Council - Regular Meeting

One there and one there. 75

All right, everybody. Thank you for being here tonight uh for our work session um in preparation for our May 18th meeting. Um we've got a couple different presentations this evening. So, we will start start with uh Tom Borcher for the cop kids presentation. Like to come forward at this time. Am I being followed? Good. Uh, good evening, council. Councilman. Um, my name is Tom Borcher. I'm the executive director of an organization called Cops Kids. We were formed nine years ago for the strict purpose of supporting children of police officers. It's our belief, a firm belief that children of police officers have to deal with things that no other child has to deal with in terms of what their father and mother goes out to deal with on a daily basis. And we wanted to kind of respond to that. So over the last nine years, we've awarded nine scholarships and we've sent eight younger kids to Space Camp. Um and tonight, very pleased to announce this year's scholarship winner. Um, all what we require is an essay. Uh, that's it. We don't we don't look at your grades. We don't look at ref we don't get those fancy references letters that people crank out. Just an essay is what it's like to be a child of a police officer because we think it's kind of unique. And this year, uh, Katherine Harris is the winner of our scholarship award based on her essay and daughter of Lieutenant John Harris, uh, with the Decator. I'm really pleased because this is the first time that we have had a child of a Decar police officer win our scholarship. Those Huntsville people have been grabbing the highlights for too many too many years. So I'm glad to be here in Decator to to make the presentation. Um so before we do that, I thought if Karen Katherine didn't mind, she would just read a very brief excerpt

from her essay to give you an idea of what it's like to be the child of a police officer. Hello.

There is a certain sense of longing that become that comes with being the child of a law enforcement officer. On one hand, I know every time my dad is not home, he is working to make sure that others are safe. On the other, I miss him every time he is gone. My dad has been a police officer since the day I was born, so I've never known anything else but his constantly changing schedule. As a police officer, my dad has a strong sense of justice. He taught me if you do not want trouble in life, you must always do the right thing. Furthermore, his altruism and genuine desire to help those around him have influenced many of the major decisions I have made for my own life. Yet, a shadow of anxiety has emerged. Hatred is not a new concept. In fact, it might be one of the most present emotions in humanity. But I have never experienced it directed towards myself or my loved ones. However, hatred seeks a target, and this target has become police officers. This need to be guarded has changed the way I view even my own home. Now the prospect of having a police car in my driveway scares me. Where his car used to serve as a symbol of security for my house, I now feel like it is something to hide. Perhaps I am just an anxious person. But my mind often races to the thought, what if somebody targets my house because of this car? This sudden onslaught of hatred has made me much more guarded person. But that is not the only thing I have learned. I feel more empathy for those who have experienced prejudice and hatred. I have gained more compassion for those around me. And I am able to navigate rocky social topics with more grace because I know how it feels to be ostracized based on society's view of my identity. Today, as I prepare to help others through pharmacy, my own version of his altruism, I carry both his sense of justice and the resilience I gained from his absence. The police car in the driveway may no longer feel like an impenetrable shield, but the lessons my father taught me within those walls are a barrier that no amount of external hostility can break. I am and will always be my father's daughter.

and and that's why we're operating as cops kids for sentiments like that. So, I'd like to present Katherine uh the the scholarship money already went to the college. So, all she gets is a frame certificate still counts, but that's the best we got. So, if I if I could just uh look at this camera here and anybody scooch in. Okay. And then you always need a little bit of instant gratification. So, we also have cops kids fun money. Here's a gift certificate for you to go out and have a little fun. Take family out to dinner or something. Thank you. So, thank you all for allowing us to

Thank you. Congratulations. Know you're proud. Yeah. I would like to say one thing. John is the grandson of Julian Harris. Great granddaughter. He's also unfortunately related to first my first cousin. You're doing good until then. His wife Emily is here as principal at Austin Middle. So they got a long roots here in I just I'm proud of you guys. Yeah. Appreciate you and the whole family. Great way to start a meeting. That was awesome.

Um, up next we've got a presentation u from Axon. I don't know, Chief, were you wanting to open up um for that presentation? Give a little bit of background. Yeah, we're ready for you now. All right. Good evening.

Evening. Um, we got some uh some visitors here to give a background, I'm sorry, to give a overlook of some equipment that we're looking to purchase. Uh, as you know, during my 90-day gap analysis when I first got here, I spoke on the ecosystem. Uh, everybody up here had it. I think it was page eight or 11. So, one part of it, it was it was about the body cams. You know, in the past, we had major issues with our body cameras. Lag time when it comes to downloading videos. uh it takes four plus hours and you can't secure the footage. Uh we have a company Axon that uh can meet all our needs and I just want to bring up uh Mr. Brennan to do a um presentation for us. I think I got one.

Appreciate y'all uh y'all having me today. So, um, as he introduced me, my name is Kyle Bernon. Um, I actually took over the region, uh, sort of territory this January, and I've had the pleasure of talking with both Bridget and Chief Mack, uh, numerous times now about some other issues that are ongoing. Um, you know, kind of came up with a plan on how we could potentially solve them, um, as well as embed them sort of within the Axon public safety ecosystem. Um, so I'm going to go through this uh this slide deck and then we'll leave time for plenty of questions, but we'll try and make it as brief as pro possible. I've also got Chris Perez here um who is on the drone side uh with our drone partner SkyO. Um but some of the current issues that they had outlined to me were um as he mentioned the security based measures um you know some of the inconsistencies with year-over-year pricing on the storage piece. Some of the judicial sharing is outdated. uh they're paying officers, as he mentioned, four plus hours to sit there and wait for a video to buffer. Um no customer support that was 24/7 um with consistent hardware issues and then no technology assurance plan. And so year-over-year was sort of an an inconsistent way of budgeting um as well as not knowing if their their cameras were actually going to be uh working out in the field. Um, Huntsville PD was one that as of I think January 26, they were one year into their Axon program, switching away from where else current vendors at. Um, I had called Ronnie Dicki who had said he's more than happy to speak with any of you all on behalf of of Axon and switching over from your vendor. Uh, but he kind of put together three quotes for me um that I just wanted to include in here. Um, number one, putting digital evidence all in one place, not not having to maintain 15 different systems with siegence sieges compliancy. Um, Axons evidence.com will be able to house all of your digital evidence regardless of where it comes from. Um, the quality of equipment overall, everything just works

