Board of Mayor & Commissioners - workshop

All right.

Are everybody ready? Yep. All right. This is the City of Avondale Estates, Georgia, Board of Mayor and Commissioner's regular meeting. It is August 26, 2026. It's 530. I'd like to call the meeting to order. We have an agenda before us. Do I have a motion to adopt?

So moved.

That was Graham. A second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Can everybody hear me? Okay. All right. First up, Commissioner comments. Commissioner Sedman.

Well, just welcome all of you to this evening's meeting. And I hope you learned something and get to express your, you know, your comments to us. So I'll hang out.

Okay. Mr. Suazo. Mr. Suazo.

Welcome, everybody.

This is your chance.

I don't really have much either, but thank you all for coming in the hot weather. I was just commenting out. So it feels like August has lasted. A very long time. So I'm glad to see it coming to an end. That's it for me. Thank you all for coming tonight.

I likewise have nothing. Thank you all for being here. We had a good crowd. Appreciate it. Mr. Manager?

All right. I'll say stuff since y'all had no commentary tonight. Just want to remind everybody we've got two big events in the city this week or this weekend. Friday night is the Avondale Estates kickoff centennial celebration with a street festival from 6 to 9 on Franklin Street between Olive and Pine. We have so much fun to have. Outdoor music DJed by Commune, a dedicated kid zone, local art and live improv comedy at Little Tree Art Studios, those improv shows. At 7 and 8 p.m., we'll have a special Avondale Estates exhibit from the DeKalb History Center inside of the Olive and Pine development. A self-care corner sponsored by Reformology Pilates. Los Ninos Taqueria, Enzo is a kayak, night owl, and banjo. And we will also be including a special centennial beer brewed by Wild Heaven. All surrounding businesses will also be open. Free Italian ice will be provided courtesy of DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson. We will have decade-themed photo opportunities, temporary tattoos from Avondale Estate's own Swinks Tattoo Emporium, free coasters, and a chance to see a working 1924 letterpress at Methane, and specially designed Centennial items for purchase by Methane Studio, and much, much more. And then Saturday night, the community is hosting a Centennial Gala at the Avondale Estates Lake House. Tickets are still available online. There's also posters throughout City Hall that include a QR code that will link you right there. Should be a fun event. So if you are interested in that, please go ahead and buy your tickets before they sell out.

Cool. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate that. Okay. Any other comments up here? All right. Public comment. Julie. And everybody, just name and address, please, just for the record.

Yes, Julie Fleming, 40 Clarendon. I don't yet have a final opinion about what's best for Avondale with our flock camera contract. I'm here with an open mind to listen. I promised some people to speak first because some people are nervous about public speaking. I have always felt nervous. Welcome, heard, and respected here. I'm glad if we see more people here or online. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes, sir.

I apologize, guys. This is going to be a lot.

Adam Galateo and everybody. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to time this. 3048 Ogun Place. I know a lot of you. I've been around here for a long time. So this is about Flock. I don't think a lot of people understand what Flock is. It's not a camera system. It's software running AI recognition on a lot of people, vehicles, everything your national network video and audio sensors picks up to establish profiles in a database. of movement history and real-time location tracking that can be searched by anyone with access to the system. It's really big. I should probably just skip all this. My beef is not AAPD with Flock. It's everyone else. You can FOIA a lot of records, and people have. I checked out a 729 search where we were one of 6,138 other networks searched. My concern is not AAPD, it's the other 6,137 networks out there that have access potentially to our system. There's the access we know about, and there's the access we don't. Block has a documented history of lying to people. Flock gave DHS backdoor access to Washington State Police Department networks without their knowledge and against their wishes, so they canceled the contract. There's Flock logins for sale on Russian hacker sites, though Flock maintains they've never been hacked. Technically could be true. A local guy named Ben Jordan got into their system through what's basically advanced Googling, and Flock maintains that was not a hack. which is accurate because it's not breaking in when the door's open. Ben's stuff I shared is what one guy can publicly share without being sued or prosecuted. Imagine what an entity with more resources and less concern for US law can do with this system that's accessible in our town. Then there's Flock themselves. Dunwoody Dad found out a Flock employee accessed a camera in a kid's gymnastics studio against their agreement. Flock said it was a sales demo, except that guy only accessed one camera that day, which is a little weird. And then behind closed doors, Flock brought in a $100 million national political crisis management firm to meet with Dunwoody City staff. Then, of course, there's the 100 plus cases of officers stalking their ex-partners, 20 of which were in Georgia. There's the Dunwoody search that I found for vehicle with a political bumper sticker. I can't imagine what legal circumstance that could be demonstrating. It's everyone else I'm worried about. The system is also horribly inaccurate. They advertise a 95% accuracy rate with on 20 billion processes. That's 1 billion false identifications per month. I sent you guys a pretty long email. Sorry about that before this. They're also running predictive policing features now that flag people in vehicles on behavior their AI thinks is suspicious, weighting master behaviors to a crime. And again, so I'm not concerned with AAPD. It's everyone else. Block will tell us no one else can access our system, but they have repeatedly lied about this. There's lots out there. There's so much out there that I can't find articles I've found before because they're getting buried. All right. That's it, right? Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Y'all got the email. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yes, I don't know your name.

Hello, my name is Gregory handler. I live at 712 green. I am also commenting on. I'm curious about the detail of our current contract in the transcript from the January meeting. When it was approved and talked about, it was described as a 2 year trial run contract. to see whether or not this system works for us that I believe would have been up in January of this year. I would like clarity on the current state of the contract, whether it has been expanded or extended, and whether those details were ever discussed publicly. Since that original two-year contract, We've learned a lot more about the Flock system. Flock is a company. A lot of what I was going to say has been touched on here. I'll reiterate, my concern is not with the Avondale Police Department. I don't think any of us have any reason to think they have done anything untoward. But we're in this system, and we know that this system has been used for the other purposes. Even during that initial presentation, some questions were raised about potential security concerns. They were dismissed and the flock representative said that the people using the system are too busy doing their jobs and only use it when they need it. We know now that is not true. There have been dozens of cases locally alone in which law enforcement officers have been caught using the system for nefarious purposes, unlawfully. Some are still under investigation. Many have been arrested. Flock claims his goal is to eliminate crime. They want credit for any law enforcement success stories, but they show no accountability when the system is abused countless times. Successes are attributed to the system's power, but misuse is attributed to individual bad actors. Recently, the Flock CEO even implied that's actually a great thing that so many law enforcement officers are being caught abusing their system. Quote, I don't think Flock created police abuse. I think we're the first company to shine a light on it and build the tools to find it. So allegedly now the purpose of Flock is to find police abuse by giving them the tools to be abusive. It doesn't make any sense. And they're taking no responsibility or ownership for creating the system and opening it up indiscriminately to everyone they can. There's a concept in systems design that says the purpose of a system is what it does. It does not matter what the original intentions of the flocks are. Invasion of privacy is what it does. Many civil rights groups like the ACLU oppose them. Many other cities have already canceled the contract from Los Angeles, California, through heads of yesterday, Asheville, North Carolina. Avondale should be a leader and join them in protecting our citizens' privacy. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, please.

Hi, Lizzie Buer, 712 Stratford Green, also speaking on FWOC today and also during the working meeting later. So I urge the city of Avondale states to please take the concerns of the public to heart today. We are not merely reacting to social media posts. When we first signed our initial contract with Flock in 2024, the technology was new on the scene. In the years since, there have been shocking reports that expose the dangers of ALPRs as a tool of mass surveillance. In my letter to the editor published in Decaturish last November, I outlined several concerning cases, including a Virginia resident who was tracked 849 times without cause. And cities, including Austin, Texas, and LA, canceling their contracts due to data privacy concerns. And most concerningly, a family held at gunpoint due to a flock camera misreading their license plate number. Since that was published, even more disturbing stories have surfaced. Just this month, eight DeKalb PD officers were suspended over misuse of ALPRs, and we are in DeKalb County. Security vulnerabilities have been presented to the company that they have failed to remedy, and cameras located inside of a children's gymnastics room in Dunwoody have been accessed for sales demo purposes. A woman in Florida spent two weeks in jail and seven months in traumatizing legal limbo due to a mistake on the flock data and officers putting their full trust in this technology. This is high stakes stuff, and there's no room for error here. Earlier this year, Santa Cruz, California terminated their contract with flock after reports that out of state agencies were accessing their city's data, despite assurances that this was not the case. I want to be clear, I am not accusing AAPD of misconduct and there's no evidence of that, but we are connected to this entire network and this company or any similar company such as Axon do not get to define safety. I believe that we protect our residents and visitors here by ensuring that when they are here, they will be safe from any ex-partner using our cameras and our data to track their whereabouts. Sadly, this is becoming a near weekly news event here in Georgia. We have had our trial run and I believe that when we know better, we do better. And we know better now. And I'm happy to provide my sources for the cases I've used to inform my public comment. I will end with a quote from the ACLU. Literally the only way to protect data from being misused is to not collect it at all. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Kate Denny. I live at 37 Clarendon. And I appreciate the work that you do for us. You're part of our community. We voted for you so that you would represent us and do what we want. I think it's important that we remember that Chief Hess is going to tell us about how potentially Flock has helped us. But I think that we need to remember that we're self-governed. So whether flock is saving us from a huge disaster, it's still our choice whether we have flock or not. It's just basically as simple as informed consent, right? Like in the hospital, your doctor says, if you do this treatment, it'll save your life. If you don't do it, this is what's going to happen. You are allowed to choose. We are self-governed. We are allowed to choose. We are allowed to say no, even if it's helpful for us. And most of us who are, you know, really educating ourselves on this do not think that it is helpful for us. But I appreciate that you recognize that we are self-governed and we can say no, even if our police in DeKalb County think it's in our best interest. We're in charge. We celebrate that as a hundred years, right? Of us being in charge of ourselves. We do have this opportunity to be the first state, the first city in the state of Georgia to say we can make our own choices. We're all looking for that right now, for our leaders at every level to really represent us and to listen to our voices. And thankfully you do that. So thank you for that. And I hope that you continue to listen to us and what we want and allow us to make our own decisions for our own community.

Thank you.

Jennifer on the line.

Hi, my name, oops.

I don't know if you can see me, I can't make the camera work, but my name is Jennifer. I live at 402 Kensington Park Drive. I am urging you all to please reject these flock cameras. These systems create a searchable record of where private citizens travel and the dangers are no longer hypothetical. As some others have pointed out, there are dozens of documented cases showing these automatic, excuse me, automated license plate readers make mistakes and then police act on that incorrect information. Innocent people have been stopped, searched, handcuffed, detained at gunpoint, and even jailed because a camera misread their license plate or incorrectly identified a vehicle. They were then forced to prove their innocence at the cost of their time, money, jobs, and dignity. The potential for deliberate abuse is equally disturbing. As others have said, we now know police officers, not Avondale police, but police officers nonetheless, have been using these databases to stalk former partners and other women. When we give the government power to track people's movements, we cannot simply assume that data will be used appropriately or that every automated match will be accurate. Public safety should not require tracking of private citizens and placing innocent people at risk. Once this surveillance network is built, it will be extremely difficult to undo. Please, please reject these flock cameras. We do not want to be a surveillance state where private citizens lose their privacy in the name of false safety. Avondale should reject this insanity. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Any others in the audience? Yes, Paul.

