City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. It's all the way up. It's out to the front. It's not here.

In your case.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the May 21st Chandler City Council meeting. Welcome everybody. I would like to call our meeting to order and clerk, please take the role.

Mayor Hartke.

Here.

Vice Mayor Encinas. Here. Council Member Poston. Here. Council Member Ellis. Here. Council Member Orlando. Here. Council Member Harris. Here. And Hawkins is absent excused. We have a quorum.

Okay. Is Pastor Ruth Escobar, are you here? I didn't think so. Council Member Christine Ellis will lead us in our invocation and our Pledge of Allegiance by Council Member Poston.

Please rise as I pray. Thank you. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your presence in this room right now. Holy Spirit, we ask that you give us the wisdom and the knowledge that we need as we make the decision tonight for what's best for the city of Chandler. We ask, Father, that angels will encamp around this place right now. We decree and declare that everything we legislate in this place will be for the betterment of the people of Chandler. Father, we ask that as we stand in the gap for this city, that you will continue to be with us, that every step is ordered by you. May your name be glorified into this chamber tonight. We decree and declare, Father, that you are sending angels as they ascend and descend in this place right now to legislate with us and guide us and protect us and protect the city of Chandler. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember and Councilmember. Council, I've got a lot of speaker cards for item number 14. So I'm planning on pulling that and putting an action at the end. We do have tonight a consent agenda to public hearings. and action, as well as the approval of the downtown annual assessment, as well as the adopting the tentative budget. So quite a few things on our agenda tonight. Before we get to the consent agenda, I did want to ask, do we have any of our mayor's youth commissioners that are here tonight that are being approved tonight? Anyone from our, stand on up, stand on up, be bold. Thank you all. Thank you guys for applying to serve on our youth commission. Before we also get to looking at the consent agenda, I'm going to give two minutes for speaking, regardless of what it is tonight. And so there will be a green light up here. When you have 30 seconds left, it will turn to yellow. When it turns red, that's your signal to finish your sentence, not what you have prepared. So be ready for that. I do have two speaker cards that are related to consent. One on item 13, which is the bird ordinance, and the other is item 16, which I'm going to have to look up in a minute. Okay, the water maintenance. Very good. So consent item on item number 13, Thayne Martin. Thayne, state your name and city where you reside, and you have up to two minutes to share your thoughts.

Yes, my name is David Thayne Martin. I live here in Chandler, Arizona. I've been dealing with a nuisance bird issue for over a year and a half. I started this a year and a half ago. So I want to thank you for listening and bringing it to the council. And I encourage you to vote for it because it's been an issue for over three years. This isn't the first time it's been brought up. And it's been affecting many homeowners in my neighborhood because people overfeed animals and it causes damages to roof. It causes damage to property. And it's made my home literally covered in bird feces. And I'm done with it. So I'm asking each of you to finally take action and do the right thing and protect the citizens of Chandler. I elected every one of you and I expect you to be accountable to protect me and my homeowner because I pay my taxes and I expect you to protect me. So I'm asking you to do that, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker card is...

noah markham noah on item number 16 you have up to two minutes state your name and city will you resign um aloha mayor and to the rest of the city council my name is noah james markham and i'm from the great city of tempe and it was great election for us um yeah so uh i like this one because it's um It's about water maintenance, and that is a good thing. We are taking care of our water. And yeah, I like this one. And I see you're utilizing the town of Gilbert, of course. It's the town I grew up in, of course. They're doing a great job with their water over there. I understand why you're over there. But yes, please approve this, and mahalo. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. We also had... one written card and we're just going to enter all of these into the record but we did have one not speaker card but written card on item number four which is the bike ordinance what's that they don't say whether they're forward or against it so all right council that is all of the card, Vice Mayor, and it's going to keep me straight here. We have on the consent agenda, how would you like to proceed, Council?

Mayor. Council Member Orlando. I move that we approve the consent agenda of May 21st, regular meeting item 1 through 16, with the note of exception item 14, we move to action.

Second.

We have a motion by Council Member Orlando, second by Council Member Ellis. Any recusal? Second. Okay. Council, please vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Thank you. Next on our agenda tonight is a public hearing on item number 17 and then another on item number 18. Item 17 has to do with two parcels at the northeast corner of Ocotillo Road and Union Pacific Railroad. Proceed.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you today is ANX 2601. It is located at the northeast corner of Ocotillo Road and the Union Pacific Railroad. The surrounding land uses to the north is vacant land in Maricopa County. To the south, Ocotillo Road and residential. East is vacant land for a light industrial park. And west is the Union Pacific Railroad. The subject site is approximately 22.19 acres. And in 2022, Dominion purchased the site with the intent to build affordable housing and senior living. In late 2022, due to opposition, Maricopa County indefinitely continued the rezoning case to work with the City of Chandler on an acceptable proposal. In 2025, Evergreen purchased the site and recorded a pre-annexation agreement stating that the property will be zoned in the county and annexed and developed in the city. In November of 2025, Maricopa County approved the rezoning of the property to General Industrial District, IND2, with an IUPED overlay within Maricopa County. The initial city zoning will be planned in industrial district slash PAD, restricting the permitted uses for the two parcels. Per the pre-annexation agreement, planning staff is reviewing plans for a light industrial development. The site plan is over on the right side of the screen with the rendering just below. And per the agreement, after receiving plan approval and prior to construction, the property is to be annexed, which is where we are today. general plan designates the site as employment the chandler air park area plan designates it as industrial the city of chandler will provide water and wastewater to the subject property and the developer has been in contact with various city departments through the review of the proposed industrial development and that concludes my presentation

Thank you so much. Council, questions related to this annexation? Mayor? Council Member Landau. Good job.

Thank you. So a little, clarify my confusion here. We will be responsible for permitting process and the actual plot, plan, all that activity, correct?

Yep, mayor council member Orlando. That is correct. It will be reviewed concurrently with the county and the city. We've been working together to make sure that both parties are in agreement and then it will be developed within the city and permit fees all that stuff.

Where does that go to the city? Got it. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. Council any other questions.

All right, thank you so much. Our next public hearing item number is 18, the Annual Assessment for Downtown Chandler Enhanced Municipal Service. And welcome, we have Lisa and Lauren. Wait one second there, Lauren. I'm missing something in my notes here. Did we have any comments from the audience related to the public hearing item number 17? All right. Thank you. No cards. I would see them. All right.

Mayor.

Proceed.

You had one speaker card for the public hearing number 17.

Oh, I take that back. Lauren, hang on there. All right. Noah. I apologize.

Aloha, Mayor, and to the rest of the City Council. My name is Noah James Markham, and I'm from the Green City of Tempe. Yeah, so item number 17, yes, let's get the property and build on it. Yeah, that's it. Yes, ma'am. All right.

Thank you. All right. Item number 18. Lauren.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight, I'm here to present the fiscal year 26-27, the EMSD, the Enhanced Municipal Services District Annual Assessment. The EMSD was created in 2005 and is in its 21st year. The district covers 61.4 acres and over 1 million square footage of commercial space. An enhanced municipal services district is formed to provide services up and beyond typical public services elsewhere within the city. Such services include safety, beautification, marketing, promotion, and professional management and communications. These services are provided by the Downtown Chandler Community Partnership, the DCCP, through an annual contract with the city. To further expand upon the EMSD process, the assessment was authorized by the property owners in the district with 100% of the assessment proceeds being paid to the district. The city council is the governing body who officially enables this district, and the district must be renewed each year. The annual steps are as follows. Step one, set the rate by city council. This is the same assessment formula that has been used for the past 21 years. This year, the DCCP did not request a 5% increase for both private and public property. Step two, on March 26, council approved the tentative assessment and set the hearing date for tonight. Since then, staff has published the notice of hearing as required by ARS for five consecutive days before the hearing. And DCCP staff mailed notices to all property owners in the district of their right to file an objection, and there's been no objections. and then tonight step three is the public hearing and resolution of approval and the approval of contract with the dccp to administer the emsd and with that i'm happy to any answer any questions before i hand this over to jess who will present about the dccp council any questions for lauren all right proceed

Thank you, Lauren. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for your time and consideration. And on behalf of the DCCP Board of Directors and our organization, I will be providing an overview of some of the accomplishments that we've reached this fiscal year. But first, I'd like to share our mission statement. The Downtown Chandler Community Partnership is a 501 not-for-profit corporation whose mission is to mobilize leadership and resources to advance the development of Downtown Chandler as a regional destination for shopping, dining, living, culture, and the arts. Next, I'd like to highlight our board of directors. These individuals are leaders in the community who invest and volunteer for the betterment of the Downtown Chandler community. And this is our hardworking team. From left, you'll see myself, Whitney, Maddie, and Natalie. The services that we provide are above and beyond the standard city services. Our charter includes providing advocacy for our businesses, management, events, marketing, beautification and placemaking, and clean team services. This year, we were able to add two additional days a week of clean team services, bringing us to seven days a week service for the downtown, keeping us very, very clean. The DCCP relies on three major revenue streams that together provide financial stability and support for all of the services that we provide to the downtown stakeholders. These sources include that first the city's voluntary contribution, which we are extremely grateful for. The assessment income is the next one. And then the last and the largest revenue stream comes from our own fundraising and the events that we produce. With these dollars, this is the impact that we have made. This year, we continue to strengthen communication and engagement with downtown businesses through consistent and intentional outreach efforts. We maintained regular communication through our established channels, distributing 52 weekly emails and 12 monthly newsletters to our subscribers. In addition, our team expanded its outreach strategy by proactively connecting with businesses throughout the district to develop partnerships around micro events, things such as Run Club and Sunset Yoga, A new opportunity that we offer to our businesses is the chance to be included in PR initiatives through our contract with Evolve Public Relations. In continuing with our marketing and communications, we partnered with various media outlets. Some highlights of things that we featured are events like Sip and Santas, Wedding Walk, Third Thursday. They also covered activations that highlight downtown as a whole, things like Hearts for Your Sweetheart installation. And lastly, they covered special occasions for select businesses, such as New Year's Eve at the Brickyard. We'll continue pushing through summer to drive traffic through media attention in a traditionally slower season. A marketing win was partnering with Evolve and they had us front and center in the media. Since December, you'll see that we have an estimated media audience of over 91 million and a publicity value of over $2 million. We hosted 25 events this year and brought in 685 local vendors, farmers market vendors not included in that. Through our events, we brought in 27,000 event attendees and generated more than $154,000 in revenue. You'll see here that the success of Third Thursday is here. We are so grateful for the council amendment that granted the DCCP the funds to produce this free community event. The last occurrence of the event is actually tonight. Each month we hosted 30 to 50 vendors, which brought in three to 500 people to downtown during an off-peak time. As you can see, we provided a diverse event schedule and tried our best to offer as many free opportunities for residents and visitors to enjoy as we could. We have continued hosting micro events which provide an opportunity for the community for community building, I'm sorry, without the larger crowds. We wanted to provide reasons for people to keep coming back to downtown through these consistent events that are held at off-peak times. Here you'll see a full list of the micro events, many of which had multiple occurrences. All of these events are made possible through our team and our event partners. Partnerships have been a key for our very small but mighty team this fiscal year. So here's a list of all of our community partners that have brought value to our event. And here we just wanted to share a few photos of the community enjoying some of the downtown Chandler events. Now let's talk about Farmer's Market. I'm happy to report that after a full year of producing the Farmer's Market in-house, it's a great success. Natalie has grown and activated the market in new ways with the addition of the Kids Entrepreneur Market, as well as Senior Saturday. We're proud of the progress and are seeing very promising numbers here. The market brings approximately 36,000 visitors annually, and this year's total vendor gross sales are $496,000, all of this driving people to downtown and putting money back into the local economy. We installed various placemaking engagements. On top of our largest activation for Christmas, we installed hay bales for the fall season. We partnered with Love IM for a special Valentine's Day installation, and we added fun for both St. Patty's Day and Cinco de Mayo. As we look for safety and beautification improvement, the DCCP partnered with the city to install alleyway lighting in the San Marcos alleyway. And this year, because of the success of our first annual Dollar Mania event, we were able to install a mural in the hallway alleyway. We worked with Gavin Jacobs on the design and Kayla Newnham is the artist that we selected. So she is actually currently painting this. You guys should head over and check it out. It should be done in the coming weeks. We are so grateful for your partnership and your continued support, the continued support of City Council and the City of Chandler staff, especially Lauren and Kim. So appreciated. Thank you all.

Thank you, Jess. Council, any questions?

Council Member Harris. I know that DCCP does help out with June teens with cultural music in a park. So I wanted to make sure that that partnership continues and remains

Absolutely. Absolutely. We're looking forward to it. And seeing actually how we can grow that, I think would be a great.

Okay. Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you. Additional other comments or questions? All right. I do see one speaker card from the audience. Noah Markham. You can sit down again, Jess. Thank you.

Aloha mayor and to the rest of the city council my name is Noah James Markham and I'm from the great city of Tempe um yes I would like this to get approved thank you for spreading the joy in this uh city about the Pacific Islanders um that is very close to my home um and um Yeah, so it's really awesome. But there's one thing I hope maybe we could do that Tempe used to do. I'm trying to figure out what city could do this, but maybe we could have like a New Year's Eve party. I don't know. For New Year's Eve before the new year. So maybe think about that in your downtown. I don't know. Mahalo. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. Council, that covers the... both of our public hearings. Next on our agenda tonight is item number 19, resolution number 6,000, approving the annual assessment for FY 2026-27 for the Downtown Chandler Enhanced Municipal Service District, what was just presented. Council, is there a motion? Mayor? Mayor. Council Member Harris. Yeah, I wanted to bring Flock.

Is Flock here today?

I'm going to have them. I just moved that on, so I'm going to have them after we do these.

Oh, after the DCCP. We moved it to after. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I would like to make a motion to approve the DCCP contract. I got to get the... Is that okay for me to say that? For which one the... 19. Yes, I would like to make a motion to approve item number 19. To continue on the partnership.

I second. All right. City Attorney, that's good. Great. Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second. Council, please vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

Great. Our next item on actions that was regularly scheduled is item number 20, resolution number 6006, adopting the FY 2026-27 tentative budget and 2027 through 36 tentative capital improvement program. All right. Let's see a presentation on this.

Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council. The tentative budget adoption presentation tonight will briefly cover the fiscal year 26-27 proposed budget and the 27-2036 capital improvement program. Setting the budget is one of the most important actions our mayor and council takes each year and is also required by Arizona revised statutes. Chandler's budget process began in October of 2025 with mayor and council discussions to provide policy direction, followed by the resident survey, many department meetings, three council work sessions, and the all-day budget briefing. Chandler is required to adopt the tentative budget, which is before you tonight, and which sets the amounts required to meet the expenses of fiscal year 26-27. Once tentatively adopted, the budget cannot increase. A public hearing on the budget and on the tax levy will be held on June 11th. On that same date, a special meeting will follow to adopt the budget. The final tax levy will be set on June 25th. The total 26 to 27 budget, including all funds, is just over $1.87 billion. This represents a 14.8% overall increase in the city's total budget, most of which is associated with a CIP. The operating budget increase is 1.2%. The general fund portion of the budget totals $617.7 million. It increased by 0.3%, which is ultimately flat. The budget adheres to the city's financial policies established by city council and is structurally balanced. All ongoing costs are supported by ongoing revenues and all one-time costs are covered by one-time revenues. We use council's strategic framework to guide all of the decisions that were made throughout this process. This budget provides a cost-effective quality service to Chandler's residents and maintains long-term financial sustainability. It also reduces the primary property tax rate for the 11th consecutive year. Resident engagement was accessible throughout the budget development process during our kickoff through the resident budget survey, the three budget workshops, the all-day budget briefing, and tonight's tentative budget adoption. This slide is a recap of where the money comes from and where the money goes. Where the money comes from is broken out by various revenue categories that include fund balance, grants, state shared revenues, local taxes and license fees, utility charges, property tax, bonds, other charges for services, and system development fees. You'll notice the largest bar represents fund balance, which includes contingencies, reserves, and funding established in prior years for the continuing projects. The other revenue categories include new money coming into the city. Where the money goes is broken out into categories including department operating. This is the portion of the budget that funds areas like parks, libraries, streets, and public safety. Another category is major capital. This includes both new and carry forward budget and makes up the largest portion of the expenditure budget. As you know, most projects cannot be completed in one year. Other expenditure categories are debt service, contingency reserves, and vehicle equipment and technology replacement. Chandler has one of the lowest costs for providing essential services of all cities in the Valley. The cost of services study conducted by the city of Tempe in 2025 was based on rates that were in place on July 1, 2025. It compared utility costs, sales tax, and property tax costs for a typical home to come up with the average annual household costs, and Chandler was the lowest at $1,833 per year. The fiscal year 26-27 budget continues to reflect this approach of fiscal responsibility. This is great news for our residents as it shows we can provide the quality services they desire while keeping our rates low. The 10-year... The 10-year CIP from 2027 to 2036 totals approximately $2.9 billion. The CIP was updated to reflect additional utility and general projects and reflects updated project cost estimates that are in line with today's construction environment. The CIP focuses on the City's aging infrastructure. As Chandler continues to age, we want to ensure that the infrastructure that supports the needs of our residents is maintained. Additionally, the CIP includes projects utilizing new voter-approved bond authorization. We only appropriate year one of the 10-year CIP. The proposed CIP budget for fiscal year 26-27 totals $1.08 billion and is made up of three components. The first is capital carry forward, which is for projects that are already in progress. We also have new project funding and reserves. Very few capital projects start and end in the same fiscal year. To keep this appropriation, state law requires that the unspent budget be reappropriated until the project is complete. As far as key budget dates, tonight is the tentative budget adoption. The budget public hearing and final adoptions are scheduled for June 11th, and the adoption of tax levies is scheduled for June 25th. For your consideration tonight is resolution number 6006, approving the tentative adoption of the fiscal year 26-27 budget and the fiscal year 27-36 CIP. This slide displays our website in case residents have questions or need additional information. Additionally, we have prepared a budget spotlight that summarizes the fiscal year 26-27 budget on one page. It's available on our website and hard copies are available here tonight. This concludes my presentation.

Council, any questions? I've got a very granular question, and I don't know whether you can answer it, or Dawn, I might throw it to you, or maybe even Leah, because you're familiar with it. Got a lot of comment cards and some speaker cards related to the feral cats and the trap, neuter, and release program. So how much in this budget is for that again? Can someone give me that answer? $30,000?

Mayor, council, it's $30,000 is currently in this budget.