as promised and if it doesn't, Axon makes sure to fix and continue to deliver on their promise. Um, I think that speaks volumes to the way that we operate business. Um, we make sure that we serve public safety and pretty much public safety alone. Um, so when you're in that world, you have to be there 24/7. You have to be able to be relied on. Um, and then lastly, overall connectivity, being able to talk to officers, sharing with the DA through email. It's all just seamless. And so that's what we've built with Axon is a a seamless sort of ecosystem that can go, you know, into the drone space, that can go into the interview room space, anything else. Um, and so I say all of that to say if you look at the graph, it's probably confusing. It's using a lot of acronyms that you probably don't know. Your packet has a little bit of a brief breakdown of what's included throughout this whole encompassing uh project. Um but comparing it to where they're currently at. Um as you can see, there's a lot going on there. And I figured the best way to show that is through a quick video that we'll have in a couple slides. And uh moving on uh as we sort of began discussions with with Chief, it was it was apparent to me that he had a very clear vision of how he wanted to operate. Um I know he he's almost been here a year now and so we didn't think it was fair to bring up, you know, what had happened prior to him. Um so we decided to essentially map out his five main points and how we can help solve and bridge the gap there. Number one being the structure and staffing. And so our AI tools are able to cut down on workflows. Um, you know, we've actually been quoted in a case study with one of our partners in Fort Collins, Colorado, saying that their report writing time is cut down 67%. Now, in the case of this, I always like to be pretty conservative, and we've kind of estimated about a 40% reduction in in workflow volume. Um, and especially when there's limited capacity for that. And our our idea behind Axon Intelligence isn't to ever take any jobs. It's to be able to allow y'all to do more with less. Um, number two, policies and procedures. And so we have

specific products that can uh that can help out with those. Community engagement and trust is a big one for us at Axon. Our mission is to protect life. Um so we have my 90. It's going to you know have some measurable community sentiment and trust data all embedded. Um and then the virtual reality training has a uh a critical component to it. Now there's there's kind of range training. You're going to get a you know firearm simulator, a taser simulator. Um the other piece of that is the community engagement training. And so if you're someone who deals with something like schizophrenia, it's actually going to put the officer in the perspective of the person with schizophrenia and in turn teach them how to deescalate safely as the officer. And so um tons of scenarios that are coming out on a on a monthly cadence. Nothing's ever monotonous. Um nothing's ever used twice, but you can kind of set your training standard based from that that virtual reality headset. Um and with it being a headset, you can take it anywhere. So, Citizens Police Academy, you know, to the school, allow them to see what it's like to actually be an officer, supervision and oversight. Um, again, some just more nuanced uh of within evidence.com, some software features, and then technology and innovation is the big one. And so, at Axon, we started out 31 years ago now as as Taser. Um, everybody probably knows Taser and as we've evolved, it's now incorporated body cameras, drones, all wrapped under this, all wrapped up into this one ecosystem uh through an acquisition we made called Axon Fus. As I mentioned earlier, um, our entire uh, business is sectored around the the protect life motto. Um, we have found that the best way to do that is to cut down on the first two minutes that happens when someone dials 911 all the way to when an officer responds and then that case is now sent to court. Um, the way that we figured out how to do that is through acquisitions and partnerships

like Skyio. Um, so as you can see, an incident happens, there's an AI assistant and prepared 911. And now I know y'all don't operate your own um 911 center, but the county will actually benefit from the project that we're talking about. Um there's a product called non-emergency triage where all of your non-emergency calls uh s about 60 to 80% of them are actually going to be taken care of with AI. Um allowing some freed up time uh for for the actual 911 center uh who is you know always I would say 99% of the time throughout the country is going to be underst staffed. um through that real-time crime center with Fucus, um you're going to be able to actually listen, give the officer some context as to what he's responding to, allow them to respond quicker, as well as get some uh some drone oversight. And we've seen a ton of success throughout the state and the nation, uh you know, more specifically with Dothan and Tuscaloosa who have launched some pretty robust programs. Um as well as Auburn here most recently. Um, but without any of these tools, we're looking at a national average of about 7 to 10 minutes uh per response time. And we're wanting to cut that down to about 120 to 180 seconds.

As I mentioned, we'll play this brief video to kind of encapsulate everything that's going to be incorporated this program. Now approaching that suspect last So, as you can see in the first kind of 30 seconds of this video, um, our body camera is going to be a little bit more than just a body camera. um it's actually going to be an officer's assistant that they're wearing on their chest. Now, um I'm going to bring up somebody who speaks German. Uh and so this this can act as a translator real time so that if you do, you know, face somebody who there's a language barrier instead of waiting on language line uh for what's hopefully going to be uh someone who can, you know, actually speak that language. We've heard, you know, anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes that could happen if they're in distress. That's not a that's not a very quick turnaround time. So, we've built it into the body camera through the use of AI to where we're able to communicate with them on the spot. So, it's a double double tap here in this button.

Translation. Press and hold button. Then say translate to X or auto detect. Then auto detect. Automatic detection enabled. identified German that you are here.

How can I help you? My auto stolen. My car was stolen. What was the last direction you saw it go?

We're good. So, again, more of a live kind of demo. I know videos will show one thing, but wanted to kind of show youall real time. Um, all of that is recorded. And so when you're done, you can hold this button down and all of that is going to be captured and offloaded into our evidence.com. Now this model we have seen um we've already gotten some proven results from it. Now it's a fairly recent thing with all of the acquisitions that we've made, but three key partners have been able to provide case studies for us that are online. Um one being Poria, Arizona, Redmond, Washington, and Shreport uh Louisiana. Um, all of them have seen significant reductions in the time to respond as well as uh overall crime rate. Um, and so off of that, we're going to bring in Chris, who will kind of be our drone expert here. Um, be able to walk through what uh what we've mapped out for the city of Decar. Um, and then again at the end, we'll kind of leave time for some questions that y'all might have.