Paul Dorotney, Twin Stratford Road. I'd like to speak to Agenda Item 10. It's in the regular meeting. It says consideration of the project framework agreement for downtown Attendale multimodal improvement. I'm going to encourage you to read Appendix F, as in Frank. The way I read that appendix, if you accept this, if you all pass this the way it is, that appendix says that Avondale reads the two things. One, not to be a sanctuary city. And two, more importantly, to agree to have our Avondale police force assist other enforcement agencies with the arrest of what are described as criminal negligence. My concern has to do with what's going on in our country with ICE. From a practical standpoint, I'd like to see you all consider amending the agreement to drop Appendix F entirely. If you read it closely, it really has nothing to do with the Rome Project. The state of Georgia and Attadale are simply trying to build a road. The sanctuary city and these, especially having our police force assist with those arrests doesn't seem to be part of this project. I encourage you to drop attendings out. Thank you.

Thank you, Paul.

You're welcome.

All right, no one online. OK, any last call from the audience? OK, seeing no comments, I'm going to bring it back up here. All right, so thank you for all your comments. All right, so we're going to move to item number five. We have before us the August 12th, 2026 regular meeting minutes and the August 12th, 2026 work session minutes. Do I have a motion to engross? So that was Louie. Do I have a second? Second. Mike, all in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. All right. Item number six, presentation of fiscal year 2025 audit results from Malden and Jenkins. Mr. Manager, could you tee this up for us?

Yes, as we do every year following the annual audit process and the release of the annual comprehensive financial report. Josh Carroll with Malden and Jenkins, who is our independent auditing agency, is here to deliver a report regarding the results of the 2025 fiscal year audit. So, Josh.

Thank you, Patrick. Thank you. And can you hear me? Oh, it goes. Okay. And thanks to the mayor and the board for having me. As Patrick said, I'm going to just kind of quickly go through a PowerPoint here to go over our results of the 2025 audit. This is kind of my agenda. I'm going to go over our team, our opinion. I got a few financial trends, the results, and questions at the end. But if somebody has a question as I'm going, you can feel free to stop me as we're going along. Next slide. This is Amalina Jenkins. We've been around over 100 years now. We spend a lot of time and energy investing in state and local government audits. I spend my whole year doing nothing but counties and cities and development authorities and state agencies all over the southeast. I don't do any tax work like a traditional CPA. I do government audits all year long. Everybody that works on your audit is in the same position. We also audit DeKalb County. We audit many of your neighbors, so we bring a lot of local knowledge to your audit as well. Next slide. The statements are the responsibility of the city's management. Our objective is your external auditors express an opinion. We followed all the generally accepted auditing standards, the government auditing standards, and we did issue an unmodified or clean opinion, which is what you'd hope to receive from your annual audit. So as far as we're concerned, your statements are materially correct. Next slide. We also report on compliance and control. We come in and we look at really all your accounting cycles. We look at how you receive cash, how you disperse cash, how you're on board and terminated employee contracts with vendors. We look at P-card transactions. We look at your spending of SPLOST dollars. I'm going to go through everything. We look at your segregation of duties and how funds are flowing in and out of the city and You have a clean opinion there. The city has pretty good segregation of duties. You also had a big grant program this year, highway planning and construction. We looked at those costs, compared them to the agreement, city to all the reporting requirements that come along with federal programs, and you got a clean opinion there as well. So all in all, really clean. This slide, if I was on the board, I think I'd want to know, do we have anything unusual or maybe aggressive in your accounting policies or maybe our estimates or judgments in your statements? You don't. The policies are disclosed in the notes. They're very similar to a city of your size. Many of your neighbors have very, very similar, very common policies. And your only estimates are really your useful life of capital assets. Like how long do we think a police car is going to last or we're going to use it? We depreciate it over that life. We review those. We feel pretty good about them. And your actuary uses assumptions for your pension liability, which you're kind of in the GMA plan. Everybody in that plan has the same assumptions. We kind of look at those and feel pretty good about them. Next slide. We have a good relationship with management. It definitely takes the city. It's not just the auditors. It's a lot of work on the finance team of the city. We come in, we ask for a lot of information. Nothing seems hidden or covered up. We get everything we need, often more information than we asked for. So we really appreciate the city partnering with us to get the audit done and dedicating your resources to help us get it done. We didn't have any adjustments either. We get a trial balance. I know Brittany's no longer with us, but she gives us a trial balance and we audit it. We do our thing. We don't have any adjustments. It's very clean. And I've worked with Tony Jo in the past, and I think you guys will be really pleased with her and we'll be in the same place for the 2026 audit. I mean, we are independent. We don't close the books. We don't post journal entries. We don't reconcile bank accounts. We just do the audit. So the clean opinion you have is not influenced by us kind of auditing our own work. Next slide. Let me skip this. We'll go to the next one. So this is kind of my one financial trend. This is your general fund, which is the main operating fund of the city. And it shows your fund balance. Another word for fund balance is equity. And it kind of shows it as compared to your assets. your annual expenses and your transfers out to other funds. So kind of had a big dip down this year. And the purple there I wrote, we transferred a lot of money to the capital fund. We just kind of moved it over there. So that fund's going to hold it and use it for whatever capital we budget to spend in the future. So that's the real reason for the big dip down. If we took that out, you'd still be at 53%. The GFOA is the standard setting body for local government. They recommend two to three months as a minimum threshold. We don't want to see anybody go below that. That's 16 to 25%. So You're even double that even with the big transfer routes. You've got a healthy fund balance, what we like to see. Next slide. So we do have two management comments. We don't have any findings. Findings make it into your actual audit report. These are just FYI. We came across them. They were here last year. They're kind of repeats. And the one is the payroll processor. The company we use, they don't have a SOC 1 performed. And that creates some low level of risk. We have some procedures in place where we review their information. But I'm just going to kind of continue to remind them that they don't have a SOC 1 reformed where it kind of walks through their controls and how they operate and how they do what they do. And the journal entries, you know, Brittany was still had the ability to post journal entries and approve them without kind of an independent segregation of duties. That's not a perfect world. It's a small finance department that has trended down over the years. It used to be a whole bunch of them, but she does have an employee in there and there was some segregation, but sometimes she just had to get it done. So she posted entries. So kind of can you to highlight that, but nothing over really huge concerning. It's a clean audit. You got good segregation of duties throughout the city, you know. cash coming in, gets to the bank, and there's checks and balances on the money going out the door, which is really what I think DeBoer would be most concerned with. Next slide. And we are a full-service EPA firm. We have a government advisory services group. They do a lot of projects in these four buckets here. They deal kind of operations. The audit that I do is very financial in nature, and are we reporting the money right? Are we following GASB and following GAP and following accrual basis of accounting. And they deal more with operations and kind of like the flow of funds and how are things flowing through the city? Why are we doing what we're doing? How does it align with maybe our own internal policies and maybe best practices? And how can we ultimately deliver more efficient services to the citizens of Avondale. So that is something we offer outside the scope of the audit. It's something the board is ever interested in hearing more about. I'd love to connect you with the partner that adds that up. It's not an audit. They're not CPAs. They don't do accounting. They do, like I said, it's just more operational and how we're doing and how the funds and everything are flowing through the city. So that is something we offer. Next slide. And we also have an IT group. They do a lot of cybersecurity assessments. They look at kind of like a gap analysis of what information do we have from our citizens or any vendors we work with and how do we protect and keep that data safe and what are we doing well? The world's ever-changing. I usually use this slide as just kind of a reminder that we have information and And the hackers are always out there, and I see this a lot. It's some of the largest governments we work with and even some that are minuscule. So no one's too big or too small. So just kind of remind our IT group to stay abreast of the changes. But we do have a group that deals with this if it's something you're interested in. It's outside the scope of the audit, but we'd love to help out. And we can kind of skip to the end. These are – Gatsby's busy, but we'll implement those as they come along. And that's really all I've got is a clean audit. And like I said, we really appreciate the city partnering with us to get it done. It's a big task for you all. And we do offer free CPE to all of our clients. Tony and Joe will attend those. They're a heavy government accounting basis, but anybody at the city is welcome to attend. And they are free. They're quarterly. They're virtual. You don't have to drive anywhere. You just do it on Zoom or Teams. And so – Appreciate the opportunity to work with you all. And if there's questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I have none. Anybody?

Okay. Awesome. Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you. Good job, guys. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Any questions, comments up here regarding that?

No.

All right. Item number seven, Mr.

Manager. Yes. So tonight is the second read and or consideration for the 2026 fiscal year proposed budget amendments. Nothing has changed between the last read and this read. So it's still the same information. One thing I do want to bring to your attention is However, we're not ready to make a recommendation on a revision for this quite yet. But we have received the 30% engineered drawings for the Southwood Stormwater and Dam Rehabilitation Project. If y'all recall, we began the engineering work for the phase one And that cost is projected lower than or maybe I should say within anticipated budget, which will allow us to now move forward with the phase two design comfortably. We anticipate by the end of the year, we will have those completely engineered and ready for bid. At that time, we will be able to get a really good pulse estimate for the project in its entirety. And so when we go through the 27 budget process and begin to adjust the capital program for that, I think we'll have an opportunity to reallocate some of the funds that were otherwise pledged for that project to other stormwater projects, which will probably also allow us to free up That is good news. We're very excited that we're going to be able to move forward with that project in its entirety. Regarding the remainder of the consideration for you tonight, just kind of as a quick recap, we have revised the 26 budget for a kind of a reduction in anticipated property tax collections based on the final digest and the change in millage rate. We have also included the operating budget for 2026 centennial activities and made some changes to the capital program to reflect the inclusion of the Center Street stormwater project. the increase in the monies allocated for the improvements to the city hall facility, and monies that were provided via donation thanks to Waffle House. If y'all have any additional questions, I'm happy to answer, but all of the information you have remains unchanged.

How much was that estimate that they gave us?

For phase one, $1.3 million.

What projects do we, out of this list, do we think we're actually going to get done before the end of the year?

That depends. Now, I want to remind you and the remainder of the board that the capital program is not a one-year budget. That is a two-year rolling program that continues to roll. It's a living program. So not all of those projects on the capital program are scheduled for completion this year. Not all of those projects that are on the program will be scheduled for completion next year. Some of those will roll into future years. Those are just the identified capital projects that we know of and potential funding sources allocated to those. Any of those projects to actually begin execution would require an additional appropriation via a contract from you guys. within the capital program.

Any other questions up there?

Well, I would just like to make a comment. I feel like that we need a more cash flow basis for our capital projects reporting so that we do see, you know, most places do three to five years out where we kind of project. And then, you know, a more specific kind of information about where the revenue is coming from to pay those projects. Some of it's kind of wrapped into the balance. And so to me, it's not, Yeah, it's just not clear enough as to what we are going to get done and when we're going to do it. And I would like to see that expanded.

All right.

Other questions, comments? Everybody good? All right. So... Do I have a motion to approve an ordinance amending the budget for fiscal year 2026 for the city of Avondale Estates?

So moved.

That was Graham. Do I have a second? Second. That was Mike. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Nay. And that is because there are some projects on there that I don't approve of and also that I don't feel like I have a clear enough idea of the revenues coming through to support them. Okay.