Okay. So same as last year. And then we funded with some other funds as well to increase that amount last year, right? That is correct.

This current year. Yes, that is correct. We had a couple of additional programs that we did throughout the year. And I want to say the total funding came in just a little bit under $50,000 total. Okay.

So I have $25,000. comment cards that basically support the program. I think they Some would like more money. Some are just grateful that we do it. Those will all be entered into the record. I do have some speaker cards related to the budget, too. And these are all, again, related to feral cats. So I think you could sit down right now. We didn't have any questions. And if there's another question that comes, just be available. What do we have? One, two. three, four, five, six, six speaker cards on item 20 related to feral cats. First up is Jennifer McTeague. Please state your name and city that you are a resident of, and you have up to two minutes. And for those following, it's okay to say, I agree with her, unless you have something new to add to it. You don't need to repeat the exact same things. And I will reiterate that statement when we get to item number 14 as well. So please state your name and city, and you have up to two minutes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Jennifer McTighe. I'm a Chandler resident and director of a small local kitten rescue. Over the last 12 months in just the neighborhood where I live, approximately 300 homes, I have personally trapped over 75 community cats through Chandler's trap, neuter, return efforts. Despite that, residents and colony caretakers estimate there are still at least 75 to 100 cats remaining in the same neighborhood alone. This issue does not fix itself. Without intervention, unaltered cats continue reproducing, litters continue being born outdoors, and the problem grows exponentially. TNR is not simply about helping cats. It reduces nuisance behavior residents regularly complain about, spraying, fighting, yelling, roaming, and territorial damage. It has also brought neighbors together. Residents now work cooperatively to identify colonies, report kittens, monitor injuries, educate one another, and participate in humane solutions instead of simply watching the problem continue. When kittens are found young enough, they can be removed from the cycle entirely, socialized, sterilized, and adopted into homes instead of growing up outdoors and reproducing themselves. As the director of a small rescue, I can tell you firsthand that without continued support for TNR, the financial burden shifts almost entirely to the volunteers and the small nonprofit organizations already stretched beyond capacity. Reducing or eliminating support will not make the caps disappear. It will simply make the problem larger, more expensive, and harder for the city and its residents to manage later. One last thing I would like to ask the mayor and the city council. You open this meeting with prayer.

So I'm sorry, Jennifer, your time is up, but thank you.

The last thing I would like to say is you guys open this meeting with prayer.

Thank you. Mayor, quick question. Mayor, Council Member Orlando, quick question. Ma'am? Ma'am? Jennifer. Jennifer.

Yes, sir. Sorry.

How much is the actual surgery is costing today?

It's approximately $65.

Versus what was it, say, a few years ago when we put the initial funding in there?

That I wouldn't be able to answer for you, but Carrie would be able to okay well We'll be in suspense Okay, that's fine without the city funding however if I have to go and have the rescue myself Use other clinics we pay about $100 per cat so we get a discount what you're saying. Yes, obviously big Yes, absolutely by about $40

Thank you.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Council Member. I do have a question concerning educating those in the neighborhoods that you live in. Yes. Is this part of what you're doing right now also? Absolutely. Educating them? In what form are we educating them?

We educate them from anywhere from how to deal with feral kittens if they find them in their backyard, who to reach out to if they find kittens in their backyard. We educate them as to different ER clinics they can bring injured cats to if they find them. If there are feral cats found on the road that are deceased, which there are a lot, where those can be brought to as well. We also educate them as to how to take care of their backyard, to deter cats if they would like to do that. We also educate them as to how to trap. We get them together and we teach them how to actually become involved in the TNR program.

So prevention is a big part of- 100%. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Sue Harrington. Sue, please state your name, city you reside, and you have up to two minutes.

My name is Sue Harrington, and I live at 671 North Madrid Lane, Chandler. Good evening, Mayor and Council. As a proponent of the TNR program, I was taken by surprise when I learned the city allocated only $30,000 to the program for the upcoming fiscal year of 26-27. After my meeting with city manager back in March, I was under the impression that we would be getting at least $100,000 for this very needed program. This program is vital to our community who are deeply impacted by outdoor cats in their neighborhoods. Estimates suggest that there are over 500,000 outdoor cats in Maricopa County. The program was created to control the overpopulation of cats in our city. Without proper funding, we will never get ahead of the curve in controlling the cat population. This year, the program ran out of funds twice before the end of the fiscal year. Every time this happens, it creates a new cycle of birth and more cats on the street. It is crucial that we get proper funding without interruption. City of Chandler was the first city in the Phoenix area to adopt a TNR program. After that, the city of Tampines, and most recently, Mesa followed suit. Both city programs are excelling in effort and funding, and our program is regressing and not keeping up with the demands of our community. Please consider increasing this year budget to at least $100,000. Thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you, Sue. Ms. Mayor.

Ms. Harrington. Council Member Lando again. You did this voluntarily, don't you? I'm sorry. It's all voluntary. Voluntary.

Yes.

You guys get no money at all. It goes directly to the TNR.

No, as a matter of fact, I used money for many years out of my pocket to DNR cats in downtown Chandler. Today, you don't see a whole lot of cats running around your food court area. because I did most of the TNR over there. And I spent hundreds of, probably $100,000 in TNR before the program was implemented. And these days I can't do out of pocket anymore. I care about the community, I care about the animals, and that's why I do what I do.

Thank you, Ms. Harrington.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is an audience. I'm going to ask that again, because we're going to have a lot of speakers that let's let them speak to us. You guys are listeners and that'll go for item 14 as well. Next is Tia Hayes. I'm sorry. Yeah, please state your name, city you live in. You have up to two minutes.

Yes. Tia Boyce Chandler, I oppose item 20. Good evening, everyone. What does Maryland Senate Bill 750, also known as Ashes Law, Texas Senate Bill 1682, and New Jersey Senate Bill 2275, also known as Compassion for Community Cats Law, have in common? All three laws are advocated by U.S. senators, Senator Karen Lewis Young, Senator Safrini, and Senator Raymond Lesnick, respectively. All three laws impose a uniform, humane framework for community cats and establish a statewide trap and neuter program policy. These policies programs establish a non-lapsing fund. Monies in the fund shall be used solely for grants to municipalities and counties to establish programs to humanely trap community cats, sterilize, ear tip, vaccinate and vaccinate against rabies and return each community cat to the location where the community cat was trapped. This is progressive, proactive thinking concerning cat population control. I know the legislators here in the city of Chandler pride themselves on the practice of anticipating future challenges, continually innovating, and taking intentional action before a crisis strikes. We implore you to be proactive and continue the Community Cat Program grant before this becomes a crisis in our community. Let's all make Chandler great for every person and animal that lives here.

Thank you.

Thank you. Again, speaking to us. Next, we have Nishan Havilosa. Again, you Please state your name, city, and you have up to two minutes.

Hello, thank you. My name is Michonne Havilosa. I live in Chandler. I work with Saving One Life. I run the TNR program that the city of Chandler funds with the organization. Good evening, mayor and council members. I wanted to speak tonight about the incredible amount of volunteer effort that goes into making the TNR program successful and why continued and expanded funding is so important. I think the one thing that's easy to overlook is every single appointment represents real work by Chandler community members who care deeply about helping cats and their neighborhoods. Every cat trap means someone coordinated trapping. Often over multiple nights, they transported the cats to and from appointments, monitored recovery after surgery, made sure the cat was safely returned and placed appropriately afterwards. And this is not easy work. It takes time, patience, compassion, and commitment. Since January 1st alone, this program has fixed over 600 cats in Chandler, and that represents hundreds and hundreds of individual acts of volunteer effort by community constituents in Chandler. People are out there before work, after work, late at night, over weekends, trapping, educating neighbors, fostering kittens, caring for injured animals, and helping stabilize colonies. Many are also spending out of their own personal money for food, medical care, supplies, and transportation. What makes this program so impactful is the city funding is multiplied many, many times over through donated labor, nonprofit support, fostering education, colony monitoring and community outreach. The actual value being returned to the community far exceeds the dollars being invested. This program works because residents care and are willing to do the hard work, but they need the city partnership to make that possible. The demand is there, the community support is there, and the program is clearly being utilized. I'd also like to invite the council members to join me at an upcoming TNR project. I personally take on those for disabled and elderly residents, and it's one thing to hear about this work, but seeing it firsthand will show you the difference it makes for the neighborhoods, the residents, the cats, and the tangible impact this program makes on our community. So I respectfully ask that the city continue and expand funding for this program so we can continue building on the success that's already happening throughout their community.

Thank you.

I have handouts for all of the members showcasing a quadrant.

You can give them to our clerk.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember, real quick, did you have a price of what it cost a few years ago for it?

A few years ago or with the city program?

Well, right now it's $65.

It's $65 a cat, which is considerably less than if we go to a walk-in clinic. I'm usually paying $125.

What was it a few years ago? Was it less money a few years ago?

With the city program with SOL or with... No, with actually the TNR. Actual TNR you were able to do like for $25, $35 years ago, like 10 years ago. Yeah, like 15 years ago. But now the cost, everything has gone up and the vets are...

And the other question, the other issue you're facing is the timing of the veteran to be able to do the service, correct?

Yes.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Michelle, Sean, I have a question. Real quick, you mentioned about 600 cats being through the TNR program since January. Is there a certain area or where are these cats coming from as far as a general, is it the downtown area, northwest, south channel, where is the majority of these cats or the epicenter of this?

That's a really great question, thank you. And a lot of the concentration tends to be in lower socioeconomic areas. Areas like, I spend my life in trailer parks, apartment complexes, high density areas where there's a lot of high turnover. People who don't have the money to fix, spay, neuter their animals and or abandoning them or they were abandoned and have been able to overpopulate because nobody's able to afford the spay, neuter on their own. And so it concentrates in downtown in certain pockets of the city. Also because in other like areas, Southern Chandler and other areas, we have more of a predator complex and so coyotes and natural resources predators will take the animals out and also there are more people that can afford to spay and neuter in certain areas of the city and so a lot of them will take it upon themselves to tnr and bring the cat to their vet and not utilize this program so it's really helping so many of the community members in the pockets that are overpopulated and don't have any other resources or where to turn to

Gotcha. And what's been your collaboration or communication with the property management of, say, those mobile homes or manufactured home properties?

Yeah, it's an uphill battle a lot of times. There's a lot of myths and misinformation about TNR and CATS. And so we spend a lot of our time working with the HOA managers, property managers at trailer parks, within subdivisions, apartment complexes, educating them and showing them what community management can look like and how it's going to positively affect them. the nuisance behaviors and have everybody getting along. So it's a lot of education. It's really mostly education and working with them.

But they're not necessarily contributing to the efforts or putting any types of rules, regulations within the properties?

It depends on the property. Many of them will have feeding bans or be threatening residents with eviction and things like that. So we really try to go in and work with them to have a joyful solution where everybody can have something that's sustainable for the community. Yep.

All right. Next up is Catherine Martinez. Catherine, please state your name, city you reside in. You have up to two minutes. If everything has been on your notes, have already been said, you can say I agree or bring something unique.

My name is Catherine Martinez. I'm a Chandler City resident. And I wanted to reiterate before I say my thing that a lot of us spend many, many, many hours volunteering to continue to take care of the animals after the fact as well. So a lot of feral cats, you know, that aren't fixed, especially they get into fights, and we have to care for them and make sure that they're getting the proper care afterwards so that they don't suffer outside. So that's just an added thing that we do like on our own. So good evening, mayor and council members. I volunteer directly with residents in the community. And the biggest thing I've seen through this program is relief. Before the program existed, many residents did not know what to do when community cats appeared in their neighborhoods. People were overwhelmed, frustrated, and often trying to handle situations completely on their own without guidance or resources. Some residents wanted help but couldn't afford it. Others were worried about growing populations, kittens being born outside, conflicts developing between neighbors, overfeeding, or caring for the cats. They felt helpless. This program has given residents a humane, organized, and productive path forward. Now people feel like they can finally have support and help. They're learning about TNR, how to responsibly care for their colonies, how to prevent future litters, and how to work towards solutions instead of feeling stuck. I've personally seen residents step up in incredible ways. People are volunteering to trap cats before work, late at night, transporting animals to appointments, fostering kittens, helping educate the neighbors, networking with rescues, and supporting one another through difficult situations. What's especially important is that this program has helped reduce tension and conflict within neighborhoods. The community buy-in for this program is very real. Residents want this program. They want humane solutions. This program has empowered residents to become a part of the solution. I think it's really important to recognize that. I respectfully ask you to continue and expand funding this program.

Thank you, Catherine.

Thank you.

And our last speaker card for item 20 is Carrie Newdorf, I'm sorry, please state your name, city of reference that you live in. You have up to two minutes to share your thoughts.

Greetings and salutations. My name is Carrie. I'm from Gilbert, but I'm also the executive director of Saving One Life and have been for the last 10 years. If you didn't know, Saving One Life is your vendor partner for the Community CAP program in Chandler. This program is not simply about sterilizing cats. This is a true community partnership between the city, Saving One Life, volunteers, and veterinary professionals, and the residents who want to be a part of the solution. Residents have repeatedly expressed appreciation to have access to a humane and responsible resource to address these situations before they escalate. One of the most important things we have accomplished is education. That is at the core of our mission. We spend a tremendous amount of time helping residents understand humane community cap management, Through outreach and education, we are helping build long-term solutions instead of temporary fixes, and at no cost to the city. Most importantly, this program addresses the root cause of overpopulation. Every cat sterilized means fewer kittens are born outdoors, fewer animals suffering, fewer shelter intakes, and fewer complaints. Most you cannot rescue your way out of the overpopulation. Prevention is critical. We have experienced incredible community engagement. Residents are trapping, transporting, fostering, educating neighbors and becoming active participants in humane solutions. To date, over 1500 community cats have been sterilized, of which 30% have gone into rescue to find loving forever homes. This is an extremely cost-effective program because the city funding is amplified via extensive volunteer labor and nonprofit support. What you may not realize is the only thing the city pays for is the direct services, the surgeries, and the traps. Every other cost is either underwritten by Saving One Life or covered by the tireless effort of our 100-plus volunteers. Thank you.

Thank you, Carrie. Council Member Orlando. Yeah, thank you. So a couple of things. As some of you in the audience know, I'm going to make a budget amendment for another $20,000 for this program. Also, I'm asking the city manager, obviously with the council's approval here, if we can find another $20,000 because last year I believe the total we gave with the two supplements was about $68,000. If I'm not mistaken, it was $30,000 and we found another, I think it was close to $68,000.

I think it was Mayor, Council Member Orlando. I believe the total is $47,000.

Okay, I had a different figure, but I would like to, like I said, I know council members up here have support in the amended proposal, but if we could look at another $20,000, it gets to about $70,000. I've been on these programs before. I think some of us on this diet spent on these programs before. I've been in neighborhoods that if it's not addressed, it does have a big impact. You know, we just did a pigeon ordinance. And now I think it's time for us, with all these hundreds of hours of volunteers, to take a hard look at this program. Let's concentrate on some areas. Let's put the money toward those areas. Let's get the veterans involved so that we can get a schedule with the veterans so that they can stay employed or producing so we get these areas saturated and clean up this over the next year or so. so if we could find another 20 000 i'll put in 20 with hopefully the council's suggestion that it gives about 70 000 to move forward on this program and the concentrated areas they spoke about last thing is the the woman spoke the young the ladies i'm sorry the woman spoke about um potential grants for federal maybe that's something we should look into as well i just asked a question um council member i just asked a question about the grant let's let him continue no that's fine i was just saying that yeah thank you i appreciate it so yeah thank you uh council member uh ellis appreciate it so we're on the same wavelength here um if we can look at that as well again it's one of those areas if we concentrate on it and clean it up it's an area that will we may have to go back to for years to come so that's my thoughts on that thank you council

I know I'd support what we have in the budget and trying to see, you know, be on a budget amendment as well as looking for grants. I feel more comfortable with all the work of getting the budget to where we are to here without making an amendment. I'm not sure I want to support that, but I would certainly support finding additional dollars like we have previous years and pursuing grants myself. But Council Member Ellis, do you have something else to add?

Thank you, Mayor. I tried to ask Ms. Lee about where does the funding come from for this project and if it's from ongoing dollars or was it from grant money? Can you please speak to that?

Yes, through the Mayor, Council Member Ellis. Yes, the funding that we use is the general fund dollars and it is ongoing money. We have never received grant funds from an outside source for this program. Where there may be some confusion regarding grants is that we used to use the neighborhood grant program and the neighborhood assistance program. to fund TNR in particular neighborhoods, and that was each individual neighborhood would have to apply for those funding. In order to make the process easier for the volunteers and the neighbors to be able to utilize the services, we changed that several years ago to an allocation and went out for an RFP for a provider, which is Saving One Life, to administer that program versus going through the neighborhood grant program. Okay. Thank you.

The next question that I have, I know council member Orlando with this last time came to me and we discussed it with vice mayor and we were able to add more money to them right now. I'M AGREEING WITH THE MAYOR, I DON'T THINK WE NEED TO MAKE AN AMENDMENT INTO THE CURRENT BUDGET, BUT WE CAN ACTUALLY TRY TO FIND THAT MONEY THROUGH OTHER PROCESSES TO MAKE SURE THAT WE RAISE IT IN ORDER FOR US TO GET TO THAT NUMBER THAT YOU HAVE MENTIONED RIGHT NOW, WHICH IS THE 70,000. BECAUSE WE GOT CLOSER TO IT LAST TIME. Mayor, just quickly.

Thank you, Mayor. I miscommunicated. The amendment process would be put in for $20,000. That's for the city council to look at that. Then I asked to look at the federal grants. I think I heard the word. I know that was federal individuals for that type of program. Maybe I misinterpreted what the lady was saying. Yes.

Um, through the mayor council member Orlando, we have never used federal dollars for this and I'm not aware if there are some federal funds available, but we have never utilized like, for example, we cannot use our community development block grant for something like this. So we haven't ever been able to get funding. I'm certainly we can look to see if funds would be available somewhere.

Okay, well, maybe you want to get together and figure that out if there is some federal dollars. I don't know. Again, I just, she rattled off three federal programs, so I'm assuming.

Mayor, real quick.

So let me, Leah, there is a, I'll make sure you get this in City Manager, but there is a listing of some thoughts on grants, and if you could look at that particular speaker card and and then see if that could help come through for us. Or maybe that'll even spawn some others. Or, T, if you could talk to Leah, maybe. Are you the right person? Or who would be? I don't want to. You used to be the right person. I was.

