way audio system, responders can even communicate remotely to provide instructions.

They can also gather intel or de-escalate a situation.

Drones can be deployed in the field to get a fast bird's eye view of any situation and generate 3D models for documentation or book reviews.

DFR allows first responders to see through smoke and identify hotspots or locate suspects and advise a response that minimizes risk forever.

The drones also measure engine or extended range across entire communities.

On average, they clear a quarter of all 911 calls with drones on board.

They get eyes on scene in less than 70 seconds and have achieved 50% faster response times agency-wide. Enter the future of public safety today with Brink the FR. Because this is just the beginning.

So a few things I'll just point out about our company first and foremost. As Brad says, we are an American-made company. We are the second largest American drone company. But we are the largest and only drone company in the entire world that only builds for public safety. We do not build military drones. We do not build commercial drones or infrastructure drones. So everything on our drones is specific to public safety. One thing that I will point out, it was interesting when I retired from the Chula Vista Police Department and I came to Brink and we started building our DFR solution. One thing the engineers asked, what is it that we should focus on? And I gave them kind of my hit list of things that we needed to have on this. But I said, first and foremost, we want red and blue lights on it. Because whenever I gave presentations when I was at Chula Vista, the community would always say, how do we know that that drone that's flying around our community is a public safety drone? So one way I said, let's just put red and blue lights on there, give the option to the police department if they want to turn them on for that transparency aspect. It also has the ability for a siren. You could turn on a siren to get people's attention. It has two-way comms on there, meaning you can do announcements in there, both English and Spanish or any other language. It is Google Translate, so if there's another pocket of language that you want to talk for your community, you're able to do that. The other thing that's very important is we have the ability to deliver a payload, meaning some agencies, they have a flotation device. We have a partnership with a company called Restube. It's on the drone, so if you have a body of water, maybe you have a a creek that becomes a raging river. Whenever it rains, you can have a drone have the ability to deliver a payload of a flotation device. Some agencies, unfortunately, they leave Narcan on their drones for the fentanyl crisis that they're having where you can deliver a payload. So these are life-saving payloads. It's drone as a first responder, meaning it's for police and fire. So the ability for first responders to see what's happening long before they arrive on scene is critical for decision making. Two other things I'll point out. On average, what we as an industry are seeing for DFR programs, about a 90-second response time from the moment that the drone's launched to its overhead, meaning that crimes in progress are being captured. They're able to see officers again, see what's happening before they arrive on scene. The other thing that's really interesting is I know at Chula Vista when we launched the program, we didn't even think about the impact of patrol, but cross-location to see if there's a road hazard, you can launch a drone and see is it a road hazard? Is it a water leak? Is it a sprinkler? Or is it a road closure type of situation? So approximately it's not a replacement for police officers by any stretch. It is a way to enhance their response. The other aspect of it is we worked very closely with the ACLU and how do we make sure from CAD, so the reason for the call for service, they'll put in there, traffic collision, I'll have a location, Broadway in Maine, it'll have the... That will track in there, but also really more importantly, it'll give the telemetry of the drone. So this is typically based in the department's website. I'm not sure if that's what the goal is for the chief here, but all of this information gets updated the next day. So it's not in real time because it could be an ongoing police situation, but this is a great way for the community if they want to know why is the drone flying over my house yesterday, they can go on the website and see the purpose of the launch, the telemetry, and have that information and that confidence of how the police department is deploying a drone as a first responder.

Typically, when you say the pilot, is that a sworn officer or is that just anybody?

Yes.

Yeah, so what we were, because they operate under what they call a COA, so we would be able to do our own training once we got the approval from the FAA, which they also help us with. And we've been talking to our dispatch center as well as an option because where we're running 24-7. But for our purpose in the city, you know, we find that like fires we get a lot of those fire calls that we could actually send and get there first and say is there smoke or no smoke you know there's there's a lot of things that we can do like you said the water lease uh the river uh there's just so many other ways we can use it but we can because we'll be able to train our own pilots and we can also require the test but um Once it takes off, you get an alert, and then you could get it on your phone and see the flight path and what's going on.

What other agencies have this technology in Kentucky?

In Kentucky? Georgetown?