All right.

okay all right item number eight uh we have talked about adopting a civility pledge for two meetings i think two yes multiple meetings that has been discussed in the work and we have kind of settled on for lack of a better word two versions um so we agreed that we were just going to vote up or down on the two um any comments beforehand up here um well i mean i would like to make a motion that we um

pass the one that includes the final comment that the board recognizes that these principles are intended to establish the standards of professional conduct respective of city officials. Conduct inconsistent with these principles may be addressed by the board through its existing authority under the chartered city ordinance personnel policies employment agreements and other ethical laws that's what i'd like nation to have to approve okay that's version two so commissioner stevens made a motion is there a second is there is there a way to get clarification on the because that's like i apologize um just a further explanation on that that that

Version one and version two are almost identical. Version two includes section eight with the language that Commissioner Steadman just referenced.

Is there anything wrong with that?

Is there, can you explain section eight? Are you able to? What difference? I mean, materially? No. Uh,

the language simply states or condenses or compiles a reaffirmation to follow

But it's just a reaffirmation, correct?

That is correct.

So the motion has been made. We've got a second.

It just reaffirms what the prior ones do. I mean, is there any difference? There's no legal difference here. Okay. I mean, if there's no legal difference, I mean, and we're reaffirming the previous points, I mean, I'm okay with the second.

Okay. So Mr. Smith has made a second. Okay. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye. All opposed say nay. Nay. All right. So that's two, three. All right. So do I have a motion to approve version one? So moved. That was Graham. Do I have a second? Second. That was Louie. Any comments, questions? I'll make a comment. Okay.

So the reason why I feel that the first one is more consistent with what it is, the civility of... A civility of... Sorry. It's because... Again, to me, the last bit, as I mentioned publicly before, just feels like a bit of a stick at the end. And for the purpose of this document as it's written, that's sort of not in the character of what it's trying to say. I felt like it was just trying to add something that wasn't in the spirit of what this document intended to do.

Yeah. Any other comments?

Yes. I don't feel like that statement at all was a stick. It was simply a statement that we acknowledge that this is important and that we're assuring our residents that we take it seriously. I don't think there's anything there that would suggest that we are imposing anything on anybody.

All right.

All right. So I'd like to ask for a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Was it five? Yes. Okay. And none opposed. Okay. Thank you. And I'm glad we have done that. Okay. So item number nine. Was that the one? We could do a consent vote and vote this in first time, correct, Patrick? Correct. Did you want to say anything before this? I mean, this is fairly straightforward.

Yeah, just briefly to remind the board and the public that every so often the state updates its regulation of stormwater discharge. and requests municipalities that reside within the state to update their local ordinance to reflect state law change. This is exactly what is being performed here.

Okay. We did talk about this before. This is just, as the manager said, this is a fairly straightforward thing. We basically have to adopt it to receive funding and some other stuff. so normally we do two reads on a change to the ordinance this would be the first read there would be a second one in two weeks we did a change the ordinance a couple years ago to say that we can vote on the first read if we have a consent vote and that consent vote has to be five it has to be unanimous so do i have a motion to have a consent vote so moved That was Graham. Do I have a second? Second. That was Louie. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's five. Okay. Now we are unable to vote on this. So. We have before us an ordinance by the City of Avondale Estates to amend Chapter 11 of the Code of Ordinances, Health and Sanitation, to add new Section 11-12 entitled Private Decentralized Wastewater Systems Prohibited to Article 1 of said chapter for the purpose of prohibiting certain private wastewater systems within the City of Avondale Estates in accordance with the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District requirements. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. That was Mike. Do I have a second? Second. That was Louie. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's five. Thank you, everyone. Okay. Now, item number 10. Mr. Manager, could you? Yes.

So as we discussed at the last work session, before you, you have the first of what will be two project framework agreements with GDOT for the purposes of receiving a federal award. Ruge dot that award is for what we are calling our downtown shared streets project to provide for multimodal improvements to our downtown road network. This framework is for the design phase of the project. You will have another framework for the construction phase. I did want to take this time to address the comment made by Mr. Dora during public comment. That is a legal requirement. That exhibit F is a legal requirement from the state of Georgia to receive federal funds via GDOT. So if we were to not accept that project framework agreement, that means we could not accept the grant award. And that would be problematic because then we would be Transportation.

Well, each of them are voted on, correct? What's that? I mean, you're not just sort of blanket listed.

No, I mean, if we do not follow state of Georgia law, then we would no longer be eligible for these awards. I mean, we don't have a choice.

How much is this award? It's over $3 million.

Okay.

Is this being required of all municipalities?

Yes, every single one. Also, the state law that was adopted I think two years ago essentially holds that if the state concludes that a municipality is a sanctuary city, then we will not receive any state funding. So it's not just this project or other projects that we would bid on.

What's the timeline for this particular item in vote?

Now? I would highly advise y'all to follow the state law. I don't think we have any recourse, positive recourse by not doing so at all.

I've got something on another matter with this. So, I see where it says the city's responsible for accomplishing the preliminary engineering work. Is that part of that $100,000 or is that additional funds?

So, part of the grant award is for engineered design. Part of the grant award is for construction. This project framework agreement covers the design piece, the match components, Throughout the entire award is the same. It's an 80-20 match component.

That wasn't what I asked. Basically, it's saying here, and I don't know if it's kind of separating. It says that the city is responsible for accomplishing the preliminary engineering work. That's the $500,000. That's correct. Okay. And then our part of it is $100,000, which the DDA is paying for.

Correct.

And what happens if we go over on that $500,000?

If design costs more than that, I think we would certainly have to increase our contribution of local funds. We don't anticipate that to happen. or we ask for more money. And every time that's true, every time we have run into that situation in the past, GDOT has provided additional funding to cover the gap.

All right. Thank you. Okay.

Okay.

So any other questions, comments?

Well, I would say I appreciate Mr. Dora for bringing this up. It's frustrating. It's annoying that that has to be shoved into these grant agreements. We've benefited from many grants and as of other organizations and municipalities. but I do appreciate the sentiment in which it was brought up and I feel like it was very frustrating. It has the potential for making it look like we're complicit when really we're trying to, because the purpose of this multimodal improvement is to make two streets be less vehicle friendly and more pedestrian friendly, make them where, make that part of our downtown feel like you can walk down the middle of the street and the cars are the ones that have to be patient and wait for you to get by or for the kid on their bike or the person walking their dog. So this is all meant to really do something for the healthy welfare and benefit of the residents. And it has that little thorn in it that makes you feel a think that's a nice way to do business with the state.

You're welcome. There's a simple solution that you'd like to hear at some point that keeps Avondale where you can get the money and solve the problem.

I have to agree with Louis. I'm very disappointed that that's in the contract. But at the same time, you know, we need state contracts to get things done in this city and it's just unfortunate that we have to sign on to something that includes um you know something that we may not support in order to get money to improve our city and i agree as well um well uh

I just think this is something that's been decided from a state level. So, I mean, everybody can vote accordingly in their state elections as well. It's true.

All right. So I have read Well, no, I haven't. Okay. So I haven't made a motion. So do I have a motion to approve a project framework agreement by and between Georgia Department of Transportation and City of Avondale states for transportation facility improvements? So that was Mike. Do I have a second? Second. That's Louie. All in favor say aye. Aye. That's five.

Okay.

All right. And the last item of business this evening, Mr. Manager, could you tee this up as well?

Yes. Before you, as discussed at the last work session, is an easement agreement with the property owner at 732 Stratford Road. That typo transposition has now been fenced. This is for the purposes of allowing the city to perform work on private property to address an issue with its own stormwater system. And the property owner has already agreed to the easement agreement that you have before you. And in order to complete that agreement, we would also need consideration from the board.

Thank you. Any questions, comments on this one? We did discuss this last time. Again, this is just sort of a Wouldn't call it housekeeping, but close to it. We just need to get an easement so we can access our stormwater structure that's on someone else's property. Questions, comments? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve an easement agreement between Samuel Sundell, grantor, and the City of Avondale Estates, Georgia, grantee, municipal corporation? So Louis, do I have a second? Light up. All the papers say aye. Aye. That's five. Thank you. All right. So that concludes our business for the evening. Do I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

That's a light up. Do I have a second? Second. That's Mike. All those in favor say aye. Aye. That's five. For those of you who haven't been to one of our meetings before, we're going to take a 10-minute break. We will reconvene down at the table for our work session. You are more than welcome to stay. That's just how we're running things now. So 10-minute break is what time do you have? It's 622. We'll reconvene at 632.

So thank you all. This is our work session.

It's August 26, 2026. It's now 634. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Do we have an agenda before us to have a motion to adopt? So I'll move. Mr. Graham, do I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. All right. First item up for discussion, item number three, continued discussion of amendments to the golf cart ordinance to allow a crossing from South Avondale to Pine Street. Mr. Manager?

Yes. So we began this discussion at our last work session in order for us to potentially obtain GDOT permission for a crossing to be... constructed from South Avondale to Pine Street for the purposes of golf carts traveling across 278. We would have to amend our own ordinance prior to receiving that permission. If y'all recall, our discussion evolved from one where we were then beginning to talk about some other regulations within the golf cart ordinance that we might want to address and decided to bring that back to work session. And so that's where we remain today.

Okay. And I may have been the primary person behind that. I'm concerned for just younger drivers you know, safely crossing the road and not creating a hazardous situation that could result in something bad. I guess really I've been thinking about this a bit. Our current ordinance does allow a person who has a I would like us to consider changing it to drive a golf cart. You've got to be 18.

And that, Stephen, just for purposes of moving the discussion forward, the state allows for local municipalities to increase the age at which eligibility occurs.

Right, with 18 being as low as we can go.

Well, I was talking to someone after the meeting last week or two weeks ago, and it was a younger person, and they put it most succinctly that golf carts create the illusion of safety. And they are not as safe as a car. Cars are rigorously tested. We all see the commercials and hear about all that. And golf carts are different. I mean, they're meant to be on a golf course. And I just feel like even though the state of Georgia says a 16-year-old can drive a car on the interstate or cross-country, I think that I don't know. I just would like us to consider up in the age, regardless of our drivers, just perhaps there's a little more maturity there, a little more appreciation for safety and what can happen and how quickly things can go wrong. And, you know, perhaps someone who's been driving a car for two years can appreciate that a little more. But I'm just... don't want to be overly paranoid i just you know not sure that uh all the 16 year olds out there driving golf carts are really as sort of mindful of the hazard of driving that they should be so that's just that's it in a nutshell there's just maybe some consideration of the age on that one um It's not a concern for city. I mean, it's just not trying to penalize anyone. I don't want to assume anyone's... I'm sorry. Whatever. No, you didn't. I just think a couple extra years might help prevent some driving that you otherwise wouldn't see. So, no good.

That's okay. I just wanted... Are these items that were highlighted in yellow, are those the only changes? Are those the exact changes that we're making?

Yes. Well, in a rough draft form. I mean, once we get the more direction from the board, then I will take that rough draft and wordsmith it. So we're thinking content right now rather than exact wording. If you have an exact wording, then...

It says here that only 18 years of age or older may register the vehicle.