Yeah, actually, Ryan Balch is here. And I think Ryan would be the person to connect.

Yeah, you two would connect afterwards and see if there's some possibilities or get that. I can hand her the information here. But if you could just follow up with that.

Thank you.

OK. Council, unless there's further discussion, a motion is in order.

Yeah. Vice Mayor. I move to make a motion to approve item number 20, resolution number 6006, to approve the FY2026-2027 tentative budget. Second.

We have a motion, and we have a second.

Mayor, I'm assuming you meant the capital improvement budget as well.

And including the capital improvement, the CIP.

Thank you.

Budget as well.

Just before we vote, I do want to thank staff. This is again a Herculaneum effort every year. and appreciate the work, the diligence to continue to give us top ratings in terms of what we do to keep our ability to have low CIP loan costs, secondary property use for that and so many other things. So city of Chandler, I don't know how many meetings we've had on this plus an all day budget session, all well spent and all worthwhile to understand and continue to look at Chandler's future. Seeing no other comments, Council, please vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Thank you. Next on our agenda, again, we took item 14 and we've moved it. I'm going to ask Chief to give us a presentation on this. Who's ever best suited to do, though? And Chief, other than a brief presentation, I know there were some questions that Council might have. I know I've got perhaps a couple based upon emails that have come to us. Talk to us about the program again.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. We had our formal presentation on Monday night, which was the slide. We did not add anything for presentation tonight. We provided answers to the questions that received Monday night through the city manager's office, who then passed them on to Council. With those in mind, I'm happy to ask.

Pardon me, to those in the audience, please take your signs down. Please remove your signs. Please remove your signs. Please remove your signs. Please remove your signs. We do not allow by practice and policy signs in here, so please remove your signs and we'll continue the conversation. Please remove your sign. As the person who sets the decorum and rules of the meeting, which is me. As I mentioned, as the one leading the meeting, it is our policy to not have signs in here. So please remove your sign. I am the one leading the meeting. Thank you. I'm the one leading the meeting, please. Well, I'm a bit of a standstill, Chief.

You're not. Let's continue the meeting, please. We're all listening. You're the only one causing the scene, sir.

Well, I don't have a good direction forward, do I, City Attorney?

Mayor, you do, if I may, Mayor, you do control the decorum pursuant to the rules. And if there are interruptions that you feel are distracting from the meeting, you have the right to ask for decorum, including having the signs taken down.

There you go. City Manager or City Attorney, further?

You have the right to either continue the meeting or stop the meeting Your choice and if people weren't aren't following the decorum you have set They can be asked to be removed This is a version of our first amendment rights

So, Mayor, if you would like, we can ask that they be removed if you do not want to continue the meeting and tell the point that they comply, or we can move forward with the meeting.

Okay.

I will continue the meeting. Chief.

So Mayor and Council, we're happy to ask any direct questions as follow-ups or any new questions that you have, not only from myself, we have a representative from FLOC here, and then we have our strategic initiatives manager who oversees our technology issues for the police department.

Chief, one question I had based on some comments. I know that a number of the signs have been placed or a number of the cameras are certainly in the one square mile where we've been looking at different issues with the school district. Talk to us about that and the policy in the Galveston area.

Through the mayor, the flat cameras are not put into neighborhoods. They're in intersections and thoroughfares. They specifically do not track the movement of people. They're focused on the movement of traffic.

So tell us what are the, there's been, excuse me, any interruptions from us leading? I will have to ask you to leave. You're welcome to speak when you come up to the mic. Other than that, we're trying to make a deliberation. Thank you. So there were a couple of folks in the audience that have asked or stated that a number of flock cameras are placed in the Galveston area, close to Galveston school and whatever. Talk to us about, are there cameras there? If so, what are those?

Through the mayor, I would have to defer to our strategic initiatives manager for the specifics. I believe previously council has been provided locations of all the cameras in the city. I'm not aware of any at the Galveston school specifically. Again, that would not align with where we put flat cameras specifically in high vehicle density traffic and on major thoroughfares and intersections. But I will follow up with that and let you know specifically.

Okay. Does anybody else have an answer to that that's here? In terms of cameras in the Galveston area? Michelle?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. The closest ones in that area are going to be over on McQueen and Arizona Avenue on those major thoroughfares that we discussed the other night.

Okay. Are there any... I know at one point we had some gunshot audio in there. Is there any other items within the square mile that are related to the items that we're talking about tonight?

Mayor, the gunshot detection devices have been removed. There's nothing else in that area.

Okay, so there is no cameras at Galveston School or anywhere off of Hamilton, the interior there. related to the items that we're talking about tonight?

No, sir.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Council, do you have any questions for them before we go to Speaker Christ? Council Member Harris.

Thank you, Mayor. I had a couple of questions for Chief, but also had a couple of questions for Flock as well. So if Flock is here, that would be great. So I'm going to start with this particular question because it seems like, to me, it seems like we're just kind of expanding a big government surveillance system. And my questions that I have will be surrounding that particular topic. The first question that I have, and maybe it comes to you, Chief or Flock, where does the collection of the data goes? Like, where does it go?

through the Mayor, Council Member Harris. The Chandler Police Department owns all the information, i.e. the City of Chandler. Flock does not retain it. Flock is a vendor that provides the cameras for the technology. We take that information, we house it, and then we purge it.

So in terms of the cloud, where does it go when it leaves, when it gets here? Data centers, when we get on our phones, there's data centers that takes our information and shifts it from place to place to place. My question specifically about this, because they have a cloud program, and I know we work through a cloud system, I just kind of wanted to know where does the data go in the cloud system? Because I don't know if it's being retained here.

Thank you. For the record, Katie Daphne with Flock Safety. Through the Mayor, Councilmember Harris, thank you so much for the question. I do want to reiterate that, yes, Chandler does 100% own the data. The data is captured on the camera, encrypted, and moved to the cloud storage, which is also encrypted. And all data is purged after 30 days.

So we don't know where the cloud storage is? Like, where is that facility at?

It's an AWS service, which is also where the highest government security is.

Okay.

I can continue, sir.

Yeah, please continue. I'm sorry.

No, no, no, you're fine. The AWS cloud services that we use are to the highest levels of compliance, meaning CJIS, SOC 2, NDAA, and a number of other ones. And so this is typically where high level security clearance data is stored in this AWS system.

Okay. And then I wanted to ask you, because I may not I may not know, but if the attorney general decided to say, hey, I want this information, could she just get it?

Through the mayor, Councilmember Harris, if there is a warrant that was given to the city or to FLOC, we would have to notify you guys of that warrant. So no, it wouldn't be a government official that could just say, hey, FLOC, I need this data. There would have to be a formal process with court backing to do that.

And then my other question is, because I don't know how the Fourth Amendment may work as it pertains to this, but it seems like there's going to be information that's tracking information and things like that. So how does the Fourth Amendment ties into the privacy area of this particular?

Through the mayor, Council Member Harris, there are numerous courts across the country who have unanimously agreed that ALPR technology does not violate Fourth Amendment rights. Their most recent case was in Richmond, Virginia, that the court unanimously agreed that ALPR technology does not violate Fourth Amendment. I'm happy to send you follow-up case studies that have explanations as to why.

okay and then but within that uh fourth amendment within that fourth amendment right uh people are able to you know if they get in their car if they go home they're able you know you guys are able to see that information even though you may not be tracking your your technology can't allow it to be seen right through the mayor councilmember harris the technology takes a picture of a public document on a public roadway at a certain point in time

And so, no, it's not tracking someone's movement. It's taking pictures of someone's license plate at a certain point on time on a public roadway.

Okay. And then how does the, in terms of how your private company works, because I can only speak to what we do up here. I'm trying to figure out how do we know that the data that's being brought in could not be used to further financial gain of your company because you kind of know what's going on in particular areas or regions in the city.

Through the mayor, Council Member Harris, it's explicitly stated in your contract, FLOC does not own the data of the city of Chandler and FLOC does not sell the data of the city of Chandler. And so that would not even be something that we would be a part of.

And do your company do studies or research in terms of what the data is or what you can do to further advance? Like let's say you take a particular area and you're able to study it through your data. Do your company do studies like that to figure out, hey, how can we make this program be expanded or do better? Do you take the information that you're learning from the data to do better technology maneuvering?

Through the mayor, Councilmember Harris, are you asking more to improve like the specific technology of like making sure we capture a clearer picture of a license plate or more just like more clarification?

Yeah, just more clearer picture, more crispier pictures of things.

Yeah, through the mayor, council member Harris. Absolutely. We're always trying to improve our product. And so the ways that that that was done, you know, I can I can't go to specifics because I'm not on the product team. However, the point of improving the product is to make sure it's a better tool for law enforcement to use. We also state that this is not like a tool that is 100% if the law enforcement officer sees that a license plate comes up, we also state that they need to have the human judgment to make sure that that license plate matches the picture. And to that point, that's why we're always trying to improve the technology. So the officer has more time to do their jobs versus try to do judgment calls.

So my other question that I have for you is surrounding how, so there's, you guys, I went on your website and I looked at the drone the drone program that you guys have, it literally says that it can see someone 2000 feet away. and it can cover 50 square miles. That's almost the whole entire city of Chandler. And then when it goes up in the air to look for the suspect, how does that program works and able to look for the program when it said that you guys don't use artificial or a facial recognition program?

Yeah, through the mayor, Councilmember Harris, the DFR program that we have, the drone is first responders. When the camera is in route to where a crime is happening, it is a forward-facing camera. It's not looking down, tracking people's movements. And so it's a forward-facing camera, and it doesn't use any facial recognition technology. And there's someone, a physical person that's actually operating that system. It's not an AI software that does it.

Okay. So, but I'm saying like when it flies in the air and then it looks down, it can see 50 square miles. That's what I'm saying. It can, it can, it can think 50 square miles. And I'm kind of concerned that when we use it for the 911 response, it can see 50 square miles. How does it know what subject is tracking? Like what, what, you know, when they're looking for a particular person, how does it know that it's tracking the right person?

Through the Mayor, Council Member Harris, City of Chandler does not actually use our DFR technology or our DFR products. And so I can go into specifics and I can have our product team actually talk to you about the DFRs. But as it relates to Chandler, you guys don't have that program here.

Okay. And then I guess my other, to the city manager, I have one particular question. It's just in terms of, where did he go?

He stepped out to talk to some constituents.

Oh, my God. Get him back in here. We'll come back to you. I'm not done yet, though, Mayor. I'll come back to that. Thank you. So, John, I wanted to ask you about, you know, oversight. Who has oversight over this program?

Mayor, Councilmember Harris. In anything we do in the city, this council has oversight. If it is a policy issue, you set the policy direction that the city staff follows, and my job is to execute. But even in the operating decisions that are my purview to execute, you have oversight over me. So this council is the oversight body for this organization on absolutely anything that we do.

OK, so thank you for that, because that's going to be my next line of questioning is because we have the power of oversight. And I wanted to make sure that everyone understands that we have that responsibility. And I guess what I'm asking is, you know, is the fact that kind of flock. contract is a business model and a part of their business model is your data sharing. And I just kind of feel that there's some public trust that goes along with that because I don't feel like FLOC have been actively involved in the community and I think that a lot of the people that's here, there may be a lot of confusion because of the non-involvement of FLOC being in the community to explain some of these issues that we're having. But I don't, I want to have a strong infrastructure and I do believe in police safety and I do believe that there needs to be strong oversight over it. And this council has not necessarily done that yet. The Flock Market is a nationwide system that literally puts billions of license plates and scanners into a system every single worldwide yearly. And investigations by civil rights and technology groups show agencies routinely running large numbers abroad open-end searches, not just looking for stolen cars or missing persons. In some cities, federal agencies have used flock data despite local promises to limit that kind of cooperation. Once residents' movements enter into the ecosystem, we lose real control over who can look at them and for what purpose. So we lose that when we have this up. And my second concern with Flock was about the misuse and abuse of Flock. We are told that the internal policies and the audit logs are enough, but in the real world experience tells us that otherwise. In Milwaukee, Milwaukee, one officer has been charged with using Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend and a second officer under investigation for similar misuse. Other investigations have documented flock-enabled surveillance of protesters, targeting of minority communities, and tracking of people seeking healthcare services. These are real documented, that these are real things that have harmed communities in real life. And using the same platform, we're asking, you're asking to renew. But my third concern is this, is community trust and local control. As a council member, veteran, someone that's committed to empowering people, I think I support tools that genuinely keep our neighborhoods safe. But powerful technology without strong local control guardrails lands hardest on communities that are really over-policed and under-resourced. And when residents believe every trip to work, school, church, or the doctor is logged in a national database, it undermines trust in both our police department and in this council. So I do believe there is a path forward. There is a path forward with three concrete steps, I do believe. We need to pause the renewal on the request on the public report, but pause this renewal and request so that way on how FLOC is used in Chandler today. So we need to take a pause and figure out how is it being used currently right now through the audit tools. WHAT THE USE CARES, WHAT CASES ARE THERE AND WHAT OUTCOMES HAVE WE SEEN AND HOW AND WITH WHOM WE SHARE DATA WITH, INCLUDING OTHER LOCAL STATE OR FEDERAL AGENCY. JUST A SUMMARY OF WHAT INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATIONS HAVE FOUND ABOUT FLOX BENEFITS. and risk here in Chandler. The second is to develop. We do need to develop a citywide surveillance and governance ordinance. That's something that we don't have in the city of Chandler. And I know personally that I appreciate good oversight And unfortunately, the only thing that's being produced currently right now is through policy. We trust our chief. We trust what they do. But that's only a policy. We need to have a strong ordinance to govern that. So I would like to direct staff to bring forth ORDINANCE THAT ACTUALLY DEFINES HOW, WHERE, SURVEILLANCE AND TECHNOLOGY, NOT JUST FLOT, BUT MAYBE USE AND WHAT IS OFF LIMITS. WE NEED TO HAVE THAT. WE NEED TO SET CLEAR RULES FOR HOW LONG DATA CAN BE RETAINED AND WHEN IT CAN BE SHARED. IT NEEDS TO ESTABLISH REAL ENFORCEABLE CONSEQUENCES WHEN THESE TOOLS ARE MISUSED. And then also I would like to see us form a committee of residents and staff to review any proposed acquisition, renewal or expansion of surveillance tools, evaluate vendor practices and make recommendations to the council, issue a report so the community can see in plain language the tools we use and how we use it. So tonight I just wanted to, give you I'm gonna give you opportunity to respond to some of that. But I do think that if council moves forward, without an ordinance, renewing this particular contract, with no guard rails, with really we have no oversight because I have nothing to hold the city manager accountable to and the city manager has to hold all the team accountable to. But I have no real guard rails. I have policies that is not enforceable. And so this is a bigger, it's a bigger problem than just even saying that this big surveillance know is happening we don't really have an ordinance that that speaks to that so i really would like us as council to take a minute take a seat back and say hey let's not do it this time let's get some guard rails let's work with the chief let's work with his team let's figure out what we need to do to continue to keep our community safe but for us to vote for me to vote yes on something that i don't even have an ordinance or an oversight for is really hard for me to do that And currently I'm in school to get my doctor's degree in public policy. And this is an area that is very important. And if we don't have nothing in writing, it's just like voting and saying, do what you need to do. But I also want to, I have those articles of information to share with you so you can know and chief, you can know, and I know you have policies about how law enforcement should work, but also I have, Emails. from a lot of residents here that oppose this. And so it's kind of one of those things that these emails and I've got a chance to read through them. It means a lot to me. And I just think that it's just bad timing and it's just, we need more information, but we are concerned about our privacy and about the rights of our privacy and the misuse of our privacy and our personal data. I don't want people surveilling me, even if they're not, doing it in a way. So I just appreciate you coming up here and talking with us. I mean, we can sit down and have some more conversations, but I just kind of wanted to, I'm willing to share this with you as well so you can have that information. So thank you.

Chief, you're able to respond to those in terms of what we have and talk to us about the timing of this too.

Through the mayor, council member Harris, appreciate your concerns. I will tell you that anything that we do in the police department is guided by three areas, policy training and systems accountability. And whether or not we agree with flock being the vendor, any technology that we bring in to the police department is vetted through city IT. They're responsible for making sure that there are appropriate safeguards, that the vendor meets stringent criteria. And only once that is measured, then does that policy get forwarded to us for implementation or the council for a decision. i would tell you that monthly i send reports to the city manager's office talking about a month monthly recap of uh what has gone on in our real-time operations center where we utilize flock and we also are very transparent anything that we do is for you freedom of information act anybody in this chamber can ask for that you can see what's run by who, what police report it's connected to. And we're very transparent. There's nothing that we're doing to hide. Also, I just want to point out, you mentioned that this is predominantly affecting different demographics or areas of the city. To be clear, these capture vehicles, not people. We do not use facial recognition.

Hey guys, if you want to have the opportunity to speak with other people respecting you, please do the same.

We're very sensitive to that. We're very transparent about any data that we use and what it's used for. We are a literal open book. So anybody in this community who is talking in the crowd right now is welcome to look at the information and how it's used. We are consistent with best practices across the state and across the nation. I'm certainly putting my credibility out on the line with this council to tell you that it's not being misused. And I can tell you that we have internal safeguards around misuse. And if it is misused, like some of the ones that you pointed to, people would be terminated swiftly because it's a violation of public trust and internal credibility, period. and i don't know what else i can say about those those type of safeguards other than we take it very seriously and by the way flock is one vendor of literally hundreds in the city of chandler where technology is being leveraged every day to make things more efficient or more timely and i would say that while we can talk about abuses we can also talk about the incredible wins we've had where we have found people who are driving around in a dementia state we have solved uh crimes where people have been killed in the street and the vehicle fled and only and i mean only because of flock were able to generate a lead and bring someone into custody and so if your family member is the one that is being victimized in some of those this is where we have a responsibility to leverage the technology appropriately and not misuse it so while i appreciate why i appreciate the comments about what is going on around the country, I would ask anybody in this council or in this chambers to identify something in the city of Chandler where this has been misused or misappropriated, or even in the state of Arizona. I'm not commenting on what happens in other states or other areas, but I can tell you we run a very tight ship that is based on accountability and transparency.

Thank you, Chief. So that was actually related to that. Talk to me about just the timing. Council Member Harris made a suggestion of laying where are we at with our current contract and where are we at in terms of the renewal times with flock, et cetera.