Awesome. Thanks, K. So, um, we're going to touch on we call it DFR. Um, and what that stands for is drone as a first responder. Um, it's been a new technology that really started to pick up legs. Um, I would say in the last probably 2 and a half years or so. Uh, and uh, I'll give a little bit of a background of of Skyio. We're a partner of Axon. Uh, everything. We're the we're America's largest drone manufacturer. Uh, we're headquartered all in the United States. Our our training and uh, warehousing headquarters actually right down the road in Huntsville. Uh, and then this is just going to be a quick video of one of one of our partner agencies, what they are starting to coin negative response times. Uh, and so what what that means is historically when you're asking for a drone to come in overhead and and support an officer, typically that means a 911 call came in, right? That dispatcher is taking that. They're then going to take that over the radio. They're going to dispatch that out to an officer. Then they're going to send a unit out there and that can span 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever that looks like. So, with some of the tools we're going to discuss today, we're going to talk about some of the AI translation and transcription that's going to come in from the 911 side, and that's automatically going to be pushed over to the officer. In this example, they actually had the drone overhead and they were responding to the call before that 911 caller even hung up with the dispatcher. Uh, so before that call ended, so which could have been 5 minutes, they're already solving the crime, right? And so they're calling that negative response time. So that's what we're really going to dive into. to take a step back for a second thinking about drones, you know, what are they going to be used for? I think Katherine did a great job in her in her uh presentation talking about, you know, the anxiety of what an officer is going through uh going through as they're responding to a call. So, there is a world where now you actually have eyes on the scene before you step into that uh into that incident. And then even thinking about it from the city's use cases of how can drones be used as parts of your infrastructure, right? It's not just for for first responders and for public safety, but if you have to do inspections, if to look at where your water lines are, if there's any sort of damages that is going around the city. Uh we both live in the Nashville area.

Uh we had a big ice storm last year. All the drones were being utilized to figure out where were the utility poles down, where is power still out across the city. So thinking about how they can be leveraged as larger data collection devices for the city. Um just another use case to kind of bring that up, but I'll play the video and I'll walk you through it in a second here. So you'll see here there's audio was not working before. So I might have to give it a second. But basically you'll see on the lefth hand side of the video the the responder is actually getting an AI translation of what's happening. And so they are getting a call uh from a uh from a retail store that basically had somebody shoplifting. I believe it was a it was a Marshalls. And uh before that 911 call is actually over uh they are dispatching out that unit. And I don't know if it's playing. Oh, hold on. I had it the other way. Uh

oh. Back. Here we go. Nope. Not sure if it's playing right now. Is it playing on the computer? Yeah.

All right. Well, we can skip this part, but either way, the drone is responding and they're able to have an officer up there. It's kind of a a combination of all the different technologies that are built into to the same platform. Um, but to kind of go take a step back, so what we did was we looked at Bridget was nice enough to get um a year's worth of your call for service data and what we did was map out some of the key locations where drones could be placed across the city. So, this is basically mapped out off of the the five zones. I know you have a six zone with some of the uh some of the buildup and the new annexation across the river. Um but so five zones and typically what cities will utilize is either schools, fire stations, police departments to make sure that we are focusing on the optimal response time. So we broke this down into five different zones. We use a couple different schools uh and then also the police headquarters uh for zone 4. And then what's included in the initial uh package that's included with the body cameras is three docks. So the busiest three zones were zones 2, 3, and four. And basically what the model spit out was that you're getting about 30, so call it about a third of your calls the drones can respond to. And 30% of them they can respond to in less than 3 minutes. And then scaling that over the course of over the course of the contract, getting to all five of your zones, getting up to about 50 uh 45% of the calls in under 3 minutes, and then doubling down. Uh we're seeing this across uh number of cities where they're putting two docking stations to relieve one another. Uh and that gets you to nine across the city and that gets you to about 2/ird of the calls being responded to in less than 3 minutes. So really really focusing on how can we get more information in your officer's hands uh as well as fire safety or anybody else who are going to be the first responders that are out there uh to really kind of drill down on getting more intelligence as they're u responding to calls. And then a good example of this is uh is Doven that we did. So what they're doing is a three-phased approach. So they took

three docks which were uh three key locations to focus on some of their high crime areas. Phase two, which is coming up in October, they're getting three more. And then phase three is putting four more docks at four of the six locations, uh which are the ones that have the most volume of calls that are going out there. So they're already seeing a ton of success. Um Kyle alluded to a couple other cities. Tuscaloosa is uh expanding on their project. Auburn's expanding on their project. Birmingham, um Alabama has been a state that's really adopted aerospace as a whole. Uh and so we're we're super excited to to partner with a lot of other cities across the state. Um and I think that's about it on the drone side.

Yeah. And um to his point, I think, uh drones, you know, I two years ago I didn't really think about drones. Um, and now it's it's coming up in almost every conversation that we have in in the public safety realm. Um, and so there's got to be a a trade-off, right? There has to be a return on your investment. And so both through the use of AI as well as um as well as the DFR model um when we think about productivity. So, our draft one tool is going to be an automated an AI generated report to where there's still going to be a human component involved in all of these things, but um it streamlines their their report writing by I said earlier, you know, potentially up to 67% allowing them more time to get back in the field. And so, um as part of our AI program, um we have heard the feedback. It's like, hey, you come out with a new feature and we have to go back to council and they're tired of, you know, approving things that we want from Axon. And so, um, because AI is coming so fast, um, we incorporated everything into this what we call an our Axon intelligence or AI era program. And so, everything that we come out with AI related throughout the life of the contract, there'll be an optin, right? But, um, y'all will actually be able to get it. And so, there's a numerous amount of of products that we're sort of envisioning down the road, but um, to start out, these six, it's only been around for a year, and we have these six live today. There's going to be another eight to 10. and and it's I think it probably outlined in the packet that I gave y'all. There's going to be another 8 to 10 that come out this year, another 8 to 10 next year, next year, and next year. So, we had heard we don't want to keep going back to council for these things. Um and so we decided anything throughout the future are going to, you know, you all have to opt in, but if you want it, it's going to be a fixed cost. Um so when we think about the time returned to not only officers but the administrative staffs as well um all of these numbers so draft one saving about 30 minutes per day per officer um going