16 can drive, right? Yeah. i saw somewhere where it said only 18 year olds off the street in a thing but it just okay um just for just my curiosity i think the fact that you know before 278 was the the highway concept when when it changed to to the new fleet street um I thought golf carts were not allowed to present the speed limit. That is one component.

And not just the speed on 278, but also the speed on the road connecting, so South Avondale. That is another step in the permitting process from GDOT to provide for this crossing would be a reduction in speed on South which would require a speed study to demonstrate that a reduction in speed on that road is even palatable or... What is it now? It's 30, correct? 35.

Oh, it's 35 on South Avenue? Yeah. Yeah, it has to go.

Okay. So any road that has golf motorized carts that can be no more than 30?

So in order for the crossing to be made, the speed, the highest rate of speed permitted on South Avondale Road has to be reduced from 35 to 30 because of the aforementioned dangers that the mayor has spoken.

So we have to go through a study before we can lower it to 30? Or could we just lower it to 30?

No, GDOT has to.

Okay.

allowing the crossing to be made. Next step would be to ensure that the speed of travel on South Avondale can be lowered to accommodate the crossing and

35. South Avondale is the residential side. And it's 35 as well?

I think it's actually 30. Yeah, and it needed to go to 25.

Yes. I'm okay with the crossing. It's taking this first step at the bottom. And I'd consider, you know, changing the age, but I think the bigger issue is educating people with donkons. We can tell them all day long they've got to be 18, you know, the police can't really pull them over if they don't look 18 or don't look 16 or whatever. So it's like, and I know we can't, you know, we can't legislate good behavior, but good, you know, ownership or whatever, but somehow, and I know the police department's been really trying to do this with registering the cars, having the golf cart rodeos and things like that, but somehow, We have to figure out a way to reach every golf cart owner and, you know, help, you know, really figure out how to educate them on what you're supposed to do with these things, that they're not as safe as a car, that they're not as carefree as people think they are. So, I mean, it's like, but, you know, the crossing, I think the road, this was part of our plan to begin with, I think, People with golf arms will golf with us. I went to France and they're playing two sides of the road, which I'm always sort of going to do. With crossing, I don't have any issue with. I think, you know, I think it needs to be done absolutely with the GDOT specifications. It's fine. I feel like most of us have seen it 12 times already. And I think, I think just, you know, somehow, figuring out how to teach our, I don't know what the right word is, but educate our golf course owners that, you know, there are laws and you have to follow these laws. It's not okay to just... And do you mind if I elaborate on something?

Sure. Speaking to your point about recognizing age, so... In order for the police to stop a golf cart user or engage a golf cart user in the course of them using the cart, there would have to be a moving violation in order to make that engagement. So we can't just profile. I just wanted to clarify that for you guys.

So if someone was, like, noticeably, like, 10.

Unfortunately, no. Unfortunately, at this time and age, you have 12-year-olds that look like they're 21, and you have 20-year-olds that look like they're 12.

No, that would be a moving violation that would allow for a stop. I, for one, I think initially I would not be in favor of raising the age.

I think golf carts are part of this neighborhood. And I think I'm more concerned about the e-bikes and how fast they go. There's kids that are eight, nine years old that are going 40 miles an hour. And like these, I mean, the carts, I mean, if we can restrict it to a safe crossing, I think that's something that, you know, there's always inherent risk with everything, pedestrians even. But I think I don't know. I would not be in favor of a race.

If they can drive a car, they can drive a car.

When they register now, do they get a decal or something to put on their vehicle? And are we having problems with people registering? I mean, or do we?

Actually, well, we've... We've been able to capture a lot of unregistered golf carts in the previous two years with our golf cart registration drives. So that is less of an issue than it was previously, and we'll continue to do that so that we don't have unregistered vehicles on our streets. Now, an unregistered cart, and I'll defer to Chief Hess on this, would potentially be a moving violation. So actually...

put said sticker the last two years previous administration previous wave stickers were put on were all over the place and with the aging stickers we're finding uh more and more residents have reached out to detect a power drill about getting a new sticker because their old sticker is falling apart or falling off or weathered um she is working with those residents as a case-by-case basis so and we can stop them make time can you state where the preferred spot was uh moving forward it's going to be the driver's side rear like quarter panel uh either right above on either front or rear because the golf carts nowadays they've got like basically no fender to the rear some of them do some of them don't so we're putting them on that driver's side rear tire fender of area

Well, I don't know if I have any trouble with the 18-year-old requirement because I wish they changed that driver's license. My granddaughter is going to be 16 next June and I'm horrified. The thought of her driving around in Atlanta.

Well, crossing is the part that I'm most looking forward to. And the fact that we've got, you know, new residences, single family residences, et cetera, being built on this side, it's a way to promote connectivity. It's a way to promote sort of ease. I mean, there is definitely something nice about putting children in a golf cart, driving to their school, dropping them off. That is a lovely thing. And you don't get to do that in many places. And I would hate, to have some people have the ability to do that and others not. Now, I know that still exists. I know there's other parts that can't do that, but at least there is a part here that hopefully we'll be able to.

And just to be clear, I'm all for the cross seat. I think it's great. I think it'll be just an expansion of that specialness that we enjoy. I'm all for that. As I said before, I was not the most careful 16-year-old driver. Well, okay, so we're all okay with the crossing itself. Is there any appetite for open age? You're not? It don't matter?

You can drive a car.

Alright, so we'll drop that. So, what's next?

So, based on that direction, the only amendment that we will propose next regular meeting or bursary. Right, bursary.

Okay. And I'll say one more time, I think that doing this, I think there'll be a good opportunity for people to just, number one, where that crossing's going to be. It's not every crossing, you know. Well, I think there's going to be signs.

Yeah, I think the important thing, though, is you cross.

You don't get on to the VA. Yeah, exactly.

And that's going to be... That's not going to be, I mean, that's always going to be not allowed. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

No travel on, on the highway.

Uh, curious. I know we have, you know, that, that this is discussion about crossing on that side, but I mean, is there even access to the downtown area from like, say the other side without a hill?

You mean here, down here for a golf cart? Yeah. No, it is not protected with signaling.

Is there any theoretical possibility that when that rest of the road from here to Kensington Station gets upgraded, that whatever could occur theoretically, if there was a will to make it to town?

I don't want to weigh in on that without... good information. So I'll try and seek that information for you guys, but I don't have it right now.

When you drive, would you be able to drive around this neighborhood back there? Yes. Yeah.

So once you, if you would cross, like, so if you cross 278 down there. Right. And that would allow for you to drive your golf cart on any of the interior road

But you couldn't cross at Laredo.

You mean like cross Clarendon?

Cross Laredo or Clarendon.

You couldn't cross Laredo and get over here.

I mean, yes, well, you'd have to cross Clarendon.

But you can go right into Laredo, too, where Center Street curves are.

Well, you can already do that. I'm saying if you wanted to get from the area across Clarendon over to this side. Okay. You know, I don't have a good knowledge of the allowance for crossing Clarendon. We really haven't discussed that.

Well, you can go up and down that into Clarendon. Why can't you drive over there?

Yeah, I think this intersection was a problem here at 278. Right. It's way too wide. too much traffic.

There were lots of constraints around crossings that that intersection did not.

So we'll have those discussions and talk about the Clarendon Cross if that's even possible. So it could be that you are limited to staying on the west side of Clarendon.

I mean, just some, it crossed my mind.

That little pocket over here.

Yeah, and then the people that live over by the, like that are in Avondale.

Yeah, where the townhomes are.

Townhomes, and then isn't there another part of Avondale? Like where the elementary school? That's actually, well, AES, right down there.

Or are you talking about the... DSA Elementary School, is that part of that? That is not.

That is not, but there is a pocket of homes back there, the Windsor area. Okay. Yeah.

I just want to make sure, if we're looking down the road, maybe providing access.

Currently, we do not have any provision unless it's otherwise already legal for persons who live... of the downtown. Okay.

All right. So, uh, again, first read will be at the what's the, what's the date? September 9th. September 9th meeting. Good. All right. Next item. Item number four, view of an easement agreement with Maple 278 Ventures, particular construction staging and landscaping in the alley at 102 Olive Street.

Yes. So as we've encountered in the past, there is a series of alleys that exist in the downtown. Some of those are actually private. The Avila Hedgewood team has identified a small portion of the alley that was immediately to the north of one of the properties they purchased, which we refer to as the Rorick property. It's that vacant corner property. as an alley that they would like to be able to use for two purposes. One is during their construction to be able to use that alleyway to transport materials. And then the other is to, once they have completed to create an inviting area. Now, that alleyway is really small. If y'all are familiar with that lot. So that lot is on the corner of Olive and 278. So it's on the west corner of Olive. It was just kind of a tiny property that

next to um we have it announcing the pact oh yeah it was in its view number four is right next to

Little cottage is down there. That's what I would say.

Right. It's immediately south of the building known as 120 Olive that houses Little Cottage. Okay.

There's an alley there.

They're not developed alleys. They are just identified as alleys. And again, We check these on a case-by-case basis as development concerns arise because what we found is there's no real consistency of ownership. Some of those alleyways go with the deed to the private property. Some of those alleyways are excluded from the deed and are public.

In this case, have the people that own that building been told about it?

They don't have any ownership of that. know they don't but i mean as far as that it will be used that way just you know informing them i i don't i don't know the answer to that question i mean i i doubt they would care given the fact that uh if the whole entire property was utilized as a uh uh for construction easement on 278 if y'all recall we had some some lay down of that property uh I don't think it affects their ingress and egress. And the alley exists on the Avalon property. It's just a public portion of that property. So the adjacent neighbor doesn't have any right.

I understand. I was just talking about, you know, being aware that it's going to happen sometimes.