Through the mayor, I might have to pitch to the city attorney this, but it's my understanding we're not current with our contract. Our contract, we're waiting on council approval or council action to move forward with it. We are still utilizing and operating under the assumption of the previous contract, but it is up for renewal and council action. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Orlando. Yeah, so... city attorney whoever's handling the contract my understanding is we voted on this what three years ago for the first 16 or two years ago for the first 16 cameras uh mayor harkey uh council member orlando i don't have that information right in front of me we had a contract i don't but michelle whoever okay I'm just following up on the mayor's comment. So go ahead.

Sure. Through the mayor, Council Member Orlando, there are two contracts that we have right now, and we're merging them as part of this agenda item. The first one expired 3 of 26. The second one goes through 3 of 27. Okay.

So when did we first approve the first contract?

March of 23 for 14 cameras.

March of 23, 14 camera. And that vote was 7-0. Okay. When did we do the second one?

The second one was May of 2025 for the 26.

And that vote was 7-0 as well. Okay. Just want to clarify. So the one on 326 expired?

Yes, sir.

The one on the second one, I'm going to make this very simple. 16 and 24. 16 was the first camera or first contract, correct?

14. 14.

All right. I'm not going to make it correct. I'm going to correct myself. Okay. So 14 was the first one. What was the second one?

26. 26.

Still at 40. All right. All right. So what at stake tonight is we're trying to we have a contract to 327 for the 26 units. Correct. That's not at stake tonight. What is we're discussion at tonight is really to renew the first contract for 14 units.

Yes. So through the mayor, council member Orlando and merge the contracts for administrative purposes. The only one right now that is out of contract are the first 14. All right.

That's what I just want to clarify. It's one contract is ongoing. If we don't renew the second one, we're still going to have a second, another one for at least a year or another eight, nine months was up and left. Correct? Correct. Okay. So I got questions for Locke, if you don't mind. So I have a business background, large corporations. I work for large corporations. What is your business model?

Through the Mayor, Council Member Orlando, can you specify further about what you're... Sure.

What is your business model? How do you make money?

Through the mayor and council of Orlando, we work with agencies and private companies and other organizations to, there's the cameras, the ALPR technology that the cities use, and then they contract with us so that we monitor the, house the data and work with them to facilitate the technology. I'm not on the, like through the mayor and council of Orlando, I'm not on the business team. And so if you want more specifics on how that works, I'm happy to provide that for you.

Okay. So you contract with private entities, you contract with public entities?

Through the mayor, council member of Orlando, yes.

Like cities?

Yes, through the mayor, council member of Orlando, yes.

Towns?

Yes.

Counties?

Mm-hmm.

Federal government?

No, we do not partner with the federal. Oh, I'm sorry, council member of Orlando, meaning we... Do you have contracts with the federal government? Through the mayor, council member of Orlando, yes. Not that I'm aware of, but I can bear with that.

Again, respect and to give respect. Look, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you that lived in Chandler, you know, and I've been doing this for 26 years, you know we have a decorum in this city unmatched by any other city in this valley. Sorry, again, you're being rude. Okay, you must not be from Chandler because our Chandler residents are not being rude. We've had discussions in here from Walmarts to all kinds of discussions. We never had this really crowd. Excuse me, man, or data centers. So please, let's have a discussion here. Everyone will have their chance to talk. It's rude, folks. Come on now. I don't want this federal stuff having federal government or state government come down the Chandler. That's not us. So please, please keep your decorum, okay?

Finish your question. Through the concern of making sure the federal agencies don't have access to your data, that is up to the city of Chandler. You control who has access to your data. You control who you share with your data. And so the federal agencies would not have any backdoor access to your city if it wasn't allowed. And to get federal access to the city of Chandler's data, that would require a three-gate process. where your agency requests access to federal data, the federal data agency would have to also request access to Chandler, and then there's a third approval process in place. And so we have multiple ways that there would be no way that a federal agency would have backdoor access to the city of Chandler if it was not approved.

Okay, so what you're saying, again, you're suggesting this, I'm not weighing in either way, you're saying that The agency that was announced earlier, like some of these leakage, and I don't know what the exact word is, was potentially because someone or some person in that agency gave that data out? Is that a scenario?

Through the Council, through the Mayor, Council Member Orlando. I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

If another agency, federal agency, for example, or state agency, I... For them, what I'm hearing you say, the only way for them to get the data is that it would have to be given to them.

Through the mayor, Councilman Merlindo, yes.

So then that means that person, and again, I'm just using what you're telling me, that person or persons broke their own protocol.

Through the Mayor and Councilman of Orlando, meaning if a federal agency had access to, for example, Chandler's data, that there would be a protocol break on the federal agency's part to accessing the data?

No, would it be on the Chandler side that broke the protocol? Okay, you're telling me this is foolproof, right? I'm just trying to get a handle here. For me, if I am a federal agency and I walk into Chandler and I say I want to see Chief Chapman's license plate, pick on the chief, sorry, all right? It would only be up to someone in Chief Chapman's organization that would give that data away, is what I'm hearing you say.

Yes, through the mayor, Councilman Rolando, yes, because Chandler owns 100% of your data. We don't make decisions at flock. Other agencies don't make decisions on who gets your data. It is purely on the city of Chandler.

Okay, so potentially it could be breaches in the data sharing.

Through the mayor, council member Orlando, we will never, and any company will say this, they're never gonna guarantee that we are 100% unbreachable, because the threats are always living. However, I will say at Fox Safety, we take the threat of a data breach very seriously. And so that's why we have the highest level of government clearances CJIS, SOC2 compliance, other things. We also work with Bishop Fox, which is a consulting firm that does penetrative testing on our systems to make sure that breaches aren't possible. So we're continuously approving our product to make sure that that threat is minimized as much as humanly possible.

So just a couple more questions here, just for you. So who audits your data? Who ordered your system, made me rephrase that, your system to ensure that what you're telling us tonight occurs?

Through Mayor and Councilman Orlando, meaning who ensures that we're staying compliant and maintaining those levels of security clearances. I know I can briefly speak to this. Through SOC2 compliance, I believe there is an annual database audit that requires making sure that our security is to the highest standard. And I believe that in order to keep these certifications to have the highest security clearances, we have to maintain that level of security to house that data.

So you do, and who does that? Is it your own internal folks or is it a third party?

Through the mayor, Councilmember Orlando, I don't have that information. I'm not on the engineering team, but I'm happy to connect you with our chief information officer to provide that information.

All right. So, yeah, I wish the chief information officer was here because we did talk about this on Monday night. I know whether this person lives or these people live, and it would have been interesting because that's really what we're talking about here. Breach of data. We're talking about trust. A lot of that activity is going on, correct?

Yeah. and through the mayor councilor orlando i know and i can say this is that we have never had a breach in our data and and i can continue to say that we take that threat very seriously because of the information that is housed and so we continuously find ways to improve our our security measures and making sure that we have the highest standards all right so we'll we'll get to i'm sure that the audience will have some other input on this chief real quick so who audits your data chief to ensure that our breaches are

through the Mayor, Councilman Orlando, our internal mechanisms through commanders, managers, and our internal affairs team. So you have an audit system?

through the Mayor, Council Member Orlando every 30 days. Good. And you, it's a robust system. If you find, as you said earlier, if you find something happened, we fix it, right?

That's correct. If there's a breach of that information, specifically if people are utilizing this information for personal gain or you're sharing it outside of the norms of what is established protocol, the discipline process would commence immediately and they would be terminated.

All right. Thank you, Mayor.

We'll reserve questions later. Chief, I'll go back and we'll start here. I know on Monday there was a conversation of U.S. Marshals and you then got back to us and said we don't have an agreement with them.

Is that correct? Through the mayor, we do not have an agreement with the federal marshals, U.S. marshals. We have detectives on a U.S. marshal's task force who have access to our flock data.

There are detectives.

There are detectives, right. If you'll see who we share data with, you'll see marshal's office. That is for Wickenburg marshal's office, Tombstone marshal's office. But we do not have an agreement with them. the federal government U.S. Marshals Task Force, only that our people are on that task force and have access to that data.

Tell us again, for only items of concern perhaps here, who don't we have contracts with and therefore doesn't have access to our data?

Through the mayor, I'll ask Michelle to confirm. We don't have sharing agreements with any federal entity. It is only through state and local people in the state of Arizona. Is that correct?

That's correct. Okay. And on Monday, you said as part of that is... they have to have a specific case that they're looking for. It's not like someone outside can just say, I want to see your data, or someone from the outside could look up their ex's driver's license, et cetera, right?

Through the mayor, that's accurate. That is consistent with what happens with our criminal justice information systems. Everything is trackable. Everything is audible. There's got to be a law enforcement reason for searching within that database.

Okay.

So consistently, we own the data.

And federal agencies do not have access to the data, U.S. Marshals, FBI, or anyone else, correct?

Through the mayor, that's correct, with the exception of our people on the U.S. Marshals Task Force, which are Chandler detectives. And in furtherance with conversation with the city manager, if there ever came an issue where a federal entity required that information for an investigation, we would have a conversation with the city manager before moving forward with that. However, if a search warrant is served upon our premises for that information, we have to comply with the court order. Those would be the only two instances.

But those are, again, specific, not generic. Not just we will have a search warrant to have access to your flock information, correct? That's correct. Okay. Questions over here? Okay, anybody else? Councilmember Poston? Thank you. Um, thank you, Chief.

And I know you've answered this probably in a couple of different ways, but I was doing the same thing as many of my fellow council members and reading a lot about this and talking to a lot of people. Is there a mechanism within the FLOC system that allows an outside agency to search? So when they ask for it, is it actually delivered to them or do they go search for it with our permission?

I'm going to defer that to Michelle or FLOC.

Through the Mayor, Councilmember Poston. I'm sorry, can you repeat the question one more time so I understand?

Sure. One of the comments that I have that there is a mechanism, they called it a national search tool. I don't know if that's accurate. But to me, I was understanding it as some sort of a mechanism to allow other agencies to search our database. So when that happens, let's say another agency has a case number, all of the things, the protocols being followed, do they actually have a mechanism that we allow them to search our database, or is it actually provided by our Chandler Police Department to them?

It would be up to enrolling to the National Database Center. You guys enrolled to the National Database Center?

Through the way our council member posted, this is the agreements that we have in state with local and county and state agencies. So if they request access to us, we can approve it or we can deny it. If we approve it, now we have done an interagency agreement basically saying that we will share data with them. So when they query, they can see the data that they need.

Okay. Okay. And then when they do that query, is it specific to the case that they're looking for or do they have a broader access to that when we approve one of those agreements? the mayor council member post in there are mandated fields that they have to fill out to show what investigations specifically that they're looking for okay so if another agency in arizona makes that request they have to have the actual case number other mandated fields and they have to enter all of that information before they are given the information that they're looking for

through the mayor council member post and that's correct.

Okay, so it's generally one item at a time that they might be looking for? Correct. Okay. And then if I could just ask, chief or how many complaints have we had? We've had flock service for three years in our community.

Through the Mayor, Councilmember Poston, I'm not aware of any complaint about the use or misuse of flock technology in the City of Chandler.

Okay. So before this evening, we've had this for three years and no complaints to our Police Department or if anybody in the City Manager's Office might know.

Mayor, Councilmember, I am not aware of any actual complaints made over the misuse of flock data in the last three years since we've had this contract.

Thank you. Those are my questions. Thanks, ma'am.

So just to follow up on that particular question, have we had any, excuse me, you will have your chance to potentially talk.

The question needs to be removed.

have we had any discipline problems or misuses of flock within the city of Chandler in the last three years, either the first contract or the second? Has there been any things within there in which we've had to change policies because we saw misuse or was there anything at all that did not serve the public good through transparency or any abuse?

To the Mayor, not that I'm aware of. I will triple check and get back to you if that is incorrect, but I'm aware of none of those that we've had in these meetings regarding flock and misuse of the information. And can I just follow up on that? One thing that I wanna make clear is when we get a license plate from FLOC for whatever investigation, I just wanna clear what happens from there. We run that license plate through NCIC, a completely different system. THAT SYSTEM THEN GENERATES WHO THE OWNER OF THAT VEHICLE IS AND THE FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION THAT WE HAVE. THAT INFORMATION NEVER GOES THROUGH FLOCK, IS RETAINED BY FLOCK. IT IS A SEPARATE SYSTEM. IT JUST CAPTURES THE LICENSE PLATE AND THE VEHICLE, NOT ANY DRIVER DATA, NOT ANY OWNER DATA.

OKAY. COUNCILMEMBER HARRIS. YES. THANK YOU. I THINK

I mean, I heard what the council member said, but I just kind of want to be clear that when the data leaves Chandler from the system, it goes into FLOT's data storage cloud system, correct?

Through the mayor, Council Member Harris, it is through the AWS cloud service that, yes.

And so when that data leaves to go, leaves Chandler and goes to that cloud, who then, how do we guarantee that our data, now that it left Chandler to go to the cloud, how do we guarantee that that information from our residents, our privacy is being protected? Who audits the cloud system to make sure that our information that just left Chandler to go to the cloud to be stored, who audits that?

Through the mayor, Council Member Harris, when your data never leaves Chandler, it is still Chandler's data. And so regardless of

No, I guess I'm asking, the cloud is not in, where is the cloud at in Chandler? Where is it at here?

Through the mayor, Council Member Harris, it is an AWS cloud service. I cannot give you the location because I'm not an engineer. However, it is encrypted through every transit process when it gets through there. And so the AWS service is a part of, like I said, is of the highest standards. of cloud security through encryption. And so there's engineers in that system who monitor very sensitive data and continuously audit that sensitive data to ensure it stays sensitive to make, because we do hold that high standard of compliance with federal agency or with protection of constituent agency information and such.

Right. And so I get that. So what I'm saying today is that when that data leaves Chandler and goes into the AWS cloud system, You said it's protected, but what I'm saying as a oversight, as a person that's required, that is, you know, that's doing oversight, can I, OD Harris, can a council member of Chandler go to that data center, that AWS cloud and audit them to make sure that my residents' information is being protected and that they have safe policies and practices and all that, can I go there?

Through the mayor, Council Member Harris, I'm not sure about the logistics of how that would happen. I'm happy to provide a more technical answer and talk to our chief security officer with that information.

Right. So that's what I'm saying. Council, we can regulate what's here, but we can't regulate what's over there. And you're asking me to make a decision that regulates here that's over there. Hold on council member Ellis, you can respond to me, but I'm just trying to make a point is that the point is this, the point is I can't go over there and look at it. And because I can't go over there and look at it, I have major problems with that because that's oversight. That is our job to look to make sure to protect it. So that's all I'm saying. I, it's not, I'm not trying to make a spectacle of anything. I'm just simply trying to protect our privacy. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with arguing for that? There's nothing wrong for arguing for that because at the end of the day, there's a level of, there's a level there that I really, am concerned about. And because I can't, you can't do it for me. And I respect that you have that ability. I respect that we have detectives with the US Marshals. We have all that. I respect that after looking to this further, you know, I accept accountability for saying yes without even knowing all this information. Because guess what? Today I'm learning a lot that I did not know. This is my first, second time meeting you. I never had a conversation about this, but we're having an intimate conversation now because we didn't have it before. And so all I'm saying is that we're responsible. My job is oversight. Until I'm done being a council member, I want to look at every document, every correspondent. I haven't even seen the contract. And I want to know what that entails. I mean, I'm learning more and more every day, but I'm only putting myself out there in this vulnerable way. to only simply say, I want to be able to be accountable. And those people out there, they vote for me and us. I have to respond to them. But to be honest with you, I haven't even seen some of these things. I appreciate staff. I know they take care of that administratively. But privacy is on the line here. And I think there's so many additional questions that I could have, you know, to make a decision today is reckless. Because then I will be, now that I know the information, they say, what do you do with it then? And so that's kind of where I'm going to land my comments there, Mayor. So thank you.

Council member, I do believe the contract is in our packet.

Yeah, Mayor, and did we have a deep dive conversation about that contract? Because we should be having it right now, right?

We are doing that.

We're doing it right now. We all have had the opportunity to read the contract. I understand that, but you calling me out right now, Mayor, and that's not cool. Because if you know the contract, then I want to hear your recitation of the contract. Don't call me out. I'm just trying to be honest with the people that's out here, Mayor. So if you if we want to sit down and have a contract conversation about it, let's do that. Let's have a study session. Let's have an executive session. Let's do all those different things. But we did not do that. And a part of my job is oversight. So I'm just being accountable, responsible. And I appreciate what you do. But I'm just saying that we have to accept some accountability here. And I don't think we're doing that today. We're ignoring it.

Council Member Poston. Thank you, Mayor. So, and if we'd like to put this at the end, I know you want to get to some of our comments of our residents, but I would like to know whether it's from the city attorney or city manager, what of Council Member Harris's suggestions was an ordinance or some sort of look at that. So I'd be curious to find out whether we can answer that tonight or at another time. what that would entail and what that would look like. It sounds like it would be something difficult to craft, but I'd be interested in finding that out. The question I do have for FLOC, and I think that council member Harris brought up is, is there an option for some sort of third party oversight of the FLOC data? I think he's talking about offsite servers where you're hosting your data. So you had mentioned maybe once a year, Are there other opportunities to audit that data? And again, a third party oversight.

Through the Mayor, Councilmember Poston, meaning oversight on how this data security is done, or more specific?

I suppose whether it would be the data security, whether it's been accessed inappropriately. I think Chief Chapman explained very well how Chandler has a lot of oversight, a lot of security on our data, and they are very proactive in making sure that it's not being misused or used inappropriately. I'd like to know if on the companion side that FLOC has something similar or an option that we could talk about.

Through the Mayor and Council Member Poston, one thing I do want to mention that I failed to mention with Council Member Harris's questions is that once the encrypted data, the Chandler's encrypted data reaches the AWS cloud service, it is deleted after 30 days. And so, you know, annual audits, it's not like that information will even be there past on day 31. And so, you know, I can have our chief compliance officer again reach out to you guys and individually meet with you guys about going through the security measures and how the AWS cloud service side works since he is the security officer and can give you the very nuanced, very direct answers on how that works. I'm committed to having that happen.

Okay, but our data is deleted every 30 days as well. We still have ongoing oversight of our data. So what I'm asking is, is there an option where we could get some assurances that it's not being accessed inappropriately or being breached?

Yeah, through the mayor, Council Member Harris, and I'll defer to the city manager. Do you believe there's a mention in the contract that if any data is misused, then that would... that there's an option to end the contract.

Right. And so you say you're doing an audit once a year. How would we know if that data had been misused? That's kind of what I'm trying to get at.

Okay, through the mayor, council member Poston, if there's any misuse of data, everything is logged and auditable and tracked through our systems. And so we can always share that with you. And so yes, that's something we can commit to.