throughout. So if we look at the total return of time alone and quantify it over the life of a 10-year contract um we're looking at around 11.1 million um in productivity that we're gaining back. Now moving over to the right hand portion of this slide. Um specifically on the bottom um we're doing the same thing with the DFR model. So we've estimated about $250 per call that's responded to um whether that's gas money getting a vehicle out there um you know hourly wage and whatnot. If we're able to avoid with a full dock deployment while it's phased in, um over the life of a 10-year contract, we're looking at about $13 million given back um as a return on your investment. And so these aren't necessarily numbers that are just made up. We have all of the data, all of the research to show y'all. Um but in order to quantify it, it's easy to look at it like this. And then this doesn't even include any of the AI tools that are out in the future. Um, so if you look in the top right, we're looking at sort of a crawl, walk, run approach. So incorporating the entire Axon ecosystem. Um, again, there's a lot of components to it. We won't dive into the weeds, but um, we're looking at if we wanted to start this thing in July, um, we're looking at about a million one per year uh, throughout the 10 years. And then in year two, as part of the walk phase, we wanted to get two more docks out there to cover all the five zones. um giving you a year to spin up, you know, your your department on all of these new technologies. Um and so adding those two docks would end up adding about $160,000 a year. And then the run phase, we're looking at about an additional 305 306,000 a year. So that is sort of the the crawl crawl walk run approach. Now this isn't our only approach, right? We can do bare bones and then you can always add, you know, as many docks as felt necessary. Um but through what we've seen out in the field and and the true return that both like

Dus Dothan and Tuscaloosa have have called us and said we want more docs. We want more docs. And so um this is what we saw as a good fit based off your call for service data. Now beyond the the PD's impact um we're looking at about a 40% reduction in total call volume through that non-emergency triage for the for the 911 center. um about 30,000 non-emergency calls handled annually by prepared 911 which is our AI layered platform um that goes within the call center and then 100% of those calls Q&A um all through the use of AI. On the PD side we're as I mentioned we're looking at about a 40% work workload reduction um initially about 6,000 calls cleared without dispatch annually through through DFR. Um and then about two and a half million per year um through the use of AI and DFR. And then on the fire department side, they're also able to use the drones. Um so kind of quantified through the average response time there, about 2500 uh calls cleared without dispatch and then about a 20 25% reduction in non-emergency calls responded to in person for them. Again, we're only as good as our as our partners and so um we did want to reference a lot of the other Alabama agencies. So nine out of the 10 currently are are utilizing our evidence.com and and digital evidence management platform paired with the body cameras and incar cameras. Um five five out of 10 are using all three axon skyio and fusis with three more in the works that I know of. Um flagship DFR partners who would all be more than happy to talk with anybody here um are Tuscaloosa Auburn and Dothan. And then as far as the the flagship officer safety plan premium partners, um Huntsville and Birmingham are two really really good ones for us. And um I mentioned earlier Ronnie said he would be more than happy to to speak with anybody. Um he's over in Huntsville.

That's it. We're opening it up for uh for any questions that y'all might have. Thank you all for having us. Pro probably will have a lot of questions. It's a good bit to take in. Um appreciate the presentation. and appreciate you taking the risk to do a demonstration. Um, we've seen these go those go a different way before, but um

yeah, I mean obviously there's a significant cost associated with it. The the chief will present that um in his case uh for consideration, but um I am curious a little bit. You know, we talk with different municipalities and counties departments all over. You hear the biggest issue is staffing. Um I would assume we would agree with that. Are y'all seeing with any of the agencies you're working with, is this helping them fight the staffing issue as far as it's harder to get officers? You're obviously saving time. I'm in efforts or department saying, "Hey, this has helped us not necessarily reduce headcount, but fill the gap between what's what's needed and what your software can offer. Can you can you speak to that a little bit?"

We can talk to them, too. Doin had a good example. So, so the chief the chief in uh in Doan, Chief Benny, um he the way he put it when we asked him about why he was looking to invest in a complete overhaul of the police technology ecosystem. And he said, "I need to do more with less. Not only do I have less officers, but also some of the the newer officers that I'm that are that I'm bringing on don't have the experience. And so, how can I leverage technology to help them get better at their job, but then also help us do more and focus on actually fighting crime?" and and that was the biggest piece was leveraging technology to do not to replace necessarily but to help enhance um the job that they're doing. That has been the biggest takeaway is why they've you know invested in some of this technology across the board. Yeah.

And that's the way we're thinking of it too on the AI front just with productivity. um all of the software components again they aren't meant to replace anybody but it's it's a common theme around the country that hey we're we're short staffed and recruit recruitment and retention is is difficult right now. Um, so pairing, you know, up-to-date technology that allows for the recruitment and retention because, hey, if you know, if I'm spending 40% le less time writing reports and doing all this, you know, administrative work rather than being on the streets, um, I might just go to the different, you know, down the street agency, pairing that with, you know, gaining that time back and allowing to do more with less.

Yeah, I think that's a big factor, right? We want our our men and women on the road and on patrol, not not sitting in their car, sitting in an office uh filling out paperwork and uh obviously, you know, we would be essentially doubling the cost um over our current service. So to see some level of ROI, you I'll have to I'll have to look into that. Just it's hard to see these monitors. We're working on getting some more, but uh I think we we were sent the you log on to YouTube and watch it. I'm not live streaming from the day. Um, but we'll we'll certainly look into it. Appreciate you guys being here. Are there any other

Well, I would like to make a statement. You know, we were at ALM two weeks ago and Mayor Celiva from Dothan said that he felt like this played a big role in recruiting and retention with the new technology. But the question I had, you can also ask the camera questions about policy and procedure. Correct.

Correct. Yeah. So, um, what's built into the the thing, it's not just like Axon translation, it's Axon assistant. And so, there's a policy chat component, there's a translation component. Um, so if you're sitting in your car or, you know, you're on the road and you just have a quick policy question, um, you can ask it and it'll basically you input your policy into your instance of evidence.com and it's able to sort through that, point that and give you the actual, you know, reference line of where that is. So you can do on the body camera or within evidence.com itself. And I'm assuming all of that is recorded and archived. Yep. There's an audit trail. Yes, sir. Yeah. So there's an audit trail for everything that you do within evidence.com or on the body cameras. Yeah. And and how quick does it do that?