So, any other questions? So, this will be something we vote on September 1st? Correct. Okay. Okay. Item number five. Presentation by Chief Hess. I'd like to start over here with Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, we're making this presentation to the board tonight, mostly because of increased discussion about flock safety company, not only locally, but at the national level. And I think we've all had internal conversations about our use of flock safety equipment. and realize there are very valid concerns about potential abuse of the system that not only our residents have, but persons throughout the country. And not only that, but as most large topics of discussion arise, result in. There is, you know, some misinformation we've identified in discussions that perhaps we could speak to to clarify what type of equipment we have and what we use it for. I realize that that may not matter to some folks. And again, I very much empathize with the concern about flock safety and the products that they provide. I think we are very aware of some of the very real pitfalls of the system. But for the purposes of, you know, encouraging further discussion and inviting our residents to participate in that discussion. We felt it appropriate at this time to go ahead and have Chief Hess make a presentation about Avondale State's flock safety program so that we can help move that discussion in whatever way it wants. So without further ado, I'll hand it

safety approach all right so good evening um like to reiterate what patrick said is you know i've heard residents i've heard concerns that hopefully you know i can't control how you feel but i think education plays a big factor um and you know so basically what we're gonna do is go over a basic background of flock safety corporation the technology and the policies that Police Department, please keep in mind that when I'm speaking about policies and how we use the system, I am only speaking about how Avondale State Police Department utilizes this system and how it benefits our city. I cannot speak to other agencies. I cannot speak to other administrators or their policies in any way, shape, or form. And law enforcement policies are not cookie-cutter by any means whatsoever. And I've got experience with that. So hopefully I can Educate y'all a little bit and answer some questions. See if this works. It does. All right. So flock safety is a public safety technology platform that helps the law enforcement investigate crimes by providing information captured on their devices associated with incidents. Moving forward, flock offers, and if you guys don't mind, I'm just going to refer to this flock instead of flock safety moving forward. They offer several different options. And to clarify, the license plate readers are often referred to as automated license plate readers or ALPRs. We use this system. They're behind the ALPR system and that is it. Do not use their mobile security trailers. We do not use their gunshot or gunshot detection software or devices. We do not use their drones and we do not use their pan, tilt, zoom or CCTV camera systems in any way, shape or form. We do not subscribe to any of the extra software that would have to be enabled to be able to use this system, nor do we have any of their devices other than the ALPR systems. The Falcon ALPR is the only device that we use, as I said previously. Basically, an ALPR camera captures photos of the rear of a vehicle, their license plates, records the location, date, time the photo was taken. Vehicle license plate is listed as stolen, linked to other criminal activities, wanted or missing persons. An alert will be sent out to AEPD staff who are logged in via the software, via a desktop software or a mobile application. So common concerns and questions that I've heard recently What does ALPR detect? It detects vehicles and license plates. It does not detect people. It does not record people. It's only vehicles and license plates. What does it not detect? Once again, people, gender, race, or any type of facial recognition software built into our system. How many ALPRs do we have? We currently have 10. And we have 10 cameras in 10 separate locations. You do not have any cameras that are multiple cameras all at one location. Just to clarify, because I know some people have asked me about that, our 10 cameras are in 10 different locations spread out through the city. The data retention is 30 days on a rolling basis. What that means is that it's not at the end of the month, all the data. So once 30 day hits on that date and time, that data is permanently erased, which I'll get kind of more into here in a minute, okay? Federal sharing and safeguards flock does not contract with federal agencies such as ICE or DHS. And I'll go a little bit more into data sharing in a few minutes too. Data resale flock And the flock ALPR systems are not connected to DDS or DMV softwares that are all connected through portals for GCIC and NCIC, which is Georgia Criminal Information Center, as well as the National Criminal Information Center. So when we're talking about the data, what kind of data is collected by the ALPR? It's a license plate tag, oh, sorry, I forgot to hit, that's my fault. It's a license plate text. It's the date and time the image was captured or when the vehicle passed that camera. Camera location that captured the image and basic vehicle attributes such as make, model, and color. That is all it collects. Tracking a vehicle plot. does not have the capabilities to physically track a vehicle. The ALPR system does not track vehicle. It's a moment in time at a specific location. So your vehicle passes a fixed location. It captures the image. It doesn't know if you went up to the next street and turn right, left. The only way we can see that is when you pass the next flock camera, if you pass another flock camera. It cannot detect after that image. It does not detect if you turn down the next street, went three streets forward or turn left or right. It only is capturing. Think about it as a moment in time, like I stated. One location with a date and a time. That is it. Once you pass the camera, AEPD and FLOC have no idea what your route is. I'm going to use this as an example. We had an incident earlier this week where after the crime occurred, the vehicle fled the location, did not pass a single one of our flock cameras, did not hit a single flock camera throughout DeKalb County. It only hit a camera in Haightville, Georgia. And that's where we were able to kind of bring the case to a close for some speed. 15-20 miles did not fast pass a single flat camera from avondale states until it hit a camera in hateville so i know the news has been reporting on senator john albert's uh task force lately uh i want to bring that up he's uh to increase a oversight with alprs um the partners which be aware of is the Georgia Sheriff's Association, as well as the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, which I'm currently the third vice president of. Because of that, I will be heavily involved with the Senator Albers Task Force moving forward. We actually have meetings scheduled, and I will be attending those meetings. So the idea is to figure out what, if any, oversight needs to be legislated, best practices, sample policies for law enforcement agencies throughout the state. Those are just some of the things that we are specifically looking at and addressing some of the currents coming as time goes on. So again, I want to reiterate the policy for Avondale State Police Department is only our policy. I cannot control or dictate other agency policies in any way, shape, or form. Pulling out of our ALPR policy, I just wanted to highlight some things considering operation is used for official law enforcement business only. Officers must complete training on the system and review the policy and training on the policy prior to being issued any type of credentials to utilize the block AOBR system. The data retention is specifically mentioned in our policy with a 30-day rolling basis. After 30 days, it's important to know that once it's deleted, it cannot be recovered for any reason whatsoever by any of my staff, my agency, another agency, or the vendor themselves. So that 30 days expires. If we get information on day 31 that a vehicle may have hit one of our cameras and it's day 31, we can't even search. It's not going to give us any information on that, regardless of what it's involved in. It could be a homicide. There's no way for me to pull that stuff out. Accountability, I think this is very important. And I want to highlight something. Deputy Chief Branch actually leads this on a weekly basis. We conduct audits of our officers and how they're using the system. And I want to get into the audit basis factors in a minute. And also important to note that they're single user logs. They're specific to one user. So if an employee leaves on their last day, we take them out of the system. If logins are appearing on the web, they may be more likely or not good logins. Can't confirm or deny that, but it's up to the agency and the administrators to ensure that if an employee is no longer an employee, they should not have access to it. And we do that as employees leave. Luckily, we haven't had to deal with any employees leaving. All right, so we have adopted a three-tier search access for the City of Avondale State's Police Department. On Tier 1, I'm behind here again. I'm sorry. Tier one is absolutely no search access within the database. That includes our line level officers, which account for six of our staff. Myself and Deputy Chief Branch do not have searchability factors. The reason why we do not is Deputy Chief Branch and myself are over the audits. And for transparency reasons, how are we supposed to officially and truthfully audit ourselves if we have searchability? We don't need it at our level and we're conducting audits and we've removed ourselves from being able to search block for any reason. On tier two, It's in state of Georgia searches only. Those are assigned to our four patrol sergeants that run our four shifts within the police department. And then tier three is a full search access, which only are two detectives. The sergeant in CID, as well as our one detective, have full access to that, which again, they're logged and ordered on a weekly basis. So some additional safeguards. I want to reiterate that our staff receives training on the system. They receive electronic training, web training, as well as when they're in their field training program, they are given real-world training by their field training officers, and they're also trained on policies. Additionally, the policies are electronically acknowledged and logged for accountability. So the officer says they read the policy, they understand the policy, they can't come back and say, I didn't know I couldn't do that. So that's another level of safeguarding. When conducting searches within the system, any of our staff that has search capabilities are required to put in the case or CAD number. A CAD number is generated by DeKalb County E911. You call 911, they're dispatching a call, it's given a CAD number. Not every call generates a report. So sometimes a CAD number can be used instead of a case number. The criminal offense being investigated, it also logs the date, the time, the officer's name, what type of device they were on, and that all pulls up in our audit logs as we do those weekly audits as well.

And they can't search anything with that case, I think.

They have to have a case or a cat number. Some people may ask, why would we search for that case number? A prime example is DeKalb County. Just an example, DeKalb County PD puts out a be on the lookout on a stolen vehicle that was last seen in the area of Memorial and Coventry. Because of the proximity, the officer may want to search and make sure that they didn't get a delayed hit or maybe ensure that it's not coming in the city. They can put the CAD number, which then Deputy Chief, because we didn't generate a case report, they can put the CAD number in.

That they get from DeKalb County.

That they get from DeKalb County because it's a DeKalb County call that we're assisting on. Okay. Similarly, a missing person vehicle be broadcast. A lot of times the Amber Alert or a Maddie's call gets put out. There's a vehicle associated with it. Our officers may log in, put a reference, and search and see if it's been hitting up in our area, if they have reason to do that. Kind of dig into the audit process and what we look at. We look at the frequency a staff, an individual staff member runs a tag number. Additionally, we look at the frequency a tag number is run by all staff. That may be a red flag also. Ensure vehicle that is associated with, we also ensure the vehicle is associated with a case or pad number that we are conducting the audit on. Ensure the criminal offense is being investigated as long and confirm the vehicle is linked to the case or pad. We have seen, we have had to dig into some things that kind of raised our spidey senses, but they were directly correlated to a report, a case, a CAD number, which was completely justified by investigation, one exam. Two months ago. Well, that tag number showed multiple entries by multiple officers over multiple days because what they were doing was when they would come into shift, they would log in because we want to try to find where, how and why a government tag was stolen. Can't tell you why. Doesn't make sense. But that audit came up as a red flag for us because we were seeing the government tag being run by multiple staff members, multiple times by each member, because what they were doing was they were logging in and they were running that tag when they started their shift to see if it popped up on any of the flock cameras in our area to make sure it wasn't being used on a fraudulent vehicle or anything like that. Oh, it's so annoying. So an alert, I mentioned alerts earlier where the tag, whatever it may be, actually alerts one of our staff members. I want to stress the importance of this because this is also, it may cover some of the concerns of officers taking Our staff, the information that sets an officer being alert includes a photo of the rear of the vehicle, license plate, the location, date, and timestamps. The alert tone, this is important, alert alone is not reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle. We have to take that alert a couple steps further. Our officers must visually verify the plate and the vehicle from the alert is correct. I think someone may have brought it up earlier. An eight may come up as a B and flop. Well, that means that that stolen vehicle is not that tag. They have to visually verify that tag, confirm that that tag matches the alert. In addition to that, the officer must verify the hit via their in-car computer, and or DeKalb County Dispatch. So what that means is stolen license plate coming through our city, ABC 123, alert. Officer, Deputy Chief Branch gets behind him. He can't just turn on his blue lights. He's going to get on his radio, DeKalb County E911, and tell him, run. ABC 123. Give it a minute or two, DeKalb County Police is going to come back and say that is confirmed. It is a stolen vehicle. Now we have articulable, reasonable, probable cause to conduct a traffic stop on that vehicle. Or, which has happened, negative, that vehicle is not stolen. Guess what? We don't do anything. So there are multi-levels that we require our officers and our is not enough reason to take law enforcement action. We need to visually verify, confirm the alert is being active and valid, and that's the most important thing, because a stolen vehicle may have been recovered, and for whatever reason, it hasn't been updated in the flock system. Moving on to some of the data concerns, Freedom of Information Act, captured license plate data by law enforcement agents shall not be subject to public disclosure. That's in Georgia law 35-122 subsection F. That 35-122 addresses all license plate data are data for Georgia law. Captured license plate data means global positioning, device coordinates, date, time, photograph, license plate, number, any other data captured or derived from the automatic license recognition system or any other source. That's 35.122 subsection A2. That's important to know because basically that says anything coming out of the flock system is not subject to open records. We do not release ALPR data under Freedom of Information Act or Open Records Act. So we don't, whatever that FLOC system is capturing, we get a request for that, we will not release it to the public in any way, shape, or form. Nor will we release it to an agency that is not a subscriber to FLOC for any reason. But what that means is, jump back to what I was saying, that FLOC does not contract with federal agencies, okay? Getting a little bit deeper on the data. Once again, I really think I want to hammer this home that the data is only retained for 30 days on a rolling basis. Once it's gone, it's gone. It's gone forever. After 30 days, no one can retrieve it to include my agency, my staff, block, or any other agency that may have access to the data. This information can be accessed by law enforcement. For law enforcement, I put parentheses, investigative purposes only. That is what's getting officers in trouble, not law enforcement purposes. Agency sharing, I will admit. Sorry, go ahead, go ahead.