The closest city to here with this technology already being utilized is going to be University of Kentucky. They're one of our current customers. I would say that's the closest one to here. And then going into Ohio, we have several agencies right on the Ohio-Kentucky border that are utilizing this technology as well.

So that's the closest to Ashland?

The closest to Ashland would be Lexington. Oh yeah, I'm sorry.

There's other vendors too? Okay, but and those were throughout Kentucky, and I know the other cities, but there's an advantage to company that interacts with our current digital system that we have. The other cities in Kentucky are using this.

I can only speak specifically for the companies that are partnering with us.

And just to kind of go back on there, really, the DFR has, no pun intended, taken off the last 18 months. It's because some changes within the FAA on how police departments can fly. They can fly now beyond visual line of sight without a radar or a visual observer. So everything that they'll fly will be under certified through the FAA and legally done.

Would this only be used in the city limits of the city?

Yeah. I would say their certificate of authorization from the FAA will be specific to your jurisdiction.

Okay. Any other questions?

Nope.

Thank you for your presence. Thank you very much.

All right. We had a demonstration a couple of months ago. I think we did have some fire departments there. Mr. Wheeler was there. I think Commissioner Renfro was on the scene. So we had a we had a demonstration and it it does everything exactly what they said and demonstrated the blue and red lights and in the siren and the speaker and things of that nature. So We think it's a very beneficial program to consider. We'd like to move forward on it. Again, it works, integrates in with our current body cam video system, things of that nature. So we'll... We'd like to present that coming up pretty soon with an option that we have as far as we're renewing with our body cam company. All those contracts are coming up. We'd like to go ahead and try to move forward on this project because, again, as you can see, it has a lot more potential. lot more to it than just flying a drone over. You know, overhead. It's got some supportive values on it first responder values on it. And again, I just came from the chief valuable tool.

I think though, Mr. Wheeler would probably have to

chime in to let us know uh maybe a report or something yeah we'll we'll review it and and get you guys something to consider uh this is the first you've probably heard of it really so right we'll give you something to look at um all verified legalities um i mean i have done some preliminary research and didn't see any issue but another example of evolving technology and the law catching up to it so We'll be happy to get that for you. And you can consider it possibly in an upcoming commission meeting.

I would hope that it's got a long battery life. Because the total number of calls you all run each year, and then the fire department combined is over 30,000. So

It's sustainable, and it does what it's supposed to do. And, again, I saw the demonstration over a year ago at the chief conference last year, discussions this year. We just came from the chief conference this morning, and the number of cities that are selecting this type of proactive patrol, first responder activity, it is definitely – I'm also beyond catching on. It is the right thing to do. And number one, if this can get me to a point to where I can send cops home safely, if it's just another tool, then its value exceeds its capabilities. So as far as I'm concerned, this is just another tool that I believe that this city needs to help us do our job and do it safely.

All right. Thanks, Chief. Thank you. Thank you, Chief.

The city manager, you have any other? No, sir. Thank you.

All right. So moving on, we'll move into our public participation. This is the opportunity that anyone would have to address the commission of of items that are not on the agenda. And if you would like to address the commission, you come to the podium, state your name and your address, and you're allowed five minutes. All right. Hearing none.

Let's move to our consent agenda. Mr. Wheeler resolution of the city of Ashland, Kentucky adopting authorizing and approving the course of action presented by the city manager on the items appearing on the consent agenda for the regular meeting of the Board of City Commissioners of August 13 2026. Summer. Second discussion.

Item E. Estimated cost for the chemicals is $400,000 a year is this in addition would this be in addition to the chemicals that we're using or would this be a replacement for some of those chemicals.

It would be in addition. But you know, that is a preliminary amount there. I mean, we don't know exactly yet till we get farther into design. We'll know more about it then.

Gotcha.

Item Oh, a p three. Can we get an update? Maybe next? Maybe next meeting or the meeting after the progress of the conference center?

All right, I have do have a question on item I on the one of the demolitions of 508 44th Street I went up there all I see is trees and stuff is that behind all those trees or

There's one property on the hill. Are you talking about up 44 step 45th Street going up and be on your left hand side as a house that it was slated to be demoed that you had to get from the alleyway. You can't get it from the front step. Is that it?