It's it's usually as good as your LTE service is. Um so if you're you know in a like I was down in the basement earlier and it wasn't working great. Um but up here as y'all can see as quick as the translation was um the policy chat will also be that quick. Okay. Yes sir. So along with some of this AI I think everybody knows it's new. It's it's constantly changing. It's constantly getting better. I guess my question is with some of the stuff that is AI driven, what success or failures have you had in court with it? Have you had any cases where you you've had to go to court with AI stuff?

Yeah, great question. And so um without mentioning any specific uh you know departments or cases in general um we have a a human component that's behind everything with AI. And so uh for example like the the translation tool um in order to actually take it to court you want to have a human translator watch that video analyze it and make sure that it translated you know perfectly and then present it that way. Uh as as the draft one goes um they'll have to sign off. there's going to be, you know, brief interjections like you can put in making sure that they're reading through going through that report and then having to sign off before submitting. And so we actually have not had um hardly any issues at all. Um initially it was obviously a little uncomfortable, but as we've

So, so with all this, this is support you guys do on the back end. Like let's say we have a stop, it goes to court, we use the AI translator, generator, drone footage. Obviously, we don't have the internal IT bandwidth to to know your software in and out, but that's just something where we pick up the phone and call you'all and say, "Hey, this is what we got." Check the boxes and move forward. Yeah. Is that part of that support?

Yeah. So, as part of the support, and I would actually push back a little bit just as far as like knowing the inner workings of the software. Um, when we initially deploy this or if we get the opportunity to, um, we'll have somebody dedicated on site through almost an entire week going through everything. Um I would assume Bridget would uh would kind of be the mastermind behind that. Um but throughout you'll have a dedicated customer success manager who you know we'll hop on a call run trainings. Um and so if there is anything that we need to support on we will do that. But um I would think that they'll be experts within the first couple of weeks of of their internal. So that'll be on site couple week training. Secondly drones I would assume because I know we've got drone pilots here but a drone is a drone but it's not

right. Not only that, but also our training headquarters is right in Huntsville. So like we have a whole team that's dedicated there. I mean I I would imagine you guys even if it was, you know, years later, you know, right down the road, get some assistance. Yeah, that's included. So are you saying you train every single um officer or do you have a train the trainer for instance? Okay. Train the trainer can be either. Yeah. So, I I know we rolled out a program uh about 6 months ago in Arkansas, and they actually had it to where they brought all of their guys in over a 3-day period, and they had our um professional services manager walk through it with them, or Bridget wanted to, you know, kind of get to be an expert and then pass it along. It's completely up to to the department.

The price would change based on that. No, no, ma'am. So, I really Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. I I really like the translator and that they can find out what the policy is. That's going to help tremendously especially when you have newer officers on the policy part and communication is so important that something doesn't get miscommunicated and you know not not have good results because of it. So that's

Yeah, I was kind of piggybacking on that. Um we've had in the past um instances where there were discrepancies between what the officers reported and what was on video. How would this going to, you know, kind of settle some of those things and how does that work with the AI? What the AI says versus what the officer says. Yeah. So, the AI is not actually looking at the video itself. It's looking at the transcript, right? And so, if there's a uh, you know, god forbid, an officer involved shooting or anything. Um, we've seen a lot of agencies not even allow draft one to be used, that's going to be a handwritten report or like we do in the past. Um, as far as it sorry, what was the first part of your question?

It was about the discrepancies between the body body cam footage and what officers report. Yeah. So, so there's there's safeguards with gun evidence.com. It's all permission based. And so, if Chief Mack didn't want to allow any officers to watch any video ever, he's allowed to do that. Um, so it's all up to, you know, departmental policy as well as kind of the roles and permissions that are assigned throughout the the, you know, standard setup. uh to prevent any any situations like that happening. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's also the activation abilities of this is probably far beyond maybe I think it's activated if lights or sirens, holsters, correct, etc. Yes, sir.

And then wasn't there if if you were within a certain proximity of another officer and theirs went off, yours would automatically activate. So there's not the making sure that it's there's a lot of I guess anytime in in business or anything that I do, it's how do you eliminate the opportunity for human error? Exactly. And how do you you know and have some type of back stop to that? So yeah. So what he's talking about is it's within a Bluetooth range. It's our our signal sensors. Um so that's built into the incar system. It triggers on light bar, crash, siren. Um you can set, you know, over a certain speed it'll trigger and then that will end up triggering the body camera. You draw your taser, draw your firearm, it'll all trigger to get so make sure that we never miss a moment. And and it triggers the other officers in the center.

Correct. Well, it also allows our officers to act, right? Not I mean, they they have a lot anytime an incident happens, they got a lot going on. They've got to respond to far more than probably any other profession at any moment. And it allows them to to not have to there's just one less thing I would think in my simple mind for them to have to think through is they know that it's there. Um, so

and and your officer's uh location will also be broadcasted too. So if there was something that needed to like you wanted separate eyes on there, the drone can immediately go out to where that officer is. So you can see on the map where your officers are, where the vehicles are, can make sure it gets out there as quickly as possible so you know what's happening. Uh, and then Terrence, to your question earlier too about some of the discrepancies on the back end, let's just say there is a discrepancy, right? You can always go back and look up the transcript and say, "Hey, you know, hey, Officer Smith called me an XYZ," whatever it is. You could look that up in the transcript. Save the time going have to read through all the reports, go through the the back and forth, and you can actually solve that in, you know, a matter of seconds.

Just go over a little bit what some of the drone capabilities are. I mean, I get it's an eye in the sky and it's there quick. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's part of it for sure. Um the biggest thing that is has um kind of pushed the growth of drones being utilized for this is the autonomous nature of them. So because of the integration built into the Axon ecosystem, as soon as a call comes in, an operator has the ability to effectively launch that drone. The drone is going to launch up in the air and automatically fly itself out to that location. So the goal is to get out there before an officer responds. So number one, you're going to have intel on what's actually going on. not could this be a crime that's in progress or it might be a nonsense call, right? It might not be worth sending a unit where you're already understaffed. Right now, on top of that, all the information that it's collected from there automatically offloads into the axon uh evidence.com ecosystem. So, you have better evidence, faster response times, better officer safety. Right now, you also might even be able to say, "Hey, I don't need two units, I need three, or I don't need to send unit at all." So, it's really about better resource allocation, better safety for your officers, and just generally over better intel for the for the city overall.