You have to put a case number in. Yes. So if you don't put a case number in.

It won't be able to let you search.

Okay.

We've added that one. That's going to be a red flag in the heartbeat. It's just not going to correlate with anything we have.

But do you have a... So the cab, when they send their alert, they would send you... their case number or C80 number.

Yeah, we would do the CAD number. If the cab was passing all information that someone was seen in our jurisdiction, headed to our jurisdiction, maybe have reason to believe that an endangered person or Maddie's or Amber call was coming towards our jurisdiction. Obviously, we have that CAD number. We want to stay on top of it and see where it is. If it's hitting on any camera and going back to that previous example, you can get from Avondale to Abel, not hit a single flock camera. But yeah, they would have to enter something. The agency sharing. Within the FLOC system, law enforcement agencies that are contracted under FLOC can request and grant access to other agencies to share our data. And by data, what I mean is the searchability of a vehicle, location, time, and a date. All requests have to be approved by So we do share it with local agencies. We do share it with agencies throughout the U.S., but there's reason for it, and it's successful. It really is.

So you actually give them access to search our data?

Within reason. I can have capabilities to do search only. I have capabilities... Generally, agencies where we share our data, it is searchability only. And that's because... Kate said, shares it with us. And we were able to get that tag.

Is it turned off or terminated? They always have access.

Yes, ma'am. So I go in and physically remove them. Do you? Do I?

Physically remove them after you.

No, I have not had a case where I needed to. I felt like it needed to be removed. And going back to, and we'll get into some success stories here in just a second, the sharing is reciprocated and I can only control my staff. I understand some of the concerns that come along with that. But you start cutting off partners because of one person. And obviously, being a smaller city, I've been able to get more involved in this. And that's what I want to be is more involved with our policy decisions and how we're operating and everything else. You know, if a circumstance did arise, obviously, I would consider it. I would take action if I felt like that needed to be. Currently, I just kind of cut both edges.

So would you grant that access to one user or the whole agency?

The agency, and then the agency then has the ability to restrict what their staff or who, similar to BIPOC, by two or three tiers. So we can share it, but my live level officers and deputy chief branch and I cannot search. But at Georgia, we cannot search anywhere. We can't even search our own campus. discussion within law enforcement is looking at the restriction, who has the rights to search and what are those rights look like? And, you know, we, I feel like we are kind of got ahead of the curve and teared it off into that. And I think I had the reason to do it and it makes sense for us.

Let's see where we at.

All right. So the contract with plot, uh, signed January, 2024, uh, Multi-year contract to provide 10 of the Falcons automated license plate readers. The cameras were placed along Highway 278 within the residential area and along surface streets. Basically, the idea was to strategically place them where I can see who's coming into the city. My concern are the criminal activities, the individuals that are that the vehicle is associated with a crime already stolen wanted individuals coming into the city that obviously I want to protect our citizens that's the whole idea so most of the cameras are coming into the city along 278 with I believe it was two of the residential areas and one off the north side of 278 last but not the least um Not trying to sell anyone on anything, but I think it's very important to hit where these were. The cameras provided us resources that we were able to close some cases that if we didn't have it, those cases would be sitting in limbo right now. Victims would not have closure or anything else. To me, the big two things are the first two. We had two residents of Avondale States with diminished capacity were reported missing on two separate incidents, two separate people. One was located in Dawsonville, Georgia because of a flaw. We share our cameras with Dawsonville. Soon used the block, searched for that tag and that vehicle they were last seen in. It was hit all up 75 into Dawsonville. Dawsonville, we were able to locate it with the Sheriff's Department and return that resident's home safely. One that was a little bit more recent, an individual had been not seen for about a week or two. A resident called in. The vehicle was located in a small town in North Carolina. Additionally, the resident was found wandering in the woods on the brink of hyperthermia. Block, you know, I'm not saying, I'm not going to say the what-if game because there's no way to predict the future, but that one really hit home because we located the vehicle, the deputies set out a search area up in North Carolina and found this individual wandering in the woods. What would have happened if 12, 24, 48 hours would have passed? You just don't know. We had a robbery. where all we had was a color make and model vehicle. We were able to locate that vehicle in East Point. And additionally, that we were able to identify the suspects, make an arrest, and those suspects were tied to additional robberies in East Point, Atlanta, and South Fulton. Entering auto suspects and attempted entering auto suspects. These are numerous for us, where if we only have a description of a vehicle or a neighbor's ring camera that doesn't capture the tag, but gives me a yellow Chevy Camaro. Plug that in there, start doing our searches. This is detectives doing these searches. Sure enough, that vehicle hit. Recently, we were able to identify a vehicle within 24 hours with assistance with the cab. Stopped the vehicle, arrested the suspect, and the canvas tied them to almost 50 or 60 additional entering autos. At night, they hit two of our residents. So, reoccurring criminal activity. And then theft damage to property where the ring camera of the resident, you know, captured the vehicle. Again, make model. We're able to track them down. affected arrest in a short amount of time to where that individual couldn't come back or the victim had closure, so on and so forth. These are just a few. I could go on and on for hours with some of the success stories that we've had because of Flock. And these are success stories that it's not taken away from the boots on the ground with the detectives doing in front of a judge but this is a tool that they're now using that we're able to link criminal activity across jurisdictional boundaries solve cases and fractions of times without this effort without this system could potentially limbo for years with no workable leads but again um

Okay, so now that we've learned about the program itself, I wanted to talk about the contract just briefly. The way it worked was that we entered into essentially a four-year contract with Flox Safety with an opt-out after two years, which we chose not to do because of its success. The way it works is you're essentially leasing here. lease each one of those cameras over a year's period is $3,000.

Per camera?

Per camera, correct. So it's a $30,000 lease deal a year. Our contract expires in 2028, the first quarter of 2028. So that would be our opportunity to either continue to lease the product and enter into a new contract or to remove the product without penalty. Now, I have noticed just reading news stories from across the country that cities are terminating the contract during the contract period. And some of those cities are paying the remainder of the contract and some of those cities are arguing breach of contract in order to not pay the remaining value of that contract. I can't speak to whether or not we would be potentially successful in removing ourselves from the financial burden if we were to terminate that contract early. Depends on, you know, what that decision would look like, what the discussions with Flock itself would be, whether we take legal action or anything like that. So essentially, we go ahead and pay for that annual lease rate early in the year. So from a financial standpoint, we are currently three-fourths of the way done with the contract. Um, so, uh, let's just say you decided that you no longer want to be associated with flock and you want to terminate that contract effective immediately. If we weren't able to reach an agreement with flock or take successful legal action, we would owe $30,000, um, to fulfill the terms of that contract. Um, plus lose the back third of the value that we've already spent for, um, you know, the contract to date this year. Now, we did not bring this to you in order to necessarily engage in a discussion about whether or not to continue the use of the plot safety program. We didn't want to ground. And really to also make it very clear that we very much understand the concerns of the general public, any concerns you may have, and the particular pitfalls that are associated with the product. Like Chief has said, there is no way currently to address Those are some of the things that Chief Hess will be involved in discussing with Senator Albers and the potential formation of this task force in order to provide a regulatory framework that has teeth to it. We're not there yet. I do believe there's a meeting tomorrow to begin that discussion, correct? So that's where we stand contractually. Obviously, I think if a regulatory framework existed to remove the concerns that we, in fact, have about other abuse by other potential agencies who subscribe. That would allay a lot of our concerns. However, to be candid, we're not there yet. And you have seen had had to place multiple officers on leave for unauthorized searches um you know this happens in other jurisdictions it hasn't happened here uh of course the way we we try and guard against that is with our weekly audit program uh knowing that you know uh if somebody were to violate the policy that we have in place and that they have signed to adhere to, that they would be subject to serious disciplinary action. Like a resident stated earlier, this technology is still very new. You know, our use of it is new. A lot of use by other cities, not only in DeKalb County, but the state of Georgia and nationwide are new. So, you know, we are unfortunately in a kind of learn as you go process from a legal standpoint about how we address some of these concerns. weigh you know the pros versus the cons to understand you know you know what value we want to place on being able to close cases and make arrests that we wouldn't otherwise be able to with the use of the system versus I think that's the conversation. We're very much open to it and want to be as transparent as humanly possible with our residents and visitors to this city. Not just our residents are affected. It's anyone who travels through here. Really, it's anyone who travels through DeKalb County. If y'all recall, I think this was that, you know, we, at that time, we actually existed as a whole system where, you know, other law enforcement agencies around us already had the system installed. We didn't. So there was kind of a loss of investigative capability as vehicles entered and exited out of adolescence. So that's why we brought this to you all tonight. We want to make sure that the public understands that we get where a lot of their concerns are coming from. We want to have an open, honest discussion about it. That's led us to this point.

You said it's 3K per camera. Do we have any software maintenance expense or data storage?

We had an expoliation expense when we first contracted the equipment, but the entirety of the program is built into each panel. So $3,000 per camera includes the use of the software in order to execute searches for the data.

So in my understanding that this is not video, this is like it's taking pictures.

They are snapshots in time. So like Chief Pepp said, they are location, date, and time specific and stamped to that effect. And the cameras that we have, and of course, Block offers different products, but the cameras that we have takes pictures of the rear of vehicles only.

And we have a specific vendor that we work for.

It's their product.

Okay. Just one last question. Sure. How many agencies would you say have access to our system?

I was just looking at it yesterday. I think we're at three million at most. And I will, let me just preface this. Most of them are in the southeast. mostly Georgia. I would say probably 80 plus percent are shared access in Houston, Georgia. We do have several in Florida. We do have I feel like the ones that are outliers, we had a case that kind of went up to Maryland, so we added the states to swing towards that Maryland. We had a case that went out to Arizona, so we started adding and reciprocating those out to Arizona. So, you know, I review every one of them. Matter of fact, I had three this morning, and all three were from Georgia that just actually came on board with FLOG. that are fairly close.

The access is case specific though, right? They don't have blanket access, right?

No, they would have to do the search data input to be able to search our cameras. And when you do that, you can do your cameras, you can do within 50 miles, you can do state of Georgia. So, you know, when you're searching, we limit our searches to what do we need? You know, we're not going to search New York City just to search New York City.

I'm a little confused on that. You have to have a case, but if somebody's coming in from another place, they're not going to have a case number. I don't understand that.

So every agency can set their own parameters within FLOC. adding a lot of the audit tools that we used to do audits by hand. Now they have an audit tool in addition to us still doing audits by hand. And those systems, they're bringing on audit systems. So if you don't mind, I can get you an answer tomorrow. I just don't want to misspeak about what's required on all agencies.

Thank you, Chief Hess, for the presentation and for all the work that you've done and the state of the art you've done to try to make our use of it responsible. I just have a couple of questions, and you might not know the answer to this one, but even if it's a... I know we only subscribe to the moment in time snapshot, but do the cameras that we have, are they capable of taking the pictures of other things, like people and things like that, even though we don't have access to it because we don't pay for it.