Okay. All right. And I assume the others, the other ones that were on here, like Blackburn Avenue, I'm gonna spot it right now. They're right across from each other, I guess on Blackburn Avenue. I'm that one was like 52. I'm not sure 5142 and 5201. I think they're almost right across.

Yeah, I'm not sure if they're right across from each other, but they're really close. And I know that Chief Ali, I believe those are the ones you're planning on using for some.

Okay, some demonstrations. All right. And just a comment on some of the engineering here. I Like on M, you know, with Bell Engineering, I know they're out of Lexington. Are we still trying to utilize local engineering company as much as we can? I'm sure there's an explanation for that.

Yes, sir. Absolutely. We're trying to utilize local any chance that we get. Bell engineering had done the original design on this. So part of this was an amendment off an existing contract that we had with Bill.

Okay, okay. As an observation, we have 25 items here, mostly expenditure funds that total over $4.6 million.

Yeah, I mean, we're spending some money.

Now, two of those things are 3.1 million on the two major constructions that were engaged in the water, wastewater treatment and the conference center, but there's another 1.5 million that we're spending on top of that.

Chief item W on here. Is there a way that we can get a list of how many vehicles the police department has and the age of the vehicle?

Mm hmm.

Okay or the 3 vehicles that are mentioned on here replacement vehicles. So the 2 crash there's a partial payment for men sharing sproces right.

I'm talking about the the conference center I did go down there I notice at one point we promised that or put out that we had 55 of the case owns already drilled and everything They're at 59, so we are. 64 today. 64. Oh, okay. Just since I went down there. That's excellent.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions? All right. We have a first and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right.

Let's move to our new business, item A. First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled An Ordinance to the City of Ashland, Kentucky Amending Part 5 Compensation Plan B Work Week and C Work Hours of the Policies and Procedures Compensation Plan and Classification Plan as adopted by Ordinance Number 51, Series of 2017 as previously amended.

So moved. Second. Discussion? Could somebody tell us what the changes really are and I mean, I've read the summary, but I'd like a little more specific explanation.

Basically, we're just adding to the policy to make the option more flexible for each department head. Right now, the current policy reads the department heads schedule their work week. So they set the work week for each department based on the needs of each department.

So this relates to work week?

So this is just the hours that you work in the work week to make it more flexible, to add the option, to add an earlier start time or later start time, split up your different shifts, make it easier in the winter months, the summer months. public services department if they need to come in earlier. It gives them more flexibility at the discretion of the department head. And honestly, it gives more of a morale boost for the employee. I've mentioned in the email, I think I sent back some different options. But one is like a staggering start time. So in the event that somebody who works 830 to five, they would prefer to do you know, 7430 or they can stagger that within the department.

So this has been shared with the department heads and you've gotten their comments back on the proposed changes. Yes. And it's been favorably received.

Absolutely. I think it'll be a really good thing for recruitment morale. It'll it'll honestly it'll help with I think attendance improvement. I think we'll see that definitely because it's going to offer an opportunity for a flexible shift if you will.

some some of this has been implemented uh previously uh through proper channels uh to for instance when hot warmer weather incurs or colder weather incurs to changing or alternating schedules and this keep in mind this has to be with the confirmation of the city manager so this isn't a department head only a situation they've got to get approval from the city manager before this can be implemented as well So and this that will help make sure that, you know, any schedule changes and it doesn't decrease the number of hours that employees need to work. It just changes potential start time and end times or days so that everything is covered. But making sure that this goes through the city manager as well ensures an overall organizational structure. That way everything is is covered and it's evaluated properly.

If it's on the agenda, I'm assuming that the city manager has given it to his approval.

Well, I'm talking the individual changes for each department. Before they can implement it, they've got to get the approval from the city mayor.

And it may not work for each department, and it may not work for each employee. This is something just as an opportunity across the board for the city.

I think department heads should still be required to work Monday through Friday and be available throughout the workday. I know some that was something when I first got elected, I made the comment about department directors actually working 40 hours a week. And I hope we're still on that. But I think they should still be available Monday through Friday. That's my opinion.