So, we would have somebody that would send out the drone based on the call. Yeah. What is there a correlation between police and fire, right? I mean, fire often is responding to many of our calls. So, if there were a bad accident, someone calls 911. Can we can we I mean, would it I would Well, I don't know if you might Well, Chief Springer's here, but I'm sure he would love to have advanced notice of a situation as they're coming up with. Is that we can share that between departments? I assume it goes out over dispatch regardless.

Yeah. So, you can you can share it out. We have it set up where you can live that live stream that back out to whether it's responding officers, you can send it back to command staff, fire, uh we can set up different distribution lists. Um so I'll give you an example. We're doing something in Mobile right now where they have just a command staff distribution list. So if it's something big or it's a big event, right, they want everybody to have access to it. Or if it's just their SWAT team, um they're only sending that link out to to those people so they can live stream that video out. But I mean, most of the most of the cities we're working with, yes, there is a joint response between both the fire and police, the calls that you're coming into the 911 center are going to be for both, right? So, you're going to be able to see in real time, you know, what you and you ultimately you're making the decision on what you're sending that drone out to.

Yeah. And just to add to that, too, if you don't mind, um, so all of that is able to be compiled within Fus. And so, that's our kind of operating center.

Um, through that, we can give licenses to, you know, the fire chief or whoever else that wants access. And when that 911 call comes in, you're going to see the transcript and because they have location. Um I don't think the fire department uses our body cameras, but if they did, they would have their location. Um and then they can see who's closest. Uh and then, you know, dispatch that drone out. Um you know, push that information onto the the MDT or the body camera of that officer. And so, um you can really make it more of a a public safety infrastructure more than just what the the police department gets out of it. Tuscaloosa is a great example of one where they have an internal Google form where let's just say their DPW reaches out and say, "Hey, we could use the drones for an inspection. They'll reach out to the PD, say, "Hey, on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. we're going to take over the drones. We're going to do this for the job that we need." And then it's all yours. So, can be used kind of outside of that that use case as well. Okay.

So, you need a pilot if you want more than just over the scene. Is that the correct? So, technically, yes. Um, so a part of that would be get a and included in here would be getting the city waiverss in order to operate a drone what's called beyond visual line of sight. Uh, and that can also expand to one operator can actually fly multiple drones at once. Um but ultimately the one person is going to launch the drone will take it out to that scene and then if the change if the scene is going to be some sort of you know dynamic issue then you can take over the pilot and then what do whatever you need to do which is could be you know following a car zooming in switching to a thermal capability something of that nature.

Appreciate y'all answering all our questions. I'm sure we will um have more as we take this into consideration. Anybody got anything else? Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you all for having us. Thank you.

All right. Now, we appreciate everybody being here tonight. Uh hanging out if we're going to get to the agenda now. So, um we'll start next week's meeting with a proclamation um by the mayor in recognition of the Decatur High School girls tennis team as a 2026 AHSAA 6A state tournament runner up. Um approval of monthly bills. Approve April 2026 monthly bills. Any questions? All right. Approval of minutes. Approve April 27th, 2026, 5:00 p.m. council work session. Approve May 4th, 2026, 5:30 p.m. council work session. And approve May 4th, 2026, 6 p.m. council meeting. No changes. Any questions? All right. Set a public hearing. Resolution number 26109, approve a baitment of unsafe conditions at 305 Robin Road Southwest. A public hearing will be June 15th, 2026, 10:00 a.m. This just public hearing and answer questions at that time.

All right. Public hearings. Resolution number 26122. Approve request for special event retail liquor license for Green Walt Hospitality LLC. Doing business as the Fields at 3427 Gordon Terry Parkway, Decatur, Alabama 35603 for June 11th through 13th. Um, of course, this is for Rock the South and they have met all of revenues criteria. They still they're still working with fire. Okay. All right. Any questions? A couple of issues that they still have to work through there. We expect those to be by next week. We expect those to be resolved tomorrow, actually.

Okay. Any questions? We abatements resolution number 26110. to assess $348 against 4012th Avenue Northwest for the cost of abatement of nuisance. This is just a regular weed abatement. We're just asking to assess the the cost of of the abatement. Okay. Any questions? All right. Resolutions. Resolution number 2611 approves special use permit for AT&T to install a temporary cellular facility at 3536 Gordon Terry Parkway for the upcoming Rock to South concert.

How you doing? Again, Jeff Bass with CMS. Basically, it's the same thing we had with the Verizon Sailor uh cow. It's a temporary tower site just to kind of help uh assist with the higher volume of people in that area for the Rock the South concert. So, we have reviewed their application and it is our recommendation for appro approval. Okay, any questions? Thank you, Jeff. Resolution number 26112 assess demolition costs in the amount of 6,816.20 20 cents against 813 Austin Street Southwest for abatement of unsafe conditions. Alan, yes, this is just again this abatement has been done and we're just asking to assess the cost of the abatement.

All right, any questions? Resolution number 26113, assess demolition cost in the amount of $9,76.20 against 821 Austin Street Southwest. Yes, we've completed the demol uh the uh the abatement of this uh unsafe building. We're just as asking to assess the cost. Same property owners or different. I'm not sure. So, they were relatively close. I think it's the same property owner, but I I couldn't. All right. Any other questions? Resolution number 26114, approve application for the National Parks Grant to update Albany Historic Residential District Survey.

Yeah, this is just a requesting to apply. If we're awarded, we'll come back to you at that time. Uh we will, you know, and this will not be awarded until n after September. So, we'll add the we would add this to u to our grant match budget if if we're awarded. Okay. Any questions? $25,200. Yes, ma'am. Resolution number Yeah. Yeah. Resolution number 26115 approve application for the National Parks grant for phase two of the Fairway Penny Acres Historic Residential District.