The only thing that triggers that photo is the cameras, and this is something I probably should have put in there. So the cameras are in the right-of-way on the roadway. The way the cameras are angled, they're not angled at the sidewalk. They're angled into the roadway to be able to capture that. Now, I will say that you may get... more down the road picture of a sidewalk because the angle, that'd be the wide angle, the angle of the camera capturing it. But I mean, it would be captured in a car. Or there would happen to be somebody on the other side.

My other question is like, what would it mean? Like, let's say we get rid of our flock. What would it mean for our city to be a no flock zone in the middle of an area that is heavily block. Let's say somebody commits a crime and they know, I know I've driven by 10 block cabs getting away from the scene of the crime. Could they theoretically then ditch that car somewhere in Attadale Estates, steal another car, then get out of Attadale?

That's kind of a loaded question. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, we can throw a theory out. Yeah, that's a theory. Yeah. Do I want to give that much credit to a criminal? Probably not. But what it is, is we're a whole and a network. And I will tell you, the Cab County, we work very closely together, all of our municipalities. And as soon as we went on board, our first agencies that were approved were That's just something that only the future would know is if we were to become another void again, because every agency in the cab, minus Pine Lake, is a subscriber to one. system. And you're seeing all the flock is feeding into real-time crime centers, all the bigger cities that have a need and create these real-time crime centers.

Chief, are you, because I know some of the concerns that have been talked about concerns like legality and privacy concerns. Are you able to elaborate a little bit on the legal hurdles that allow FLOC to even run this model in the first place? So, you know, what the legal things that they pass and, you know, because we do have private laws in place and stuff. Can you elaborate on some of those concerns and what measures were

The arguments that have been made in district courts, and that's where it's been at now, are Fourth Amendment illegal circumstances to capture that data. Those arguments have been struck down by circuit courts. There are still several pending to include one in our circuit. It'll be the first one that's heard out of Florida. way that the way the rulings have here is to be a fourth minute illegal search and seizure they're arguing the tracking versus the snapshot and time when a citizen is in public in a public space to include a roadway They do not have a right to privacy. It goes back to you see videos of First Amendment auditors that stand on sidewalk and videotape shopping center trying to get a reaction because you have no right to privacy when you're in a public space. The roadway specifically, you have no right to privacy preventing an officer running your tag just to run your tag. That's been ruled on as well. and capturing that data and getting that return. And if it's on a, what we call a hot list, one stolen vehicle, one stolen person, missing person associated with other criminal activity that falls in that category, it's capturing that and basically doing an officer's job. I don't want to pinch and hold myself, It really is. Now, I also expect everyone's right to privacy. I mean, when I take the uniform off and I'm out with my family, if someone were to throw a video camera up my face in public, I wouldn't react. But I mean, would it kind of hurt me? Yeah, I respect that. But that's where we're at with the current federal case laws, current circuit court rulings. Can that change in time? We all know one of these cases go to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices rule differently. It changes the whole scope of that. But until that happens, we work in the here and now of that this is all public information. It's the right to privacy. It's not tracking your vehicle, as I explained before, because it's a moment in time at a specific location. That's why if I were to put a GPS tracker on your vehicle, I would have to have a warrant to place that tracker, to vehicles travel. Flock doesn't do that. The ALPR system does not do that. Let me reiterate. I'm only talking about what we have. It's a moment in time. It's a snapshot. On a public roadway, in a vehicle, where you're legally required to have a registration, a tag, or a map. Thank you.

I've got a question. So first, thank you for for you personally, for your activity with your organization, Chiefs of Police, and with your demeanor and the way you talk about this and the way you consider it. Because it's clear that you are seeing it holistically and you are aware of personal, private, big picture and small picture concerns. We've given examples of lots of different ways where it goes. he addresses. So I have two questions. One is about retention timeframe, and one is about the technical specific thing about it. So I saw that the police chiefs of city of Decatur did a similar presentation to their board. And I think I also read, but I just can't remember where, that the flock systems has changed their maximum retention date to seven days instead of 30 days Not for cases, like when it's in a case, it can keep going, but just for the raw data, let's say. Can you comment on that?

So that's the preemptive conversations leading into some of these future meetings we're going to have with GACP and GSH, Sheriff's and Chief Associations, is further reducing that time limit down shorter. Personally, what I have seen is reducing it down to seven days may be a little bit too much. The reason being is we may be investigating a case and we may not have that vehicle information for six days. We may not only get that vehicle information until day seven. Could I see it being reduced? Yeah, I think seven days is a little bit much. I'm open to discussions with my peers as we move forward working with the legislators. You come home, and you realize your house is burglarized. You have ring cameras. You didn't see the alert. They captured the vehicle. Day eight, you're reporting that burglary, or day seven in the 11 hour, you're reporting that burglary, and that data's gone. And that's what I'm looking at is, in a perfect world, we have vehicle information real time. In a real world situation, most of our cases, we're not developing those leads of a vehicle for several days. So seven days, I've seen it. And when I'm preparing for some of these meetings, I'm going to be talking to my criminal investigators and kind of seeing what their timeline is on when they're developing realistic leads. Because we don't want to go every black SUV. We want to make a model. That's kind of where I'm at with that.

Okay, and then just a practical camera question like you mentioned. When the system's installed or when a camera's installed or a future camera were to be installed, do you personally get an opportunity to see the angle or view that that camera has?

Yeah, so basically in the coding phase, the development before approval, they have to send a scout team out. I give them... I give them locations where I would like them. Those cameras are solar powered, so they have to send a scout team out, and they have to do some map work on the back end to make sure that it's going to generate enough solar power. Additionally, it gives me a snapshot of what that angle would look like before install, and then after install, we can see it in real time. And we can also make adjustments. I mean, that's the thing too, is they... They have an angle, downward angle, because they're up on poles, as well as an angle away from the road that they maintain for their system to be effective.

I know that many people would prefer to just maybe not have it, but if there were a camera in what someone might consider a sensitive location, like near a school, If there was other places where it could be, if it could be moved 50 feet and still operate functionally, is there an opportunity to consider that? If there was a concern, a reasonable concern, even if it's just to feel better and feel like the school is not in the field of you, for example.

Absolutely, and that can be done. I will just... caveat that with, once the cameras are in place and everything is good to go, there is a cost associated with moving the equipment. To me, it's minimal. It's anywhere between $500 and $1,500 based on location and everything else. You know, those can be considered and dealt with after installation. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Hess.

Thank you. All right. Let's move to the next item. I know there's a lot of people here in the comment. Do you want to?

Yeah. Okay. So the DeKalb Municipal Association, which is the association of municipal governments within DeKalb County, so all of the cities of DeKalb County have a working group to discuss items of mutual relevance. And one of the items of mutual relevance, though unlikely and far into the future if ever considered, would be the complete municipalization of DeKalb County, meaning that either existing cities would expand their to remove unincorporated areas of DeKalb County. Now, the likelihood of that happening, as the Mayor and I understand politically, is about 0%. However, as an exercise, the BMA Executive Director has asked all of the municipalities to provide a map of its ultimate aspirational annexation goals if there were no political hurts. So that the city of Brookhaven, who has a robust GIS system, can plot all of that. The reason to do that is so that if this ever came to fruition, we would have a head start on those discussions and not be embroiled in inner city conflict. So what I am proposing to submit to the DeKalb Municipal Association for this exercise purpose is the study map that we developed in 2018 with the Carl Benson Institute. And I've included that map in your packet. The map is a little out of date because some of the area that we studied for annexation purposes has already been annexed, i.e. Berkeley Village. So, my thought was to provide DMA with this map for the purposes of their knowing that this is not a decision point for you guys. It's not a decision point that will happen anytime in the near future or something that the county is interested in taking on with the state legislature or anything that the state legislature is actually interested in taking on. So I say that to say that our submission is likely just for show purposes. Now, what could become a reality, and the CEO has expressed interest in in the fans, is that there are what we kind of refer to as donut holes in already incorporated areas where you have a property or an assemblage of properties that still exist. the normal boundaries of the incorporated area. And we have two of those. The first is Avondale Station Apartments, and the other is the American Legion property. Now, the CEO has expressed an interest because it's difficult for them to provide services to these properties within the boundaries of I don't know what her interest level is. I don't know whether or not the state legislature would share that interest because it would have to be a legislative annexation. Just to clarify with you guys, there's only two ways that a city can accomplish an annexation outside the bounds of state legislation and that is through either the 100% method or the 60 method through brush you up on those processes. The 100% method means that a property owner who has control of an entire property says we want to annex into the city, and if the city is interested in that proposition from that property owner and it's contiguous, then the city can grant that annexation petition. There's also another method for neighborhoods called the 60-60 method. This is Yeah, 60-60. No, it's 60-60. It's 60-60. And I'll explain. Okay, so the 60-60 method for neighborhoods. So individual properties owned by both forms, you know, you have more than one owner, such as what happened with Berkeley Village. 60% of the property owners in that area and 60% of the registered voters in that area have to sign the annexation petition for So needless to say, again, what I'm proposing to submit to DMA is really just for exercise purposes only. And I propose revising this map to exclude the need or the want or the desire Those were areas we studied for potential adaptation, noting that that would be the far reaches of boundary expansion. That's correct. And if we if one other thing to speak to was that potential municipal conflict earlier. So let's just say we reduced these areas. That would provide a greater opportunity for your neighbors in Clarkston or Decatur to try to include those areas. So you want to be as aspirational.

but like patrick said i mean i think the chances of something like this happening are pretty slim i mean the county has no i mean other than these donut holes to mention you mentioned which are this really departments in america and asia there's no reason for the county to want to do this i mean they're just you know why would they do it i think they would be here i mean unless they're spending moral services in that area then they're collecting in taxes which is rare. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's not, but generally that's not something they're super interested in. There would be some advantage to them municipalizing themselves for the entire southern part of the county because they collect a whole other range of taxes they don't currently collect. But the argument for that is not actually that great either. And there would be probably some serious opposition to that. I mean, there was an effort for years to municipalize the whole southern part of the county. It got a tiny bit of traction, but it eventually fizzled out after years of effort. And, you know, I think if we could gain some of these properties like the Legion and the apartment complex, that'd be great. That makes sense. There's been an indication that the county's interested in doing that because, again, the cost of servicing those is, I guess, in their mind, not really worth it. And there's a lot of those in the county. And they probably studied that and said, hey, it's not going to be a big enough hit for us. These cities need it. We don't want it. It works out better. But But like Patrick said, to not participate in this could be falling in the well. You never know. Because the legislature changes frequently, and what the legislature was 10 years ago or 12 years ago is not what it is now. And baptized change, and who knows? So we're just trying to, as we've done many times before, just make sure we put our claim in. So. That's it. Is that fair? Yes. There we are. Yes. So, you know, so, I mean.

Y'all are all good if I send.

We are. Yeah. Okay. Good night. This is probably at least the third time we've done this. Okay, let's try it again. Why not? You know, so let's see. But anyway, I got nothing more. That's it. That's it. Okay. So any other... Can we take a two, three-minute break? Sure.

A two-minute break. All right. She's counting. Don't count.

We have, um, you know, covered all of our discussion items, and so public comment. We're now open for public comment. If you see the thing, three minutes, please give us your name and address, just for the record. Um, yes, Phil. Uh, Phil O'Brie, Nightbird Below.