So you do have an audit process and it is trackable and you can share it with us. Could we, is that built in that we would get a report every 30 days? We could get one every 60 days, something at least equivalent to what we're doing here in Chandler.

So that we can have access to 100% Chandler's data. And so I'm trying to figure out more of like meeting every flock data in the entire country or what?

No, no. I think what we're, I think, let's see. Sorry, I'm trying to articulate this. I'm really trying to follow up on what Council Member Harris was talking about. So the City of Chandler has a 30-day retention policy, so it's deleted after that. But the City of Chandler also has a policy that our chief and our commanders and our executive staff are taking a look and making sure that it is not accessed inappropriately. There's a policy around that and a procedure. Is there a policy and procedure that Flock follows to make sure that their data on the server side is not being accessed inappropriately? And do you have a policy and procedure in place that could be shared with us or a part of this contract to give us the assurances that Flock has that same level of policy and procedure that the city of Chandler does?

Thank you so much for the clarification and yes, we can share that information with you. I can't speak to the specifics of the contracts again. I'm not on the legal team and I'm not negotiating the contract, but we are committed to sharing that information with you and I can make sure that our team connects with your team to see if there's information we can add or not add to the contract. But that's something I can, again, since I'm not dealing with the contract negotiations, can't commit to.

I'd be interested to know what the depth of that audit might be and who handles it and kind of how that process would work.

Through the Mayor and Council Member Poston, thank you. We can definitely follow up on that.

Mayor, if I may. City Manager. This contract is through a cooperative contract through Tempe. As part of their process, they ask the question, this very question. And the answer to that question is there's a quarterly third party audit of flock data quarterly. So four times a year, this data is reviewed by a third party that is coming directly from the Tepe Cooperative.

That's exactly what I was asking. Thank you.

That's there.

Mayor, I wanted to make it very clear tonight that what we're doing up here is making sure that the city of Chandler is safe. There is none of us, including myself, is not sitting here tonight looking at all of you. Majority of you probably are not from Chandler because I'm looking at your faces. Thank you. So what I'm saying tonight is that the fact that you're not applauding for me is saying that what I'm saying is true. The idea that you can walk in here and disrupt our meetings anyhow and any way you want to and think that you're allowed to do that is really... If it was your meeting, then you would have respect for yourself. Thank you for clapping for her. Thank you for clapping for her. The reason why I wanted to speak is because it seems to be, there is a distinction here tonight that some council members are trying to allow you to do this and others are not. And the other part of it is the fact that all of us are looking for the safety of the people in Chandler. I lived here for 40 years and I have watched this city being built. I raised my family here and safety is my number one. My background is in psych. I am a nurse practitioner in psych. And so today the fear that is being portrayed here for us not to keep our city safe, it's important for me to diffuse it right now. And the idea that some of us don't want flag because we want to take over people's privacy, it is wrong. It is wrong. It is wrong because the mother I spoke, the mother that I have spoken with that when her child was missing and because we had flat and we find that child, that mother is grateful. One of my employees were walking on McQueen and Chandler Boulevard and a drunk hit him and we were able to capture that license plate. I am not having a debate with you. And at this time, I am not having a debate with you tonight.

I believe council member Ellis is speaking.

I am not having any debate with anyone in this room because I can ask for you to be removed out of this room. I will ask the police to remove you out of this room. The fact of the matter is when I'm speaking, when you were speaking, I listened and I'm speaking and you need to listen. When my employee died by a drunk driver on McQueen and Chandler Boulevard, it was a flag that captured that number of the license that we were able to get that person and help that family have closure and help that family have closure. Nobody was around. And what I am saying here for the last three years, that we have had this in the city of Chandler, read the data and see how many times we have helped people with it. And I'm sitting here saying that I am taking accountability, that if anything happened that is not supposed to happen with this, that we will be the first one to stop it. We will be the first one because I myself, my data was stolen by Wells Fargo employees. So I'm sitting here saying that I have never seen the city of Chandler because we pay a lot of money to make sure that we oversight the data that we store and make sure we take care of it. Thank you mayor for allowing me to set the record straight for our city because every one of our employees take this very seriously.

Thank you. That's member Orlando. All right. I started the conversation earlier when I was asking you about the audit process. Council Member Harris brought it up. Not you, Chief. I don't need to talk to you. I need to talk to Flock. Thank you, Chief. And I know Council Member Poston spoke about it. I still haven't gotten a clear answer. If it's in our contract to do a quarterly review, what are we doing? And who's doing it? And how do I know, I'm sorry, I'll let you do the first one. How is the quarterly review done?

Through the Mayor, Council Member Orlando, if this is pertaining to, is it, what type of access are you, what type of auditing are you questioning? Is it on the flock side? Yes. Through the Mayor, Council Member Harris, the quarterly review is done by managers and IT officials and security officials within the Fox system who look at the role-based authorization and MFA authorization to see who accesses certain data that would be used for customer service or product improvement that is directly with an agency, and that is done on a quarterly basis.

Okay, so would you be open to your company to having cities go in with you, and you could rotate the cities, rotate whatever the case may be, to be able to do those audits? On a quarterly basis.

Through the mayor, council member, Orlando meeting, partner with Falk to do those audits or have access to the audits?

Whether it's a third party comes in there that we both pay for, the city of Chandler pays for, you pay for, goes in there and audits that data on a quarterly basis. By contract, it's done quarterly, and I have no idea. This is the first time I'm hearing that.

Through the mayor, council, Orlando, again, we're happy to talk about this with our legal team. I'm not an attorney on our team. I don't manage the contract negotiations.

All right, so... That's the crux of this problem right now. That's the crux of this problem, is that there's a myriad of cases where we were able to solve cases. The crux of the problem is, I truly believe our police officers are doing the right job. The bottom line is, how do we know you are? And that's really all it boils down to. I'm not saying you're doing anything underhanded. but we audit everything in our community chief wrote that up earlier i mean you want to get housing permit there's an order there right you get a software there's an order there so we it's nothing we we do all the time we audit uh or validate that that is what the service being delivered is being delivered so it's nothing new to us maybe new to you so I think we need to look at that in the future, figure out how we could do a self-audit with you or have a third party we agree with so that we feel comfortable that the data you're getting is not being misused. That's the key right here.

And through the mayor, Councilman Orlando, we're definitely committed to having our chief information and security officer working with your council to see how we can accommodate that.

Okay. Thank you. Chief, anything else to say before we invite people to comment?

Through the mayor, the one thing I would ask or suggest is that to the recommendation of council member Harris is that perhaps we have an executive meeting with their security teams. We bring in their experts on auditing. We look at the technical analysis and that way everybody has a very clear picture and maybe a different setting to view those and ask the SMEs for that.

I would welcome that. That would be good. Okay. Council, I'm going to invite people up to share. To those in our audience, again, you're speaking to us. I'll give everybody two minutes. When you come up, please state your name, city of residence. I'll also call the next person up so that they can be ready in the queue to also speak.

May I? Before we may, I have a question for you. Councilmember, before we have people come and speak, can we talk about what we're going to do? Are we going to make sure we request this work session with all the expert that city manager and our department has just mentioned? Can we make a decision about that now? And then we will allow people to talk.

I am willing to set an exec session to do that. Okay.

So then we will have an executive session to be able to do that. Okay. All right. So that's the answer to this question tonight. We will have an executive session. Okay.

All right, again, when you come up, please state your name, your city of residence. The light turns green. When it turns yellow, please wrap up. When it's red, then your time is up. The first person is Coden Carlson, and the next one up is Travis Gunville. Coden, Caden, sorry.

All right.

Greetings, mayor and members of the council. My name is Caden Carlson, and I'm born and raised in Chandler, Arizona. Chandler has been my home for 22 years, and from pre-K through graduating high school, I attended schools in the CUSD district. I've had parties and gatherings over the years catered by local businesses, and I've even had my bike returned to me by Chandler PD after it was stolen. Community is the first word that comes to my mind when I think of Chandler, and it saddens me to think that this council may deem outsourced, highly invasive surveillance technology a more effective way to make our city safer than invest back directly into our community. To have our movements captured, labeled, logged away every time we leave our homes implies we are all suspected criminals who have yet to commit any crimes. Myself, along with the majority of Chandler residents, do not want to live this way. How are we in good faith supposed to trust that with no strict retention caps, mandatory transparency logs, interagency firewalls, or a citizen review panel, that these cameras which have proven to be compromisable will in fact keep this city any more safer than it already is? Imagine the possible ways this over $153,000 sum of money could be better spent. An example I think of is instead of an already overworked high school teacher having to sponsor an after school program, sometimes even out of their own pockets, hire individuals who want to be there to offer more quality and accessible extracurricular activities for students to pursue. And given the overall state of division and uneasiness our great country is currently facing, I set this as a golden opportunity for our city, council members, mayor, and citizens to shine and set a new standard in this ever-evolving world of technology and AI. The city of Chandler does not need AI flock surveillance to be a safe, prosperous city. My old neighborhood was safe because all my neighbors knew each other to some degree and understood that us together was the first line of defense to keep our respective communities safe and in an enjoyable place to live. Mayor and council members, I humbly stand before you today and ask that you show us we can have faith in you all by showing your faith in us, the citizens.

Thank you, Kaden.

To play our part in utilizing new programs.

Thank you. Next up is Travis Gunville, followed by Harrison Redman.

Travis. All right, thank you, Council. Travis Gunville, a concerned Chandler resident. First off, how could this data be subpoenaed down the road if it's purged after 30 days, like was stated? I understand the sentiment behind Flock cameras. More eyes means more public safety. We all want safer neighborhoods, but this isn't about just catching thieves or locating stolen vehicles. This is about mass data collection. Flock is a private surveillance company backed by Founders Fund, Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, If you don't know Peter Thiel, I urge you to research him and Curtis Yarvin. They're really scary dudes. At its core, this system collects location and behavioral data on everyday people, where you go, when you go there, and who you may associate with. And when that kind of data exists, it can be misused. Look at what happened in Denver where Flock is headquartered. Police used Flock cameras data to identify a suspect in a package theft case. An innocent woman, Christiana Elser, was confronted by police because the system placed her near the scene. She then had to prove her innocence herself. The police said, you can't breathe in this town without us knowing. After she was cleared, there was no apology and no accountability. That should concern every single one of us because this technology shifts the burden away from the state proving guilt and towards citizens proving innocence. And we also have to ask, why are we using taxpayer dollars to help a private company build massive databases on our movements and habits? Private companies exist to profit and data is one of the most valuable commodities in the world. This is bigger than public safety. This is about privacy, civil liberties, and whether Chandler wants to normalize constant surveillance operated by a private enterprise. I ask that you don't renew this contract with Flock and that you remove every single one of these cameras and mass surveillance systems from Chandler.

Next up is Harrison Redman, followed by Santina Hutron.

Harrison, please state your name and city of residence. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Harrison Redman. I'm speaking on behalf of myself tonight as a civil rights advocate and concerned citizen asking you to vote no on this item and reject Flock and Chandler. chandler piggybacked onto a tempe flock contract that tempe unanimously voted to begin moving away from flagstaff sedona and south tucson and at least 30 other localities nationwide have already walked away from flock the memo on this motion references 3 500 alerts in three months made by existing cameras here but what it doesn't tell you is how many of those alerts actually led to arrests or convictions that required this technology furthermore flock's network inherently creates a mass surveillance infrastructure while it claims while flock claims it doesn't contract directly with ice its network architecture makes that distinction largely meaningless an investigation by 404 media found that ice accessed flock's system more than 4 000 times between june 2024 and may 2025 flock has also signed agreements granting federal agencies access to its nationwide database without notifying the cities whose data it held including sanctuary cities that contracted with flock specifically on the understanding that their data would never reach federal authorities. Regardless of assurances or intent, Chandler cannot guarantee its residents' data stays local. In Bend, Oregon, federal agents accessed their database 279 times in just three weeks. And in Eugene, Oregon, as well as Mountain View and Berkeley, California, Flock illegally enabled a nationwide search setting without the city's knowledge or consent. All of those cities have since severed their Flock contracts. Here in Arizona, multiple cities have used flock to track protesters violating basic civil liberties and real community safety is built on trust, transparency and fiscal responsibility. It is not built on cross-jurisdictional dragnet that makes our immigrant neighbors, business patrons, and communities afraid to be outside of their homes. When people have that fear, they don't go to school, they don't work, they don't participate in public life. I urge a no vote on this motion because Chandler should not spend over $150,000 of taxpayer funds on a corporate vendor with ambiguous efficacy, a lack of independent audits, and one of Chandler's own regional partners treats as a liability. Instead, I encourage you to use this moment to conduct further research, including the city ordinance, so that this city prioritizes safety without mass surveillance, accountability coupled with transparency, and a city that helps, not harms its constituents. All power to the people. Thank you.

Next up, Santina Hutron, followed by Aldo Selbaran. Santina, state your name and city of residence.

Hello, my name is Santina Huitrong. Hello, mayor and city council members. While I've lived in Chandler my whole life, this will be my first time speaking, let alone attending a city hall meeting. And that's because I believe it's crucial to come here today and say no to mass surveillance and expending your contract with Flock. While you say you're using these cameras for public safety, they infringe on our right to privacy in public spaces and when put in the wrong hands can be used to stalk and harass innocent people. You say this won't be used for racial targeting or be put in residential areas, yet have placed cameras on every corner of predominantly brown neighborhoods, even having one pointed straight at Galveston Elementary School. So a lot of lies being told, but my concern is how easy it is for someone to hack and gain full control of the device. Cameras run on an outdated Android 8 system that hasn't received a security update since 2021. All images are stored unencrypted on the devices, and the web interface used by police departments to access the sensitive data doesn't even require two-factor authentication. The vagueness of who owns the data and who decides what it will be used for is extremely unnerving. For example, Chandler owns it, Chandler Police Department uses it, but they work with MESA departments. MESA works with ICE. It's as easy as that. If there were to be any civil lawsuit, it'd be the city paying for it, not Flock. How are we going to invest $153,000 in invasive technology while cutting over 100 teachers in our district? We deserve better funded education, healthcare, and housing before giving some technology company our hard-earned money. I hope you listen to the people of your city today and give us faith that we can trust you to fight for what's right for us. I promise to do my part in making my community a safer and happier place for us to live in, and I hope you do too. Thank you for your time. Shout out, Council Member Harris. Thank you.

Next up, Aldo Soberan, followed by Miguel Andre Ruval. Aldo, state your name and city of practice.

Good evening. My name is Aldo Soberon, and I'm a lifelong Chandler resident. I am here today to demand that council vote to end its contract with Flock. On Monday, Councilman Harris noted that public trust is earned every day. How can we trust a government that colludes with billionaire-backed private corporations to build a mass surveillance police state? Flock has shown nothing but contempt for working people that fight to protect their constitutional rights. Ms. Dauphiné's LinkedIn states that she's only been at Flock for two months. Flock does not even respect us enough to send an expert. Flock's own CEO, Garrett Langley, has called Flock opponents terrorists and the public records process a weapon against Flock. On the contrary, it is Flock and its government collaborators that are terrorizing the people. Flock does not prevent crime. It makes every single person a suspect. Flock is part of a larger plan where every movement is recorded, every thought is policed, and every one is criminalized. A system that records 20 billion times per month without a warrant is a system that we cannot accept. Mesa PD has an agreement with ICE. Phoenix PD is the deadliest department nationally per capita. We have no protections against our data being abused by even local actors. As a Latino, I know firsthand how local police brutalizes my community. In hundreds of cases, police have been recorded using racial slurs in their flock searches. class action lawsuits by groups such as the aclu and care are being filed against cities nationwide for rights abuses will this be your legacy forfeiting our rights our most precious rights we don't want a nicer gestapo we want it gone entirely flock out full stop side with the people or side with billionaires you will be held accountable all power to the people

Next step, Miguel Andre Rubio followed by Carlos Fernandez.

I'll do my best. Mayor and council members, my name is Andre Rubio. I go by Andre and I'm a Chandler resident. I'm asking you to vote no on renewing Chandler's flock automated license plate reader contract. I care about public safety, I want stolen vehicles recovered, and I want serious crimes to be solved, but renewing this contract is not a public safety decision as has been discussed earlier. This is something that involves privacy, transparency, and taxpayer risk. These cameras do not only scan people suspected of crimes, they scan ordinary residents driving to work, school, church, medical appointments, or anywhere else in the city. That means Chandler's collecting location data on people who have done nothing wrong. We're being told that the data is deleted after 30 days and that only Chandler can access it, but we deserve clear answers. Who inside the city can search the data? Are these searches audited? Can outside agencies access it indirectly? How many false hits have occurred? And how many serious cases were actually solved because of this system, not just how many alerts? This would come in the form of metrics rather than anecdotes from the police chief or a council member who is in support of this. I'm also concerned about legal exposure. As has been mentioned, other cities have faced lawsuits and backlash over these over a system like this, and other cities have just turned away. If the system is misused, mishandled or challenged in court, Chandler taxpayers could end up paying for the legal defense settlements and damage to public trust. Public safety should not require every resident to become part of a searchable location database. Before renewing this contract, Chandler should have strict limits, public reporting, independent audits, and enforceable safeguards against mission creep. And until those protections are in place, the responsible vote is no. Thank you.

Carlos Fernandez, followed by Luther Johnson. Carlos.

Hello, everybody. My name is Carlos Fernandez from Mesa. What's happening now is a city looking to spend $150K to prevent crime by using mass surveillance from flock instead of affordable housing, free health care, quality education, and good jobs, and so on. What could be considered with Flock, if passed, truly is, is highway robbery. This isn't even security to protect Flock when they have used technology to stalk and abuse ordinary people. It's not even safe when it has a 10% error rate, and this info is given statewide. So there's no telling on what's happening with other cities having our data. Their own speakers don't even know about their product or even their motto. That scares me for the people that I care about who live here. No, that in fact terrifies me. So, you all want to prevent crime, to protect the city of Chandler? Invest back into the communities, not into companies who watch and steal from us from their own benefit. Power to the people.

Arthur Johnson, followed by...