Yeah, we had real good success on the first phase and this will just be the second phase. Again, this is the application. If we're awarded, we'll come back to the council uh to ask you to accept it and then we will put the grant match in in our next year's grant match budget. Will this second phase close it out or does there need to be another phase? I think it would I think this will complete that one's for this district. Yes. Is penny acres. It would just be the survey obviously for anything to happen. Yeah. From the neighborhood to see if there you know if there's enough there to do a district.

This is just the first phase of of that. All right. Resolution number 26116. Thank you. Approve vacation request number 626 for Donald and Sonia Snow. Yes. This is a 10-ft wide drainage utilities and telecommunication easement to be vacated, but it doesn't require any relocation or dedication. Any questions? All right. Resolution number 26117 approve Holly Street EV charging station relocation to Morgan County parking lot by Decator Utilities. Uh good evening council. This is the relocation of the EV charger for the STEM center that will be built.

Okay. Any questions? I make a comment there. This was in the uh original proposal we had to relocate all the utilities with the proposed cost of 130,000. I've cut the cost down to 110 with a grant for 65,000. So reducing the amount that we're going to pay on that quite a bit. All right. Any questions? Resolution number 26118 approved budget amendment for the purchase of barricades from Carnegie Visual Arts Center. Mr. Allen.

Good evening, mayor, council. Uh this is for the the city to purchase the barricades from the Carnegie. So the barricades that that we put around downtown and across the city for events, uh significant amount of those was purchased by the Carnegie uh some years ago. Um as you know, these barricades are used all over the city. Uh they were used at Dykin Fest. They were used at Dragonboat Fest. They were used for events all over, not just the Carnegie Carnival. And um so we have proposed to purchase these barricades uh from the Carnegie. And um since Parks and Recre has been managing downtown events as of the last few months and events across the city, um I figured I would um bring this to y'all for for recommendation.

Okay. Any questions? I do real quick before you walk back away. I I want to brag on Park and Rex, Point Mauard, your staff. Y'all dealt with Dyonfest, the Deluge, Dragon Boat races. You got a lacrosse tournament coming up. your opening point Mard in two weeks. Y'all have been very busy. The golf course is wrapping up. You know, it a lot of the times that goes unseen by the public and I just want to thank y'all for all the hard work y'all done for everything. Y to be at the park this weekend. It looks really really good.

Point Maller is looking great. Um it's it's ready for for opening day and I I know Stephanie and her team's been working their butt off and we're really excited um about what Point Mard has to offer this summer. Um the lacrosse tournament started today. Today was the first day of games. Um I've been outside all day, so I apologize for my outdoor attire, but um I think you got some sun

just just a little bit. But um just for everybody in this room and the city, if you if you're looking for something to do this week, uh go out to the to to Jack Allen Recreational Complex and check out the lacrosse tournament. Um it's it's a it's a fun site, very competitive. It's it's a really cool event. So if you if you need something to do, um go check it out. It's a good thing. I would say I was out there myself for a little while this afternoon and it it's a exciting game to watch. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Resolution number 26119 approve invoice cloud as payment processor for planning department software.

Yes. This is for the uh ability to be able to collect payments online using credit cards for the short-term rental application process. Okay. Any questions? Thank you, sir. Resolution number 26120 approved ground lease extension with SBA for tower use.

We we presently have a lease and we'll have it for 47 more months. It's the tower out toward point mile on the is you're going toward point. It's on the left. What they're asking to do and our consultant David Andrews with SBA reviewed both their proposals. This would extend it for for potentially another 30 years. And uh I can let me give you some basically they're going to extend it for the 30 years. They will give us $100,000 kind of a signing bonus when we sign it. Uh the estimated revenue from it over the 30-year period is right at $8 million. As I said before, there's 47 more months on the present lease. The reason they go ahead and do it this early is because the their tenants that want to know and have the assurance that they're going to be able to stay on that tower.

And of course, these are communication towers. So, it's very important. But it's estimated that over the next 47 months that we will earn 472,000. So, it's about $10,000 a month. But the without getting too many figures, basically over the 30-year period including that, it'll be right at $8 million that the city will be paid for them to be there. Is there an escalator? Yeah, it's a 5% escalator, I believe, is what it is. Yeah, it's built in an annual escalator. Sure is. That the figures I've given you, take that into consideration. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Herman. All right. Resolution number 26121. Herman, don't go too far. Authorize mayor to execute agreement with Kasa Grand LLC. Well, I'm going to yield my time to Barney, but basically it's it's a development downtown that local developers and construction people want to send a proposal to you to consider and Barney can share that with you. I'll try to cover it.

The city a couple of years ago entered into an agreement with Richard Winstead and conveyed to him the property. I'm going to say the parking lot that joins what used to be the former Grant Street Church of Christ and on Second Avenue there's half of a parking lot there is owned by the city. The other half is owned by Kasa Grande. U Mr. Winstead has um that that agreement didn't have any real definitive obligations on his part other than finishing some at certain times and but what he could build there was not definitive. So, uh, Yogi and Brandon Brandon Prize Yogi Dower who you know and developed a lot in in this area have uh reached an agreement to purchase that property from uh Mr. Winstead and his LLC. In exchange, they would we would substitute the agreement that the city now has with him and a much more definitive agreement that would require them to in uh do an investment of at least $5 million uh on the Second Avenue property. One of the things that they had, they didn't know what they were going to do with their part of that frontage there because they now own the what they call the Good fortune building. And so this will allow them to put at least a minimum of of 7,500 square feet of retail on the bottom and 15,000 square feet of of residential on the top. They've got to invest at least $5 million. They've got to have building permit and plans finished within a year and permits uh in another three months after that. So there's a lot of and then they've got to have 15% equity in the project at least, which would be about $750,000 at a $5 million um investment. So the city's getting some real definitive um um um growth there um you know, instead of what you have right

now. So they also got to have a loan commit show. Yeah, we got to have a loan commitment showing they've got the Yeah, that they've got the the construction loan and they've already been working on that and that's not going to be an issue. So, it'll um I think this works out to be very beneficial for the city and and for Yogi and Brandon too uh um to to move forward with their project there. Okay, any questions? This will allow parking will remain. And it would be one spot um for every unit under 600 ft and one and a half for the residential units over that um in that park. I can't remember I don't I don't know if you hit that but I know a lot of people have asked in the past what what's going to happen with the parking lot. So

well it could the parking lot could get developed part but it's got to have enough parking there for that what's going to be on Second Avenue. So that that would you know take care of that issue there. Well just for a clarification correct me if I'm wrong but this is a private sale from one entity the other. We have no authority over that. The reason it's coming to us is because of the covenants that were put in place and we're putting new covenants in. Correct. Correct. Correct. This would essentially release the agreement with Winstead. We're going to have agree with we're going to have a mutual release. The city going to release him and he's going to release y'all and then y'all going to have these new agreement with Kasa Grande. Yes. With the time frames listed. Uh yeah. in the agreement.