And this also just an alternative schedule is for teens. I mean, there are different options that you can implement a 410 and public services department. There's a hundred and some employees, Mr. Murray hundred some employees and public services. So you could potentially split up sanitation services. You could do four tens and I believe they used to, if I'm not mistaken years ago, they had a 410 schedule and would implement certain shifts at the beginning of the week and implement certain shifts at the end of the week. So you still had your maximum of your week covered. So there's no services and that's one of the things operational citywide services should not skip a beat. If so, then this needs to be reevaluated. But it absolutely I think will be a good thing for the employee morale. It's a great benefit. It's a recruitment tool.

Great job. Thanks. Good job. Thank you, Samantha. 40 hours minimum.

And yes, I do support this. And I would point out that this came from a previous work session, a data point that we had all talked about.

Okay. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Opposed? Item B. First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashland, Kentucky authorizing directing the mayor to execute a contract with Lights Enterprises Inc. for the purchase of all labor materials, equipment and services for the demolition and removal of all debris at 5142 Blackburn Avenue in the amount of $5,200 for the Department of Community and Economic Development to be paid from the general fund.

So moved. Second. Discussion?

All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Item C. First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the City of Ashland, Kentucky authorizing and directing the mayor to execute a contract with Lights Enterprises, Inc. for the purchase of all labor materials, equipment, and services for the demolition and removal of all debris at 5201 Blackburn Avenue in the amount of $7,750 for the Department of Community and Economic Development to be paid from the general fund.

So moved. Second. Second.

Discussion. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Opposed? D.

First reading and approval of an ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Ashland, Kentucky, authorizing and directing the mayor and Tony D. Grubb, city manager, or Michelle Veach, assistant chief financial officer, to renew a line of credit on behalf of the city of Ashland in order to borrow sufficient funds for operational expenses for the period July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. So moved. Second. Second.

And this is just a safety net.

We're just contingency. When was it last years? In March, she said.

And we're also now we have, I believe, what is it $2.1 million in an economic stabilization fund? That is correct, sir. rainy day fund base.

Yes, sir.

And we challenge you to stay at zero. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Opposed? Item E first reading and approval of an ordinance entitled an ordinance to the city of Ashland Kentucky repealing orders number 17 series of 1978 and redefining the areas where parking is prohibited generally within the city of Ashland and fixing a penalty for the violation thereof.

Second. Second second second. Discussion.

Yeah. Could somebody explain this chief? Or maybe it's Barry. I don't know which of the two of you.

Yes. Or were you moving the parking back?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Myself and Scrooge have gone and done an inspection. They had one intersection marked due to driveway, corner, some restrictions. So it all had to be marked. We looked at that. That was an 8 foot no parking area from the curb to the corner. So we were evaluating that, and it appears the smaller vehicle, the larger vehicle that is definite improvement and we've got like we're going from 17th street east to around 32nd street because on one side of the road east the parking goes away as it goes up towards the split on the east end and then parking becomes um it's created as you come around a corner going west just that you come out of the curve from the split so we feel like It's really not taking that much parking away. I think the safety in the side picture is a lot more important.

Oh, the safety. I mean, coming out of 18th Street.

So you're basically eliminating parking spaces to increase the visibility.

They're really not spaces. It's just a parking. The state has come through there and marked a fog line, which is both a fog line

So you're moving parking back?

Yeah.

Okay, this is something that if you've been to any of the KYTC planning meetings that we've were we chief and I both have spoken about Green Avenue. This has been one of the major issues that we've talked to them about.

And I just couldn't visualize what it was all about.

A lot of side issues. All right. Gotcha.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. Adam F.

Reading an adoption of municipal order entitled, in municipal order, the city of Ashland, Kentucky authorizing and directing the mayor to submit a loan application in the amount of $25 million to the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority for the 2027 Clean Water State Revolving Fund for the Water Resource Recovery Facility Expansion and Improvements Project, A22-005, for the Department of Utilities.

So moved. Second. Discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

I'm gee, the mayor requests the board's concurrence on the appointment of Charles Dunlap to the code enforcement board for the term retroactively effective April 13 2026 and expiring April 13 2029. So move.

Second discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

All right, executive session, a motion to mention executive session for the purpose of discussion, discussing property acquisition of personnel, individual personal and also potential litigation, please.

Okay. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. All right, we're back in session with no action taken there. Any other information for the board? We stand adjourned.