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Luther Johnson. I live in Chandler. Thank you especially, Council Members, for your good questions and for advocating for our concerns. Please do not renew the FLOC contract. When we use services like FLOC, We get some information from them, but we give a lot of information to them. And I'm concerned that we become a data feed into a large, unwarranted surveillance and data gathering system. Given some of the companies that invest in Flock, I think that's a real concern. This data, I'm concerned that this data may be used by other agencies for their own purposes, even if we don't have mutual data sharing agreements with them. And that is my concern. So I think more study should be done. We should understand better how the systems work. And I do not have faith that the data will be kept separate and kept away from other actors who may want to access it. So that's my concern, and please do not renew the FLOC contract.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Rohith Chandrasekhar. I'm a Chandler resident here in opposition to the FLOC contract renewal. Denying the truth is the handbook for FLOC PR. They lied about collaborating with DHS until the evidence became too hard to ignore, finally admitting this year that they had a pilot program with DHS agencies. They lied about their employees not having access despite the vice president of strategic relations viewing camera footage that was marked for local police only. They lied about their security despite National Institute of Standards and Technology, a US government agency, ranking one of their ALPR vulnerabilities a 9.8 critical risk. The lies became local right here when Flock and Chandler PD claimed our data never left the state. Why then does our data appear in the network audits of Georgia, California, Washington, Missouri, and many more states? This was until December, when Flock sent an email to all agencies recommending that agencies avoid sharing to places where network audits are fulfilled. This email also instructed users to be as vague as permissible when listing search reason. It was right after this email that Chandler disappeared from the network audits. This is a direct attack on transparency, and Chandler worked hand in hand to obscure their use of Flock. When I reviewed Chandler Flock data from January and February through FOIA, of this year, multiple searches lacked case numbers. Some listed TBD as the reason and the case number. If you are unwilling to share exactly what you're looking for, I cannot trust you. Council, I ask you to listen to your community. Don't let political inconvenience prevent you from standing with us. Please vote no. Thank you.

Cassandra Cosson, followed by Abby Chowdhury. Cassandra? Okay. Cassandra Clausen, followed by Abhik Choudhury. Okay. Please state your name and city of residence for the record.

Hello, my name is Cassidy Crosson, mayor and members of Chandler City Council. I am your constituent, Cassidy Crosson, and I have resided and worked in Chandler for five years now. I, like many others, have gathered here today to oppose the continued use of flock. I strongly believe that these cameras are a violation of my peers and my Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. In addition to this concern, automated systems are not perfect. There is an up to 10% chance a license plate can be misread by the software. Furthermore, if a database hasn't been updated to show a vehicle was recovered or sold, a law abiding citizen could find themselves subject to a high risk traffic stop by police acting on incorrect automated alerts. I recently heard that CUSD has laid off approximately 100 teachers. Perhaps instead of using that $153,000 in taxpayer money, our money, to instill fear and weariness in our local marginalized populations, we should be using it to help increase our abysmal literacy rates by helping to pay our teachers a living wage. Speaking of schools, I have to ask the police department says that none of the cameras are pointed at residential areas, but what about the one pointed directly at Galveston Elementary? Or what about the other eight cameras in the only area of Chandler where over 60% of the population is Hispanic? Where instead of pointing to the main road, the cameras point into residential neighborhoods. I end with this question. Does this Chandler City Council really want to participate in a mass surveillance network that will create lasting distrust in its constituents?

Shout hurry followed by Jason Bondelli. Adhik.

Hi there. Hi mayor and council. First time here, but I've lived here my whole life. Parents moved here in 84 and I noticed the cameras last year and it has been reduced my quality of life. I have been taking different routes back off the 10 as well as eating it in and out less. There's one in and out in Lowe's parking lot. And if we could broaden the scope to private entities too, partnering with Block, I would have a good time. So like many residents, I've been having a tough time. But unlike many residents, I actually build AI camera systems. And I have them all over my house. I'm very excited about their applications and helping people who have challenges living. with activities of daily life. And I really respect my data. It really gave me an appreciation for what it means to steward data when you're collecting data about yourself, but also the people that you interact with. And flock systems are at every step not living up to those expectations that I have for myself and I would have for other citizens and residents of Chandler. I don't put my data on the internet because I know how hard that is to secure. and when you say is the data local it is possible for it to be local it is not i use more up-to-date hardware than flock as was mentioned because that version of android has many security vulnerability hundreds of known security vulnerabilities uh i take a lot of care to make sure that my friends and loved ones who are in my data set have autonomy and control over that things like if you don't want to record be recorded then we turn off the cameras if you want to redact something, I have an interface for you to go back and not be in it. I could not imagine Flock giving us residents the respect that I give my loved ones in my data set. And yeah, as someone who has a camera inside my toilet, I...

I don't know if you can see the light because of your screen. You're so right. Thank you.

Yes.

I don't trust Flock. Jason Vangeli, followed by Amelia Gwynn. Jason.

Good evening. Hi, I'm Jason. I live and work in Chandler. I'd like to bring up two things today. First, I'd like to mention that since the flock cameras have been installed around the city, I will deliberately avoid those areas when possible, simply out of principle. I avoid shopping at Lowe's and Home Depot. I avoid driving near the mall because I have no interest in feeding this data collection machine. And moreover, I didn't opt into this system of personal tracking. Which brings me to my second point. None of us opted into this. We weren't given a choice as to whether or not we want to be individually surveilled every time we leave the house or go to work or go shopping or go to church with our whereabouts logged in a database to be accessible to people and institutions unbeknownst to us. From the citizen's perspective, these things just materialized in our community one day. I feel it's safe to say that if most people in this city were aware of what these cameras are and what data they're collecting and who it's potentially being shared with, they'd be uncomfortable at best, if not outright appalled. This system is one step removed from having a government installed GPS tracker on your vehicle. The only real difference is that the tracking is limited to where the cameras are currently located. And I emphasize currently. That said, I think a good way of measuring whether the decision to install this system is acting in the public's favor is by asking, if this issue was put to the voters, would it pass? I believe in this case, the answer is absolutely not. No one's asking for this. city council works for the people and this contract with its underlying technology does not serve the public interest this money could and should be spent improving the lives of the people in this community instead this will only drive a wedge further between the people in power and the rest of us trust matters we vote for people who we trust will make decisions that represent our values please discontinue this contract

Braden Peters, followed by Michael Oyai. Braden?

Good evening, council members. My name is Amelia Nguyen, and I reside in Gilbert, but I drive through Chandler every day. My childhood library is the one that is right here. Thus, I still think it is my right to take a stand on these cameras, and my locale does not change facts. Flock says that their cameras will make the community more safe. However, technology is never infallible. For one, studies are inconclusive on whether or not Flock cameras help solve crimes. One of Flock's own researchers later admitted that their studies were flawed. Their studies are not independent and they're not peer reviewed, which every single study should be. That means that we can't trust their claims. Second, this technology still has human workarounds. Flock says that law enforcement cannot search up data without entering a good reason, but records show that the Chandler Police Department itself was able to use the word other as a reason in searches. They don't need a valid reason at all. This is just another example of Flock lying about their databases. Lastly, Flock and the police department claim that there are no cameras in residential areas. However, I have driven past Galveston Elementary and seen the camera pointing at the school at the intersection of Galveston and Hamilton with my own two eyes. How does Flock not know where their cameras are? Best case scenario, they're incompetent. Worst case scenario, they're lying. Why are we okay with partnering with a company that does not even know their own product? Any one of these reasons should be enough to say no to Flock. And no amount of time, research, or safeguards will ever erase Flock's lies and incompetence. I will never be OK walking around Chandler, a city that I love, with Flock cameras here. I want to be in a city where I can feel safe, but one where I'm not worried that I'll be targeted for simply attending a protest. A city that makes me feel safe, not because of their big brother-esque cameras, but because it chooses to invest its resources into healthcare, schools, and the people who make it what it is. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for us. Followed by Michael Oye. Brady.

Brady? Michael.

You were the second. Was Braden here or not? There you go. Your name and city.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Braden. I'm a cybersecurity professional that resides in Mesa and I work in Chandler. I'm here to speak against renewing the contract with Flock. Bottom line, flock is bad for our community. First of all, it's mass surveillance. Flock isn't limited to license plates. It creates billions of data points on people, an unprecedented invasion of privacy and potential violation of our Fourth Amendment rights. Second, there's data control concerns. There's documented side channel access and proxy sharing methods that means compromised data storage guarantees are compromised. Weak agreement terms can be bypassed easily without strong enforcement methods or independent audits taking place. Flock also has a poor cybersecurity stance. There are documented compromises by Flock employees with backdoor access, data retention noncompliance, successful cyber attacks on individual units, and there's been demonstrated lack of encryption, which all put our community's data at risk. There are also bad outcomes that come from this program. There are documented false positive rates that lead to wrongful arrests, wasted police resources, and squandered taxpayer dollars. There's also the concern of unethical use cases. There's documented criminal abuses, including stalking by law enforcement, and there's also constructed false charges, which further violates community trust. More concerning, Flock's continued denials and transparency lack of transparency conflicts with Chandler's values. In fact, Flock's poor contract and terms and conditions language may expose Chandler to legal liability amid constitutional and other legal challenges. I would propose an alternative where we further invest in improving community building crime prevention with youth and school programs. To me, which is better, in community impact, hanging a booster banner or pointing to a surveillance camera at an elementary school? Communities across the nation are coming to the same conclusion, reject FLOCC. I strongly urge you, do not renew this contract with FLOCC.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Michael, now is your turn. Followed by Bill, Bill, Will Drive, Will Shrive, Bill. Go ahead.

All right. Hello, my name is Michael Uy, and I'm a Chandler resident and teacher here. And I'm here to tell you today to vote no on this contract. First, about the location of the cameras. As you've heard a couple of times, there is a camera window directly at Galveston Elementary. I went by and saw it myself a few days ago. There are also houses directly across the street, and just to the north, there's another camera with an apartment complex right next to it. Maybe these aren't technically neighborhoods, but they're clearly residential areas, and that points to the confusion around the cameras. Either they're lying or they don't know where their cameras are placed. I'd also like to talk about the contract itself. I went and looked at Tempe's contract, the one that Chandler is going to be adopting. Flock has continually told us that we own the data, that Chandler controls it. However, that ownership doesn't matter if the language of the contract is so broad that it allows Flock to use it for its own purposes. On page 11 of that contract, it says that Flock is granted a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free right and license to disclose agency data for investigative purposes. I encourage you to look very, very closely at this contract. Have you read it? Do you know what's in there? And do you know what you're agreeing to? We need to invest in people, the community, the things that people have told us really make the community safer, not surveillance, not cameras. We need to invest in education and the things that really reduce crime. Thank you.

Bill. Okay, probably. Followed by Sidney Parker. State your name and city, sir.

Bill Winsberg, Chandler, and good evening, council members, mayor. Those that would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. According to the police memorandum in your packet, there were over 3,000 hits over a three-month period. One of those came out in a big fugitive arrest. What happened with the other 3,000 or so? Were they high-profile traffic stops where the police had to drop guns? Were they people coming back from Walmart shopping? We should find that out, out of those numbers. Next, you assert that the public carries no expectation of privacy on the road. But if I were to go file an information act, get every one of your license numbers and ask them what that number's done in this system for the last month, I could track each and every one of you and know exactly where you've been, what you've done, where you've driven. It doesn't just take license plates, it does bumper stickers and other identifying marks on your cars. And to finish, I would like to ask Council Member Ellis How do you think the Romans would have used this technology back in Jesus' day? Thank you.

Sydney Parker, followed by Dana Duran.

Good evening, council members. My name is Dr. Sydney Parker. I live in Mesa. However, I work in Chandler as a pediatric dentist. I'm here on behalf of my patients and their families to ask you to oppose a renewed contract with Flock Security. The reason being is that Flock has already proven that they cannot protect children's privacy and safety. In Dunwoody, Georgia, a local resident filed public records requests and discovered that flock safety employees had access cameras throughout Dunwoody to demonstrate their surveillance technology to police departments across the country. Some of the access cameras included a children's gymnastics facility, a playground, and a school. Think about that for a moment. Employees of a private surveillance company were watching children in a gymnastics class to show off camera capabilities to potential customers. The children were not suspects. Their parents had not consented. Flock did it anyway, without apologies or legal consequences. The city of Chandler already has at least two flock cameras pointed to children's learning facilities. One is Galveston Elementary on Galveston and Hamilton Street, and the other is Arizona Children's Academy on McQueen and Ray. As elected officials, it is your responsibility to protect the families of Chandler. Accepting another contract with Flock will prove to the community that you do not have their best interests at heart and that you do not deserve your position of power. As a children's health provider in the community, it is also my duty to protect the families of Chandler. That is why I'm urging you to oppose a renewed contract with Flock Security. The community's privacy and peace of mind depends on it. Thank you.

And followed by Mark Young. Dana. Dana?

You said Donya?

D-A.

N-I-A?

Could be, yeah. Dana, Donya.

That's me. Hello, everyone. My name is Dania, and I'm a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and I'm here to speak against Flock.

Dania, what city are you from, please? Where do you live?

I live in the West Valley, but I've worked here in Chandler. I'm an educator. All across the nation, we are seeing Flock cameras being abused to conspire with ICE. In light of Trump's declaration of war against immigrant America, extending this contract puts Chandler residents at risk. We can't forget that only a few months ago, we saw ICE brutally murder Alex Preddy and Renee Nicole Good in cold blood and broad daylight. Even more locally in Arizona, we've seen ICE conduct military-style raids in local bars, kidnapping elementary school children, and medically neglecting detainees to the point of death. While Flock claimed on Monday that they don't collaborate with ICE, we've seen numerous cases where they indirectly collaborate with ICE. While Chandler does not have a 287 agreement, our data is shared with many cities that do. Mesa, for example, has this agreement that allows their local PD to collaborate with ICE. If our data were ever to be shared with Mesa, this would put our community members in harm's way. In addition, Flock claimed on Monday that it would put cameras in high traffic areas, and yet we found these cameras in residential neighborhoods. We've heard from speakers talk time and time again about Galveston Elementary School and how it's pointing at apartment complexes and homes. Why are we spying on our neighbors? Why are we spying on our children? It is deeply disturbing that not once in over the past three years that Block has been a Chandler have any parents or neighbors been notified about these cameras. This is a clear infringement on our privacy and on our rights, especially when it comes to these innocent minors. Again, Flock is claiming to get rid of crime, yet we know that the only way to make our community safer is by striking the problem at the root. As Chicago has showed us, crime drops drastically when communities invest in their people, when they invest in expansive healthcare, in affordable housing, and guaranteed jobs.

Thank you, Dania.

Thank you.

Mark Zhang, followed by Aaron Ryszynski. Mark? Please state your name and city.

Good evening, City Council. My name is Mark Jong, and I've lived in Chandler my whole life. I'm currently a high schooler at CUSD. We have nine security guards, a massive number, considering we only have two social workers, and bathrooms often in need of fixing. Look, if you surveyed every Chandler resident, you'd find that a majority of people are greatly opposed to funding an AI surveillance system, Most Chandler residents likely wouldn't mention further enforcement in even their top five needs. For example, if you surveyed high schoolers, they tell you that the city should focus significantly more on education, substance use, mental health, water sustainability, or at least some renovations for our high school bathrooms. Research has shown time and time again that further policing or making policing more efficient is not the most helpful way to prevent crime. Instead, we should be focusing on the aforementioned topics as well as affordable housing, healthcare, and job creation. The city should not be submitting to the whims of an overboated enforcement apparatus by funding further surveillance, which, as many citizens have discussed, would be used for greedy, intrusive, and ultimately oppressive purposes. I couldn't imagine a more disgusting yet plausible scenario of flocks surveilling my peers around school, many of whom are immigrants or are sons of immigrants or are daughters of immigrants, and giving that data to ICE. In the same county that helped establish Miranda rights, you have a choice. Will you help improve the city's affordability, thus reducing crime by attacking its roots, or will you continue our state's complacency with the oppressive surveillance state? For the sake of the people of Chandler, choose the former. Vote no on further funding to flock. Thank you.

Aaron Rasinski, followed by Mark Camarena. Aaron?

Good evening, council and mayor. My name is Erin Rosinski. I am a Chandler resident raising my two young daughters here as well. This is actually my first city council meeting and first time speaking. And I am here because I believe in civic engagement. And I want to thank council member Harris for your vulnerability tonight. I heard a lot of things discussed tonight. It was a really robust conversation and I want to share a few things that stood out. Thank you Council Member Harris for acknowledging that when this contract was signed two years ago, We didn't know what we know now. This contract was signed, you said, without full understanding of how it is managed, of how the systems work. And that was really clear in tonight's discussion in both the questions that were asked and the answers that were not given and the questions that remain unanswered. So thank you for your vulnerability and leadership in acknowledging when maybe we misstepped and it's time to take a step back. others have spoken brilliantly tonight and described the challenges and concerns with this technology when you ask council member harris who's ultimately responsible for it it is all of you you are responsible for the oversight of this this contract and our data sharing and it's clear that we don't have a policy in place for how you will handle any data request that comes in for any of the data in this system so as you move forward it sounds like tonight there won't be a vote there will be an executive session held around this if i understood correctly And my challenge to all of you is in that executive session, do your research, be willing to make a different decision as you learn new information, acknowledge that the climate we're existing in today is very different than the climate we were existing in when these contracts were approved two years ago. The political climate has changed, our society is changing, AI is not going away. So as part of your discussion, I also challenge you to please get really clear on how you are going to handle this or any future AI requests and how you will handle data sharing with any state or federal agency as it is requested, because that's your responsibility to all of us in overseeing these contracts. Thank you.

Mark Camarena, followed by Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Neiman. Mark, state your name and city of residence.

Good evening, City Council. My name is Mark Camarena. I live in the city of Phoenix. And I'm here today to say no to flock in Chandler, no to flock in Arizona. Flock cameras are known to stalk, harass, and profile our communities. I am a son of immigrants, and I know what it's like to see the deadliest PD at Phoenix PD patrol my neighborhoods on a daily basis. I don't need bots to watch over my back on top of that. Cops have abused these kinds of cameras to hunt down women in Texas seeking abortions, life-saving medical care. We know that they use the camera data to collaborate illegally with ICE, with the DHS, with federal agencies, and to track people that are out in the streets fighting for their constitutional rights, like during the No Kings events in this past year. They told us that all the surveillance and the spying and the stalking is necessary because back then during the Patriot Act, there was a war on terror. But what's the excuse now? Why is Flock ramming their cameras down our throats in Chandler and around the country? This is not protection, but this is persecution. When we come up here and tell you that we don't want to be watched and we don't want to be spied on, You guys just tell us to deal with it, to just take it. But when Flock comes up in here and demands our tax dollars, suddenly everything is possible for them. All the doors are open, wide open. What starts with a dozen of cameras will grow into thousands. Flock, just like any other company, will stop at nothing to make more profits, to power generative AI, to take away jobs, and this bubble will eventually burst. This AI surveillance bubble will burst. And there's no confidence that you guys can give, can say that we will make it on the other side. And what will happen is our communities will be behind bars. We'll be tracked every single move everywhere. And we've had enough of this, truly. Who here in the city of Chandler does not want this? Raise your hand. Those are all your constituents that are raising their hand right now that don't want this. So please side with the people. Thank you.