There's restricted coverage which is part of this for make sure that they do this adult and other once they have met what described 15% equity and construction loan then the then the restricted covenants get terminated would release those covenants how we would fail in that meantime. Yeah, the property would revert back to the city under the code. Yes. And that's simply would be a requirement of any lender as security. All right. Any questions?

Thank you, Barney. Thank you, Herman. Uh resolution number 26123, approve recreation center change order number 10. Hello everybody again. Um this is change order number 10 on the rec center. The uh total on this change order is a a cost of $94,498. Um I want to also just point out the the project is still under budget. This is just a change order that does carry a sum of money. Um these changes are recommended by the construction manager as well as the architect uh and the general contractor. Um, one large sum, just I'll just kind of run through briefly a few of these changes. Um, one of the the largest sum is the removal of the pavilion on site. The large pavilion that's on site in the grass area. Uh, that will be that that's it's recommended to be removed based on its condition. Um, and then that will uh be that area will be one large green space. Uh, that will be the public could use as a green space and will also be used as overflow parking for large events. Uh there's also some cost in there to some some adjustments in the pool and the uh filter system and some fans that cool that system. Um there are other ch other small changes that that are smaller sums throughout the facility. Um some and a lot of it is is recommended by the architect or also by uh inspections that have been done by the other contractors and clients. um these the the document is pretty comprehensive and it justifies each um each one of these changes. Um I've also discussed and very thoroughly with this RCM and the contractor on these changes and I I do uh support these changes and think that they're needed and um just wanted to open the floor for any questions.

Any questions? Is there going to be a playground out there? Yes. You sure? 100%. There's not. There's going to be a playground. What did you say? That was Is there going to be a playground? Question. Any other questions? Thank you, sir. I think Herman had Did you have one more? You want me to run with it? Go ahead. Okay.

Um, the parking lot at our parks and recck maintenance building um is not technically on our property. Um it is that parking lot is is owned by the neighbor uh the neighboring land owner that the the previous land owner sold to a a new individual and the new individual is um asking was asking us to either vacate the the parking lot or rent the property. Um, after negotiations with the realtor, um, we have negotiated to a $500 per month payment for the parking lot on a month-to-month basis. So, it's not a long-term agreement. Um, and, you know, my understanding is we're going to look for alternatives for our parking, but in the short term, we do feel like it is it is a need uh for us to acquire this parking lot on a on a rental basis, not purchase. And um I I feel like with with the help of the mayor and Herman, the $500 a month feels feels like a um something that we we could we should in my opinion should entertain.

Yeah, this need to be approved. Sorry. How long have we been utilizing that parking lot, Herman? Many years. Probably decades. How long do you think we've been using that for parking? decades. Yeah. So, decades. But we think there's an opportunity to get the parking. Um well, we feel like that we have enough room in the facility. It just needs to be reorganized and this is not the time for parks and wreck. We all know that they're in the busiest part of their season. Yeah.

So, they can't they can't provide the labor to clean it up. But hopefully when we get to the fall, the winter season, they can remove some of the stuff inside the fence and start parking in there. Uh we did reduce the amount of rent that was asked tremendously uh on this. So feel like we're getting a fair deal. It is monthtomonth. Y if the owner leases that building, he could ask us to move, right? But also we have the the right to move oursel and we have an opportunity to find a different place to park.

Yeah. And that the mayor Herman were asking us to be able to add this to this agenda for and then for vote next week. Yep. All right. Any other questions? Thank you, sir. We'll get it added. Anything else from city departments, council? I know the mayor's got something. Everybody else good? Since I'm coughing so bad, will you read this for me?

I will. This is in regards to a recent uh tournament held here in Decar from Kay Donaldson, the director of the Alabama Bass Trail. And it says, "Mayor Lawrence, I'm Kay Donaldson, the director of the Alabama Bass Trail. My team had our event out of Engles Harbor today, May 9th. I want to share a few of our photos from the morning takeoff and express my sincere thanks to the city Decater Morning County Tourism and Don Dukemanir with the city parks and recreation department. As always, the facilities immaculately maintained and free of any trash. The restroom facilities were open and kept clean all weekend. These seem like simple things, but I travel the entire state and these simple but important details are at separate a good host location and a great host location. I know this was a busy weekend in the city, but I wanted to let you know that it was my pleasure to work with both Don and the Decarator Morning County Tourism Office. They've gone above and beyond to facilitate all of our needs. I I was a resident of Decar for over 30 years and it gives me so much pride to bring our tournament back to Decar. I wish you all the best as the mayor of the great city of Decatur, Kay Donaldson, director of the Alabama Bass Trail. And Stephanie, would you show one of the photos that has all the boats in it?

There you go. Yeah, another great job by our parks and wreck and our partner tourism, partner agency tourism.

Yeah, it's really cool. If you've never been when a uh tournament blast off, it's a pretty neat experience. But, uh, again, great job. Parks wrecked the whole city. Um, these are that's probably just one very small one that we get on a regular basis, but certainly appreciate Kay reaching out. So, um, again, we will meet next Monday, um, a work session at 9:30 a.m. The council meeting will be at 10:00 a.m. And just to go ahead and announce, obviously, Monday, May 25th is Memorial Day. We will not have a work session that week. Um, the work session will be on June 1st at 5:00 p.m. with the meeting following at 6:00 p.m. So, if there's nothing else, we will be adjourned for the evening. Thank you.