Um, in order, um, regarding the golf cart ordinance, um, I, uh, would basically agree that keeping the age at 16, I guess, makes sense. But I would like the counselor and the OMC to explore mechanisms for giving police force people greater opportunity to actually be policing golf carts because from what I am seeing, including, I think, yesterday or the other day, someone driving with a baby strapped to his chest in a golf cart, that some greater form of enforcement, I think, is necessary to keep something from happening because obviously, even with the road damage, are occurring, people are not, you know, the existing and raising the age is going to change that. Then regarding the FLOC system, I would encourage, you know what I'm saying, to continue in the current, in the current contract, but be very cognizant of what FLOC is doing to make the security of the to eliminate abuse of the program and then hopefully have a lot of information available for the decision on whether to renew it. And thank you, Chief, for having a really good policy for us and hopefully influencing building policies for statewide Google Task Force. And then I will say with a great amount of relief, I'm happy to hear that it was an exercise only for the annexation. I hope that coming goes. and seeing the map and discussing with my better half, I was very, very worried about what an increase in geographical size of what's being shown there would be to the character of our city as a whole. Thank you. Did you go on?

Oh, you go. Yes, ma'am. Hi.

I'm Laura Whalen. I'm at 58th Circuit. Thank you, Chief, for the presentation. I very much appreciate it. Two things strike me. Thank you for putting some guardrails in place to do more of our advocacy. I appreciate that. Two things that were said. Chief, you said that approximately 300 agencies beyond Avenue have access to our information. I appreciate that. I don't know if you looked at me, but my mouth dropped open like a fish when you said that, because it doesn't go away. That's the fight that concerns. I realize that you're totally over here. You said, and it's true, you don't have the color of a white puppy. And so if you see it in appropriate use in other places, that is. I ask you to think about not having, revoking or limiting that absence, because that is extremely You can control what happens here. And then Patrick, you mentioned, and maybe Chief, I see you can speak to this. If, this is an if, someone violates the law in an appropriate use of one account here. Patrick, you mentioned discipline. I want to know what that discipline is and can you use this? Thank you.

Let me just point out, this is public comment, and we try not to engage in sort of a debate or dialogue, and we're recording your questions and can get back to you, but we can't always answer everything on the spot, and we try to avoid that.

I thought public comment was more dialogue.

It's not. It's actually there, but yeah, we've done that in the past, but it's It doesn't work.

So if you're able to get back to me, how will that?

You'd have to give us your email or.

We have comment cards.

So the comment on a written down, it will be responded to. Okay.

And that's just to be fair to everyone. Yes, ma'am.

My name is Diane Doherty and I'm living in the condos. And I'm also a member of Avondale Action. I'm very concerned about what you have said. I loved your presentation. I'm very satisfied with the work of Avondale Police. But what I am concerned, and I believe the local structure is being framed properly with benchmarks So that you can look back and see how this is working. My large concern is of is building a larger surveillance network and at any point in time. We couldn't stop it. And I would like to know what, uh, when you go to these meetings with the Senator, I think it's really important to have everybody understand that even if there is oversight in Georgia, this is much larger than one state or the Southern states. And we have to keep in mind the broader picture. of what is going to be the final outcome as laws change. So I think it can be a very good thing, but a lot of times when you build something that is this massive and grows, I think it could become something that can get out of control and could come back to bite us. Thank you all. And thank you for your efforts.

Okay. Yes, ma'am. Back there.

Yeah, my name is Paula Rose. I'm an 842 Stratford, and I was not planning to speak tonight, so I don't have anything prepared, but I did want to say I came into it, as many people have already said, not necessarily concerned about the AEPD. And thank you, Chief Hess, what you said tonight really just confirmed that we don't necessarily have anything to be worried about locally. That being said, my bigger concerns are with Flock as a company and not just Flock, but also their competitors. The idea that the data just disappears after 30 days, maybe I'm cynical, but I don't believe that. And that's the concern that I have. It's not Avondale and maybe not even some of the other access, which is a concern, but My bigger concern is the bigger picture, the flock, what they're doing with it, what other companies are working with them to do with it, what governments are working with them to do, whether it's under the table or above board. Thank you.

Hey there. My name is Ethan.

I live at 3154 Stratford Green. I believe you are a good man and I appreciate you preparing this presentation sheet test. The gap in your logic is yes, perhaps now this seems on the up and up. I understand you want to focus on the now. You reiterated that many times. You said you don't want to play the what if game, then why have the risk? You do seem ready to focus on what is when we're talking about a seven day limit. Why is this different? Why should we trust flop? What if the policy changes in the future?

Yep.

Shouldn't the purpose of the chief of police be to be forward thinking for assessing risk and leading by example? Wouldn't you want a leader with accountability? Why should we trust Flock to look out for that in the United States? Cities in Colorado have canceled their Flock cameras and are taking garbage bags over the cameras because Flock won't take them down. Does that seem like a vendor we can trust for our city? I'm skeptical of the claim that they don't track routes, as these cameras are everywhere. It doesn't matter what route you are taking if they are tracking the points where you are. Also, your Hapeville point is flawed because if you take 285, Flock doesn't monitor interstates yet. You can get to Avondale at Hapeville because it's on 285. Otherwise, Atlanta is the most surveilled state in the country. There's a lot of... A lot of information in your presentation about what's happening now, but we are worried about how these systems may be abused now and in the future. I hope you will join us in being proactive and thinking about a better world that we would like to live in.

Thank you.

Yes. Again, thank you for the presentation. I do really appreciate steps you've taken locally. You seem like you've been proactive more than what was required to be on top of a lot of these concerns. I think it's clear not everywhere has. But beyond just potential for abuse, I also want to just talk about what even the company does on the surface. I understand that it's taking still pictures, not technically tracking you. But if there's cameras at every corner, you can see here, here, here, that paints a very clear picture. I understand the cameras are not everywhere right now, but the push seems to be to install more and more of them and expand them to get to that point that is effectively tracking. Even the distinction with still pictures between videos, a video is just a lot of still pictures. If you put enough still pictures together, you get a very clear picture. It might not be 24 frames per second, It might be one frame a second, one frame every 10 seconds. You can still literally see what's going on with that. This creates a database on everyone that passes in front of these cameras, whether they committed a crime or not, just in a database ready to be looked up. I think regardless of a technicality, I know it's a legal gray area currently going through the courts. I think that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I also Don't really believe the company's claims about still photos and only tracking vehicles. Not in Avondale Estates, but in other places in Georgia. There's flock cameras in parks, on walking trails, places where cars would never be. If all they can do is take pictures of videos, what are those cameras doing? It just doesn't seem to add up. The company has been publicly coddling them many, many times before. I don't know why we really trust them.

uh will kidd uh 13 south avenue plaza uh thank you for addressing some of our concerns chief i just been wondering throughout all of this in the discussion of lock cameras why would like a more analog type of traffic camera

not be sufficient one that is not included on this enormous nationwide database with so many points of access to so many different people who we have no idea who they are so that's that's a sense thank you yes phil i'm philip 5ish 3230 kensington my whole career has been in i.t so i just want to talk about kind of the i.t concern i have um

I don't know about Flock. I don't know about the company, how good they are. But once they deliver data to somebody, they've lost control of it. So the claim is about 14 days or 30 days of data retention. Yeah, you lose ability to search. But once it's out there, it's out there. And so if the data gets, you know, prints, screen captures, you know, copy, paste, whatever. We live in a world of aggregation where people are taking all this data about us and putting it all together about where we shop and what we do and photos. So once that data is delivered to the customer, the data retention, it's not a moot point, but it's a lesser point. So I just want people to remember that once it's delivered, it's delivered. And the data retention doesn't really stop that. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Hello, I'm Ashley Kousinger. I also live at 3154 Stratford Green. I understand that you find the flock system is successful, but I wonder if it's worth all of us living in a surveillance state. While you say it's a snapshot, the successes are because it tracks people across the state and over state lines. A system across our country is being built that have tracked women looking for abortion care, have stopped women, PestDoc activists and protesters, what else will it track in the future? And our cameras contribute to this system. It would be easier to arrest people without the constitution, without needing a warrant, without having to prove just cause. Just because these cameras make your job easier doesn't mean they're right. It's the scale and connected network that makes it a violation. It's also our money and our community. We can say if we don't want to be photographed in public with our own tax dollars every time I go past the Falcon. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. 3048 open place. Back again, still here. So the seven-day thing is a setting. You can revert it back to 30 days. It's just a default setting. The DHS thing, check the email. It's a lie. The, let's see, facial recognition, vehicle making model, those are full video sensors. They can do it. Raven was a gunshot detection system, and then a software rollout turned it into a human distress detection system. It's all there. Whether or not they're giving it to us, that's a different question. Also, Dunwoody PD, they ran a search for vehicle with Plymouth sticker. That's more. Yeah, you can find this stuff. It's all been floated. Let's see. I don't know about John Albers. I don't know anything about him. But there's some interesting stuff online about Flock's access to Chris Carr or AG. So I'd be surprised if Garrett doesn't show up at y'all's meetings, honestly. Privacy argument is basically predicated on the fact that they're so disconnected, it's not tracking. Atlanta is not the most, the correction on that is Atlanta is the most surveilled city in the world outside of China. They have at least 28,000 flock cameras and AJC clocks it at 60,000. I just don't know if they're all connected to flock. So at some point, how dense does it have to get before you are tracking? So this system wasn't built to be secure. It was built to make money. I'm glad they finally added multiple factor authentication and requiring case numbers, but they didn't before. Blocking is just plugging holes in the dam after they're found in a FOIA request that makes a national news story. So if I was wearing that badge, I would absolutely be arguing on how to use this ethically because it's very powerful and it's helpful, but we can't, unfortunately. It's just bad. It's just a bad system. And we cannot control how other people use it. So we're part of this thing trying to use it well, but we can't control how everyone else is using it. And we can't know if the company is doing to us what they have demonstrably done to other municipalities throughout. So unfortunately we just can't use it. It's a venture capital backed private firm in their series G funding. They are a, What are they up to that we can't foil is basically the question. Like, how much policing do we have to be doing of the lot to make sure we are not participating in all these things we know that have already happened nationally? Yeah. Oh, and the cameras, by the way, I've walked by cameras that are pointed at kids' parks. It's all there. Pools, stuff like that. It's all there. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

So I will reiterate my entire statement again, Lizzie George, 712 Stratford Green. But as per the concerns mentioned in the regular session about ICE having access to us, and I know that PLOC says they do not contract with federal agencies, but if we can be compelled to work with ICE or DHS, As per Appendix F that was mentioned last meeting, then effectively our data is their data. And I do think we have to keep that in mind when thinking about security. I understand Chief Hess is doing everything he can to keep it safe within BAPD, and I appreciate what you've done, but respectfully, it's out of your hands.

Thank you.

All right. Do we have any online?

None.

Okay. All right. Last call from the audience.

Is anybody missing a phone?

You don't think this thing is listening to everything today? Okay. Any other comments? Once or twice. Okay. Thank you all for being here. Thank you all for your comments and waiting through three hours of meeting. I hope that it was worthwhile in some way for you. We appreciate you being here. With that, any further things you promise to appear? Okay, so do I have a motion to adjourn? I move. I'm flying. Do I have a second? Next. I call over to say aye.

Aye.

Thank you all again. Have a good evening.