Elizabeth Niemann, followed by Orion Holland. Elizabeth.

My name's Elizabeth. I'm a resident of Chandler. I'm asking you to end the contracts with Flock. Remove all cameras. No private company will ever put privacy, freedom of movement, or public trust over their bottom line, which is profit, to be clear. unless forced, and so far that has not happened. Flock has resisted public measures organizing against their harmful technology, including presenting misinformation to city councils, smearing journalists, and even the Flock CEO calling the collaborative public project Deflock a terroristic organization. After watching Monday's session and reading the reference Tempe contract, I had several questions. Testimony stated our data was purged after 30 days, but the contract states the purges required from the device. flock is a cloud-based system deleting data from one or more devices does not delete the data truly so i'm asking for flock to explicitly on the record state that once the data is purged it is gone for good nowhere else if that's not the case where is this data stored for how long and who has access to it the chief noted over 7 000 flock alerts that were verified by humans but how many pictures were taken is all of that our data Who is determining what entities can access this data and what guarantees will be placed to protect our neighbors since no fail safes are in this contract. It does not explicitly state who we can share with. Hearing from you it hasn't happened yet or we can't prove it's happened is not good enough. Flock planter ties makes them complicit in the genocides of Palestine, Congo, and Sudan, and enabling the ongoing targeting of our family, friends, and neighbors inside of this country. End all flock contracts. They do not deserve our trust or our data. And one other question that I had that arose today, if there are so many cameras that we don't even know where they are, where they're pointing, or who owns or accesses them, we have the chief up here and didn't know about a camera pointing at an elementary school. We have so many cameras, we don't even know where they're pointing. That is a completely separate issue, but clearly Flock is not going to be helping us with that.

Thank you, Orion. Nathan Taylor-Taff, followed by Jane Dengel. Nathan, state your name and city, please.

I'm not Nathan. Is it Orion?

Oh, I'm sorry, yeah, Orion. Yeah, thank you.

Good evening, members of the Council. Thank you for all your time today. My name is Orion and I live in Maryvale. I'm a veteran of the United States Army where I served as an infantry officer. And when I commissioned, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. So that's why I'm here tonight. I believe that flock has no place in Chandler or anywhere. Flock is a privately owned company with no independent oversight or regulatory body, and it's the subject of multiple ongoing legal cases regarding breaches of constitutional rights and mishandling of data. Their business model claims to reduce crime. However, independent assessments have linked less than 1% of data collected by Flock cameras to any actual police action. The money that this company is trying to take from Chandler would be better served going back to the community itself. Questions came up this evening about whether Flock has federal contracts. In addition to a contract in process with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Flock is positioning to submit a response to an RFP by the FBI for nationwide access to their ALPR network. The company is boasting of having deals with over 12,000 public safety customers, including cities, towns, counties, and business partners. They are trying to add you to that list. In addition to this, Flock's default agreement with police departments, as others have mentioned tonight, gives the company the right to share data with federal and local agencies for investigative purposes, even if a local department chooses to restrict data to its own officers. Lastly, I want to call out Flock CEO, Garrett Langley, who has publicly characterized Freedom of Information Act requests used by American citizens as weapons against his company. I do not trust any private company that sees my rights as a threat and my tax dollars as an opportunity. Thank you.

Nathan Taylorcare, followed by Jane Dengel. Nathan, state your name and city, please.

Hi, my name is Nathan Taylor Taft, and I'm a Chandler resident. First, I wanted to address that the representative from Chandler PD seemed to claim that the flock camera at the intersection of Hamilton Street and Galveston Street, pointed at Galveston Elementary School, does not exist. I really want to reiterate this and make it very clear. It does, in fact, exist. I visited it about two days ago. I have a picture on my phone. You can see it on Google Maps Street View. Okay. Further, it was mentioned that flock cameras are not placed in residential areas. That is a residential area. It was also mentioned that flock cameras are put at high traffic major roads and intersections. The nearby cameras on made roads are not pointed at those roads, but rather into the neighborhoods. For example, at Hamilton and Ray, it's pointed south, and at Hamilton and Chandler Boulevard, it's pointed north. That is not consistency, that is targeting. Those both point into the same square mile. There are nine total cameras within approximately one square mile between Arizona Avenue and Queen Creek Road, and Ray Road and Chandler Boulevard. This square mile is also the only area of Chandler where over 60% of the population is Hispanic. They also claim that demographics do not play a role in placement. This clearly does not seem to be true. This means both the placement of flock cameras is an issue and that those pushing this contract aren't being fully honest, which is extremely concerning when considering and involving a powerful surveillance system such as this one. I also want to point out that Mesa PD and Pinal County both collaborate with ICE. That means if Chandler shares data with either of those, there's clearly an issue. ICE is also not known for following the rules. And there are many instances in Colorado, for example, where federal agencies such as HSI access flock data illegally. Also, I want to make it clear that many of us are, in fact, Chandler residents. And even if you drive through Chandler, the flock cameras do affect you. This flock represents mass surveillance of your constituents without their consent. Flock does not have good security. There isn't end-to-end encryption. Due to all these reasons, racial targeting, security concerns, and mass surveillance without consent, I request that you do not renew the city's contract with Flock.

Thank you. Jane Dangle followed by Noah. Jane. State your name and city of residence.

Good evening, city council. My name is Jane. I live in Phoenix, and I grew up here in the East Valley. In April 2025, Jacqueline McNeil was on her way home when she saw lights flashing behind her. She was suddenly surrounded by police cruisers. Before she knew it, she was in handcuffs and being accused of a drive-by shooting. As it turns out, ALPR flock cameras had falsely identified her car as one associated with the shooting. Not only was this incident traumatizing for her, but it was a gross violation of her civil liberties. Incidents like these where police use flock data to harass people are not one-off instances like Chandler Police Chief Brian Chapman would like to claim. All across the country where flock cameras are up, police and other agencies are using that data to violate basic rights and racially profile people on a mass scale. These systems continuously record our movements without a warrant, without probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion. The data they generate is being used by police as a false grounds to threaten and harass communities across the country and right here in Chandler. Right now, Chandler shares this data statewide, and we have no control over what cities do with our data once they have it. In fact, Chandler data has been found in agencies all across the country, and this is a direct contradiction to what Flock stated in council today. Continuing Chandler's contract with Flock poses a huge threat to the safety of all Chandler residents and even more so to immigrant communities who are already facing the threat of ICE today. More and more cities nationwide are voting to end their contract with Flock. This couldn't have happened without the power of working people standing up for a better future. So I urge the city council to fulfill their jobs today and listen to the voice of the people of Chandler. We want Flock off our streets.

Noah followed by Isabel Norato. Noah. State your name and residence again.

Aloha mayor and to the rest of the city council. My name is Noah James Markham and I'm from the great city of Tempe and well, I'm a Democrat and you know, I am for this. I am for the flock cameras. And why I'm for them is because my city Tempe has them too. And they, they do a great job there. Um, just don't do crazy things with it, please. Or I will come back and complain about, uh, um, and then, you know, I lived in Gilbert for most of my life and I know that they use the flock cameras too, and they have one of the best police departments ever, um, in the country, I would say. Um, and, uh, There's a little thing about the flock cameras. I had to ask Google and say if there's flock cameras around the country. And it says, yes, sheriff and police departments across the country widely use flock safety cameras as automated license plate readers to investigate crimes, local stolen vehicles, and find missing persons. So I think that's pretty cool. And AI, it keeps on coming, and it won't be got. But we know that this is good to protect people in Chandler. And I know there's a lot of people here in Chandler, and there's a lot of wealthy people that want to be protected here. So yes, I am for this. Thank you so much.

What the hell was that? Thank you.

respect for speakers please just like you were shown respect next um isabel dorado niacato thank you hi hi mayor um and city council so uh good evening my name is dr isabel niacato i am an er physician and the resident of tempe i've worked many years in chandler and gilbert i also work in phoenix gila river i've also worked in yuma county So it is important for me to be here to represent the communities that I serve, regardless of whether I live in the city. So I work in, as I mentioned to you, many different hospitals. And I think in trying to think about what I can tell you to convince you to not vote or go against this contract, because I don't think that we should renew this contract, is that in working in these different communities, I work with a lot of different people. And at the end of the day, you know, we think about all our differences and really what we should focus on is our similarities. So what I see in my patients and all these different communities is, you know, we all work and we all work hard to get basic necessities, which is water, food, safety, shelter. And regardless of where we come, where we live, our socioeconomic status, that is what we each strive for. And so when I think about these cameras, we're really infringing on our safety. And it takes away one of these basic necessities that we all work for on a daily basis to protect our families. So I feel like ultimately these flock cameras are being used as weapons really to target communities of color, including undocumented communities, people with visas and US citizens that look like me because I'm brown. So as a Latina, a daughter of immigrants whose parents came here for many reasons, I can tell you that immigrants are the hardest working people. And I think that instead of showing, you know, instead of targeting them, we should show gratitude to people that, you know, do a lot of difficult jobs. So I'm here to ask you to vote against this contract. I'm here for us to try to hopefully remember that we're all human. We all have these similarities, right? We all want safety. So I'm coming to the end. I'm asking you to say no to mass surveillance and what continues to be another method of racial profiling of U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens who are good, hardworking people. Thank you.

Next up is Hayden Gwynne, followed by Matthew W. Hayden? Hayden Gwynne from Gilbert? OK.

Good evening, council members. My name is Hayden. I'm a resident of Gilbert. Like so many others here tonight, I came here because Chandler is not just a city, it is a community, where so many people have chosen to raise their families and to attend their schools. Council members, today's vote is not just about the public safety. It is not just about the potential for misuse. It is whether or not we want to be watched whenever we leave the house. It is about what kind of community that Chandler wants to be. Are we going to be a community that invests in education, jobs, real solutions for our problems? Or are we going to be a community of mass surveillance and 24-7 data collection? No matter how you look at it, Flock's business model is one built off of taking our data without our knowledge, without our consent. In cities around the country, flock cameras have been used repeatedly and appropriately to track and monitor innocent people. Right here in Arizona, Tempe Police Department made attempts to locate no King's Day protests using flock databases. There are no safeguards that can circumvent that business model, that simple fact. And there is no price worth paying when the cost is our basic civil liberties and the privacy of our neighbors. And despite what Flock claims, these AI cameras are not going to protect our public safety. We need to find solutions that preserve our privacy and the rights that we have as people. We should be investing our taxpayer dollars back into housing, into our communities, into schools, and into roads. And most importantly, we need to be the Chandler that prioritizes its community, not big corporations. Thank you.

Norbert Kellert followed by Kelsey Anderson. Norbert, please state your name and residence.

My name is Norbert Collart. I live in Ahwatukee, but I actually live here in Chandler and I work in Chandler. So good evening, mayor and council members. I'm here tonight to oppose the renewal of Chandler's automated license plate reader contract with Flock Group. I grew up in Germany when there's still an East and West Germany. I remember what happened when governments normalized surveillance in the name of security and social order. People in East Germany lived under constant monitoring by the Stasi. That's the state security in case you don't know. Citizens informed on neighbors. Records were kept on ordinary people. Privacy disappeared little by little until fear and control became part of daily life. I am also a veteran of three wars. I serve this country because I believe freedom matters. And freedom is not only the right to speak, it is right to live without being constantly tracked and recorded by your own government. APLR cameras do not just track criminals, they track everyone. Every parent driving school, every worker commuting home, every citizen attending church, a protest, a medical appointment, or simply visiting friends. These systems quietly create permanent records of innocent people's movements, habits, relationships, and private lives. Once that data exists, history teaches us, it'll eventually be misused. Misused by individuals, misused by corporations, misused by future administrations, we may not trust as much. Data gets abused, leaked, hacked, sold, shared, and weaponized. Human nature does not change simply because technology becomes more advanced. The danger is not only what this system does today, the danger is what it becomes tomorrow. Every camera added normalizes constant monitoring. Every renewal expands the infrastructure. We are slowly constructing a society where anonymity disappears.

Thank you, sir. Kelly Anderson. Followed by Eric Sandoval. Kelly, please state your name and residence.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Kelsey, and I'm here to speak to you today as a longtime gold star Chandler resident. Lived here, worked here, and went to school here all my life. I have lived here since I was four years old, and I'm deeply disturbed with the direction that Chandler is going. That is entirely to do with the possible renewal of the flock contract. Flock cameras are not what Chandler needs or wants. $150,000 is money that should be reinvested into the things that Chandler residents actually use, like funding education and housing. The people of the city deserve for their representatives to have their best interests in mind. Renewing this contract only proves that this council is vested in lining the pockets of the billionaires who seek to use our data nefariously. Seeing how flocked data is being used across the country, Chandler PD misusing this data is not a hypothetical, it's inevitability. I find it laughable that we are being asked to trust this technology when we've seen it fail time and time again. Are we just supposed to trust city oversight will prevent errors happening to Chandler residents like the error that caused the Toledo man, Brandon Upchurch, to be mauled by a police dog because a flock camera misread a seven on his license plate as a two? I don't think I want that for our residents and I don't think you do either. I want this city to continue to be a place that young families feel confident to raise children and to live here. I cannot imagine that prospective wealthy residents want to be treated like prisoners just driving to the grocery store and walking in the streets. The point that we are all making here is not that we don't want Chandler to thrive or to be safe or to be protected. We don't want flock cameras in general. We don't want them with council oversight. We don't want them with increased police cooperation or regulation. We know what we want, and we don't want flock cameras at all in any capacity. We want flock out of Chandler. Power to the people.

Eric Sandoval, followed by Juanita Sesnia. Eric, please state your name and city of residence.

Hello, City Council. My name is Eric Sandoval. I'm actually a resident of Tempe. I'm not from Chandler at all. But I think as we've seen, almost every single person here is a Chandler resident. So maybe don't lambast us about being outside agitators. because also, every single one of these people is here at 9pm on a work night. Where's Flock? Where did they go? Flock isn't even here anymore. They're not committed to this city. And they shouldn't be trusted at all. Flock Lies, they're a lying company. It's not about misuse or one-time incidents. Flock fed their data to Customs and Border Protection without telling local police departments. And when they were caught doing it, they apologized. Do you think they apologized because they felt bad, because there was an ethical problem? No, they felt bad because they caught flack from the media. Flock is not a company to be trusted. It's a company that is donated to and funded by fascists. And it's not in any city's interest to be aligned with ICE or Border Patrol. While schools are being defunded, Chandler residents who have lived there their entire lives can't live here anymore because it's unaffordable. I think it's deeply worrying that you would even consider renewing this contract despite the dozens of incidents that have occurred across the country. I urge you to vote no. I urge you to consider what you had done during Jim Crow, because you're doing it right now. What you had done during the Holocaust, you are doing right now. Either you side with fascism or you side with the people. Thank you.

Juanita Sesnia, followed by Margie Gomez. Juanita, state your name and city of residence.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Juanita, and I'm very much a Chandler resident, Councilwoman Ellis. I'm here tonight to share my concerns about expanding flock cameras in our city. I want to start by saying this clearly. I care deeply about public safety. Like everyone else in this room, I want Chandler to remain safe and be a place where people feel secure and supported. What concerns me is the scale and the nature of this technology. Block cameras don't just capture vehicles tied to crimes. They collect data on everyone, parents driving their kids to school, families heading to the park, everyday life. Over time, that creates the ability to track patterns of movement without suspicion or consent. That's not incremental. That's a fundamental shift. My second concern is trust in what happens over time. In Illinois, a state audit found Flock allowed federal agencies to access driver data in violation of state law. In California, a city shut down its program after discovering Flock had enabled broad data sharing with hundreds of outside agencies without permission. And in Wisconsin, like Councilman Harris said, an officer was accused of misusing flock cameras to track a personal relationship nearly 200 times. Once surveillance infrastructure is in place, it rarely shrinks. So my ask is simple, pause any expansion of flock cameras and remove the ones we already have. because I'm thinking about the kind of city my children are growing up in. They're learning what safety feels like, but they're also learning what trust feels like. In Sedona, the city council made a unanimous decision to cancel its block contract and remove cameras after learning about previously undisclosed data sharing and the ability for federal agencies to access that data in ways the community strongly opposed. In Flagstaff, the city council voted unanimously to terminate its contract and deactivate all cameras, even after stricter safeguards were in place. Both cities stepped back when trust wasn't there. I want my children to grow up in a Chandler where safety doesn't come at the cost of being constantly tracked. Tonight, it's not a vote on cameras. It's a decision about trust. We shouldn't have to choose between safety and privacy. Thank you.

Matthew W. Is there a Matthew? Okay. Did I call your name already? No, not yet. Sorry. No, that's Matthew's. But we'll get to you, I promise. Ben Abercrombie. Oh, then Margie. I'm sorry. Ben, then Margie. Ben, state your name and city of residence, please.

Yeah, my name is Ben Abercrombie. I live in Phoenix, but I attended school in CUSD for 10 years, and I visit Chandler frequently for work and family. Although the city claims, not really the city, but Flock claims that these $150,000 Flock cameras will supposedly bolster crime prevention, in reality, these cameras will only serve as an abuse on the privacy of everyone in Chandler. If the contract with FLOC is continued, you can expect the continued tracking of protesters, collaboration with malicious federal agencies like ICE, and racial and class profiling. Considering the roughly 10% error rate that FLOC cameras operate on, the crime prevention claims become even more ludicrous. False profiling is more than possible with these error rates, and so then are wrongful arrests and incarcerations. None of these things make Chandler and its people safer. So to that point, I want to cite a Forbes article on a case study, Phlox Sites, regarding San Marino, California. Flock claimed that with their cameras, crimes in the town fell 70%. In fact, the Forbes article found that residential burglaries, which the Flock claims focused on, actually increased 5% between 2019 and 2023. So it got worse. Flock's assaults on human rights are not something that can be controlled or reformed effectively either. The city's contracts with this company must be ended immediately. So rather than facilitate the operations of anti-human agencies like ICE, I urge you to dedicate these funds towards the people, towards affordable housing and free health care and quality education. These things will make Chandler safer, not flock. All power to the people.

Margie Gomez, followed by Brittany Genshert. Margie, please state your name and address or name and city of residence.

Thank you. My name is Margie Gomez. I am a Chandler resident. As I do recall, most of the people who have spoken are. Please vote. Do not approve a renewal of the flock cameras. Mass surveillance is dangerous because of massive privacy violations and mission creeps. by photographing every passing vehicle, private details about people's lives, such as where they shop, go to the doctor, go to church, attend rallies where people exercise their constitutional rights. and where women can seek reproductive health care or gender affirming care. There have been documented cases of private officers misusing the law enforcement databases, including to track their romantic partners, neighbors, and journalists. It's disingenuous to say that tracking vehicles is not tracking faces. because people travel in cars and people who are in the cars may not also be the people. AI is fraught with errors. And I also do not want what is happening in the federal government to be happening here. I think it's very scary that flock has been given the highest levels of government clearance. I greatly appreciate council member Harris's suggestions to review what is happening. Data brokers are bypassing a lot of warrants and so on and so forth. So I think it's very important that we discontinue any of our collaborations with block.

Thank you. Brittany Densherd followed by Shane Strong. Brittany, please state your name and city of residence.

Hi, my name is Brittany Densherd and I'm a resident of Tempe, but I babysit in Chandler. I am in my first year of medical school to become a pediatrician. I took time out of studying for my finals tonight to be here because I'm passionate about protecting and advocating for children and their rights. When I learned there was a flock camera pointed at an elementary school, my heart dropped. In an age of rampant pedophilia, I worry not if, but when this footage will be misused. Children are the most vulnerable and oppressed group in the entire world. They do not have the ability to consent to mass surveillance. Investing this money into surveillance while simultaneously laying off dozens of their teachers will teach this generation that they are criminals that need to be monitored, that mass surveillance is more important than their education, and that consent does not matter. investing this money into education creative and social outlets in public community spaces is a proven way to reduce crime and would make a much better use of these funds furthermore i had some more points that they have already touched on which is great i've been a missing person i don't share that with many people i had an amber alert in 2008 i was gone for two weeks i've been in this scenario And still, I would not consent to having my body tracked and recorded without a warrant, even if that meant solving my own case, who I've been in this situation. And I do not consent to that. This is only going to harm us, especially women and children. We do not want this dystopian software in our community. We do not want recordings of crimes committed against us to exist. Thank you.

Please state your name and city residents.

Good evening, council. My name is Shane Strong. I'm 24 years old and I've lived in Arizona my whole life. I lived in Chandler for over 14 years and I've worked here since I was 16 years old. Before I address the contract, let me be entirely clear. I am not anti law enforcement. I believe profoundly in public safety. However, that being said, the Fourth Amendment was written to protect Americans against warrantless, generalized, mass-unwarranted tracking and searching. By outsourcing our public roads to a venture-backed corporation, we are building an unconstitutional, anti-American mass surveillance grid. Flock extends far beyond just license plate readers. Their Falcon cameras create a permanent vehicle fingerprint, tracking decals and roof racks. Their Raven audio sensors listen to our neighborhoods. and their condor cameras use AI analytics to log characteristics like clothing, height, and gait without our consent. This is the definition of a dystopian corporate panopticon. It treats every single Chandler resident as a suspect in a rolling, never-ending lineup. What is most un-American about this technology is that it renders us guilty until proven innocent. The moment a flock camera issues an alert, an innocent citizen is instantly flagged. Because independent evaluations by third-party oversight firms estimate error can be as high as 10% across the country, these false algorithmic... Sorry, guys. have already resulted in terrifying high-profile wrongful arrests and innocent drivers being held at gunpoint and a high-risk traffic stop. I urge you to honor your oath to uphold the Constitution, protect the privacy of Chandler residents, and vote no on this extension. A true patriot, Benjamin Franklin once said, those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. All power to the people.

A member followed by Judith Coburn read number. Followed by Judith Coburn is read here. Please state your name and city of residence.

Reed Nimmer, I live in Chandler, Arizona. Flock advertises their cameras as simple automated license plate readers, but their patents tell us a different story. These things are AI-powered surveillance machines that capture every passing vehicle and person and transmit that data to private corporate clouds, making it queryable by a multitude of different state and federal agencies. The city of Chandler does not control that database. That database has no public record rights because it's on a private server. Our daily movements are being tracked and harvested by a $7.5 billion corporation that currently only answers to vendor capitalists, not us. Flock did not reach that valuation on their own by per-camera subscriptions. Where does that data go? Where is that money coming from? The city council should understand that they are coordinating, or excuse me, that they are conducting business with the FLOC CEO. Excuse me. The city council should also understand who they're conducting business with. The FLOC CEO was asked whether or not the company had any sort of national connections or federal connections. They said no, but obviously, as we've been told, that's not exactly the truth. considering that Flock integrates directly with Palantir, a data fusion platform with a $30 million contract with ICE, and that Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir, is one of Flock's primary investors. These are not separate companies. They are working together, and that information is going to be shared and eventually used against us. I urge you to vote no. I urge you to recall and cancel any contracts that we have at this time.

Judith Coburn followed by Rebecca Nichols. Judith, please state your name and city of residence.

Hi. To the council and to the mayor, My name is Judith Coburn, and I'm reading a statement tonight from Kai Newkirk. Judith, where do you live? Mesa. I'm from Mesa, and Kai lives in Tempe. But he's representing him. I have a statement here I'm reading from Kai Newkirk, Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in Arizona's 4th District, which includes part of Chandler. I'm sorry I can't be there tonight. I want every resident who showed up to say no to renewing this locked-in contract. Judith, please talk to us.

Thank you, Judith.

We are living through an authoritarian mass deportation campaign that is violating our laws and the basic human rights of our neighbors, not just undocumented people, but DACA recipients, permanent residents, visa holders, and citizens. ICE has proven it is a danger to all of our rights and even to our lives, and it should be disbanded. Chandler must not hand Trump and ICE any tool they can use to extend their cruelty further to our community. The evidence is clear. ICE has accessed flock data thousands of times through local police departments across the country. No contractual assurance changes that risk. Flagstaff, Sedona, South Tucson, and many other cities have already cut ties with flock. Chandler should join with them tonight. Mass surveillance of our neighbors by the agents of an authoritarian tyrant is not public safety. It is complicity and criminal abuse. Please vote no. Thank you.

Rebecca Nichols, followed by Christopher Reen, Ray. But first, Rebecca Nichols. Please state your name and city of residence.

My name is Rebecca Nichols. I've lived in Chandler for over 25 years. So I don't have anything prepared, but I wanted to address some of the conversation between Mr. Harris and the FLAC person. Most of it's been covered in other conversation, but by the way, my background is I'm a retired attorney and I was a computer scientist. I worked for Motorola. That's why I moved here 25 years ago. So I have some expertise in this area and I just want to make a couple points that haven't been made yet. Number one, images from FLOC have been ruled to be accessible through the public records request. So it's available to people who wanna go through that motion. The second thing I wanna say is the cloud storage. They do have retention limits that you could set by contract, but they archive everything. So the data is there forever and accessible by other agencies. The last thing I want to talk about is data integrity. It hasn't been talked about here, so there's data access, which I'm concerned about, and data integrity, which is where they take the images and use AI to get scenarios of how people are moving in the city and that kind of thing, and that's brought for So I don't know how you're going to approach this, but I feel like you really need a sophisticated level of contract knowledge and data knowledge because even the contracts, like if Flack kept saying we're going to use the highest standards to protect it, what's that mean? You know, that's a nebulous term, and it's easy to get kind of confused rolled over by some of the language in the contract. So I urge you to make sure you have all this expertise available to you and use it. Thank you.

Christopher followed by Latondra Madison.

Christopher, state your name and city of residence. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Christopher Jennings Ryan. My family has been here since 1890, since before Arizona was a state. My great-grandfather, J.F. Jennings, was on the 9th and 10th legislature for the House of Representatives in downtown Phoenix. I live in Chandler. I was born and raised in Tempe. first of all i want to address something that nobody has addressed i attended the meeting monday evening this council study session the speaker representative for flock let me first be clear i vehemently staunchly starkly opposed cameras she mentioned 700 7700 pings that were alerted through the flock camera system since it's been implemented I did my own independent research in a matter of eight minutes with the resources available on the internet, all the sources I could find. How many arrests do you think were made with those 7,700 pings? 65. What percentage is that? That's 0.8. So you expect us to believe that this is effective? If any of you did any of your jobs on the outside or here at 0.1% or 0.8, less than 1%, would you still be here? Nin, let's remember 911, TSA, right? For your safety and security. What happened? They started tapping all our phones. Let's say some keywords into our phone right now. Let's say maybe farmer's supply. Let's see if farmer's supply market shows up on any of your algorithms. We know. They listen. They already track us, right? It's can we trust? The answer is no. Nobody here trusts. That's basically what it boils down to. I commend you, sir, for saying the words that we want to hear from people who represent us. It goes from the bottom up. You said the key word, accountability. That's what we want from people who represent us. That's why I learned Spanish is working here. So all I'm saying is vehemently oppose this. Do not vote. Thank you, sir. Yes.

Next up is LaTondra Madison. LaTondra, please state your name and city of residence.

LaTondra Madison. I'm a resident of Chandler. I came here just because I heard about this block discussion. We spoke about Chandler being a dignified city, how we represent ourselves at the beginning of this meeting. And as a resident of Chandler, the tool, this camera tool that we're using is almost going against that image. Is this something that we want to demonstrate as a city that we need this type of tool to govern ourselves is what we need to be asking ourselves. You're going to discuss this amongst yourselves. I just ask you to consider, can Chandler Police Department continue their work effectively without cameras?

I asked once and I'll ask you again, a Matthew W. Okay, thank you. Council, that's all the cards that I have in front of me. Chief, I'd like to give you and flock a chance to maybe address any of the questions. I know I've got a couple that have been brought up just to iterate again or iterate. Again, I volunteered at Galveston for 14 years reading there. But again, I'll ask again, are those our cameras that are in the center of that square mile? Or do you have any idea, as you've said, know whose they might be? Does the school have cameras on their campus? Or tell me what you know about that.

Sure, yes, through the mayor. So during all the comment sections, we did work through our logistics point. That is a flat camera on Galveston.

Okay.

Please go. Importantly, that was one of the original 14 cameras that was put in as a pilot program in that area to address ongoing crime in the Galveston neighborhood at the previous direction of city manager's office. That camera has been on a list for about a month with flock for it to be removed and repurposed. I am happy to report that since this meeting started, we sent people out there and we've removed that camera from that area.

So secondly, I know you said on Monday too, or Michelle did about the 7,700 pings that these were not, I don't remember exactly what you said, but these were not, it could have been a multiple scenario. Say that what you said again, please.

Yeah, I'll ask Michelle to come up and talk about what happens when we get an alert on the camera and why there might be multiple hits on different cameras. But this is a little more technical than my purview, so I'll have Michelle discuss it.

Thank you.

the mayor so with all of those alerts there will be times when a vehicle passes multiple cameras there will be times when maybe the same vehicle is in the area another time and we don't catch up to the vehicle if the vehicle is wanted so we're not in contact with every vehicle that alerts okay and these aren't necessarily then 77 separate incidents is what i also heard you say it could have been a tracking scenario of a

of the same one did or what?

There are alerts in the system that don't hit our threshold to alert our operators. And then there are some that we take no action on.

OK. Thank you. And just one more for you. And thank you for staying here with us. The data purging question versus storage or whatever the word. Tell us again, or tell us what happens after 30 days. Is the data gone, gone, gone? Or is it stored someplace else? Reiterate or iterate?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor, for the question. And I just confirmed with our technical team about the deletion question. After the retention period ends, that 30-day period, AWS hard deletes the data. And that is under our retention policy with the AWS cloud software. And it's vetted through audit. You can verify that through audit logs and monitoring as well.

So it does what again?

It is hard deleted in the AWS cloud system. You can verify that through auditing and monitoring.

Okay. Council, do you have any questions for these three people?

Council Member Landau? So I've heard tonight numerous cities across the nation have been dropping clock. As a business representative here, that must concern you. I'm just asking, what are your thoughts on why communities are not using your system anymore?

Through the mayor, Councilmember Orlando, you know, this is a very heated and very concerning time for public citizens having concerns about public safety, their privacy, and that healthy tension that comes with that.

Come on, guys. Come on. Seriously. Come on, please. Come on. Finish your sentence, please.

Thank you. Thank you. Through the mayor's council member Orlando. Thank you. Um, you know, this is a, like I mentioned, it's a very high tension time with that debate. Um, through that there is trust building that has to happen in that block. We're committed to doing that. And so, yes, while it is concerning, we are committed to building that trust back with city councils and agencies like Chandler. I'm committed to, I know Council Member Harris mentioned earlier, like, you know, me not having meetings with you. I apologize to that prior, but I'm committed to that, having that open door policy between FLOC and the City of Chandler Council and always offering meetings whenever you feel comfortable. I'm based in the Phoenix area. It's an easy trip for me to make. But to your point, this is something we have to build that trust back and we're committed to doing so and showing that we're the most transparent and safest product for councils, for agencies and cities to use.

So what are your competitors? Are they similar processes or what?

Through the mayor, Councilman Berlindo, I can't speak to the specifics of how our competitors were, but I don't have that specific.

Okay.

All right. Chief, the other day, somebody sent a report out about a number of incidents occurring and I'm assuming it came from your office, about the 678 stolen license plates, eight were recovered. Was that your data?

To the mayor, council member Orlando, that's correct.

Can you, you want me to just read this to you or you remember all this?

I do not remember all of that.

I was testing you. It's only 940. So 678 stolen license plate alerts, eight recovered. What does that mean?

Through the mayor, council member Orlando, those are stolen license plates that will register an alert. Real-time operations will see that alert and they will direct officers to that vehicle, stop the vehicle, and make an arrest if needed.

That doesn't mean it initiated in Chandler, what you're saying.

Through the mayor, council member Orlando, that's correct. It would be from the national database. So it could be a stolen license plate out of any city because it's comparing the database to our national database that we have through CEGIS.

So the flock camera helped you find eight of those, what you're saying?

Through the mayor, council member Orlando, that's correct.

Okay. And then 556 stolen vehicle alerts, 16 stolen vehicles recovered. Tell me about that one.

Through the mayor council member Orlando. So when an alert comes in on a stolen vehicle, we will locate the vehicle on the camera and direct officers to that stolen vehicle and they will take action as needed.

Again, doesn't mean it started from Chandler. That's correct. 94 arrest warrant alerts, eight warrants cleared. What does that mean?

through the mayor council member Orlando. This is similar to the example I gave on Monday night where anyone in the nation can enter a warrant into the national database. And if that warrant is attached to a vehicle, it will trigger an alert and we will verify it and send officers as appropriate.

22 missing endangered person alerts, nine located.

through the mayor, council member Orlando, those are missing endangered. Sometimes it's children, sometimes it's elderly, those with dementia. And for whatever their issue is, they have met the criteria for a police report and to be entered into the national database. If they're affiliated with a vehicle, it will create an alert. We will verify it and then we'll send patrol officers as appropriate.

Yeah, I know. I know. I guess I've been on this council too long and I guess, you know, not used to this, I guess. 273 active investigative alerts, 39 arrests. What does that mean?

Through the mayor council member Orlando, these are investigative leads or suspects that are in active investigations.

And you had 39 arrests?

That's correct.

Again, 273. Does that mean we initiated those?

Through the mayor, council member, Orlando, I would have to double check on that, but I believe those are our investigations, or I will double check to make sure it's not one of our regional interagency sharing agreements.

Okay. All right. Well, I appreciate you clarifying some of that, because like I said, this is just data points, and I don't know what it always meant, obviously, until I had a chance to talk to you today. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Councilmember Harris.

Yeah, I just wanted to, so, or John, you can probably answer this question or Kelly. But currently right now, do we have an ordinance that supports this level of conversation? Do we have something that, like something strong that deals with guardrails or looked at these guardrails and making sure that everyone's playing by the rules? Mayor, Councilmember Harris, I do not believe we do. okay so i guess i guess the only thing that i can do at this point is just ask for every camera to be deactivated until council comes together deactivate deactivate every camera until council is able to come together and have this discussion because it is only fair that what we know today we have to weigh that in with what we know now not what we did then but what we know now and that conversation deserves a meaningful conversation with our city attorney with our city manager with all these different people and we need to be in a room so i asked council that we would, that if council be willing to roll with me, let's table this item and let's get a meaningful conversation about this so that we can have this conversation about all these different issues, come back to the people with something that's meaningful. But in the meanwhile, let's deactivate every camera until we get real guard rail so I can have true oversight over this. What I'm asking for council to do And so with that being said, I would like to make a motion to table this conversation until we're able to have a meaningful conversation with guardrails and policies put in place and deactivate every camera. That's my motion.

So there's a motion on the floor. I'm not sure council is ready to do that because there are several more that wants to speak. So we'll see if you get a second to vote on that. Is there a second?

I think council is not ready to make a vote yet. I'm saying let's get a second.

So that way we can, we don't have a, well, hold on there. I'm asking for a second from council so we can table this conversation so we can have a meaningful conversation. We're learning a lot of new information today and it's compact. Let's do it the Chandler way. Let's do it with our residents. Let's do it the Chandler way. And the Chandler way is just asking for a second. So will one council member second with me just so we can table this conversation so we can put guardrails around a future conversation about this?

Mayor. Council member, I think they're not ready to talk yet.

Well, there's two people that's trying.

Mayor. Council member Ellis. Council member Harris, it was very clear that I asked that question that will we table this to have a session? And the mayor said very clearly that he's willing to open a work session over the subject.

Exact session.

Exact session about it. And so in that exact session, that's when you can present what you just mentioned for us to discuss it as a council and make a decision. You cannot strong arm us on the diet.

I reject that. I reject that. I reject that.

Council Member Harris.

That's not a fair. No, it's not.

No, but you cannot.

I don't want to hear it. You cannot call me names. You have to address me accordingly. I understand that. But she is not allowed to speak to me in that tone or that manner to say what I can and cannot do. That's not right. I'm a member of Harris. With respect.

Let's do it with respect. I respect you.

You did not respect my vote. What do you mean? I'm not having no conversation about your vote right now.

I can call a recess if we want to.

We need to call a recess. It's really just if Council Member Ellis feels that she needs to call me out of my name, then that deserves a recess. That maybe needs Council Member Ellis needs that. But I respected you.

Council, I'm calling a recess. That's fine.

I did not call you out of your name. You just did.

No, I said I did not want you to strong arm me out of a vote.