City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is 6:01 on February 23rd and I call this regularly scheduled Dumby City Council meeting to order. Um, Councilman Henigan, can you lead us in the invocation and the pledge of allegiance, please? Please rise if you are able.

At this meeting, help us to make decisions which keep us faithful to our mission and reflect our values. Give us strength to hold to our purpose, wisdom to guide us, and a keen perception to lead us. And above all, keep us charitable as we deliberate. Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Yeah. Give one second. Just make sure my phone's off. Good evening. Yesterday, the Dely Police Department lost one of our most dedicated, exceptional members of our team who has been here since we became a city. I would like to invite Chief Carlson up to say a few words about Major William Rusty Ferman. Mayor Council, um, citizens of Dunwy, uh, it's with a heavy heart. Um, that, uh,

Major William Rusty Ferman passed away last night after a long battle with cancer. He is one of the most resilient employees that I've ever had. Um, him and I started the community outreach unit together. Um, uh, when I was a sergeant, he was a patrolman. his dedication, his duty, his service to the great citizens uh in this city and to the elected officials. He did an outstanding job. I couldn't have been more proud of him dayto day. He had the most integrity. He was an exceptional leader and he brought a lot of good, a lot of great ideas um here to the city. I know pretty confident he probably would have been a chief of police here uh one day. Um him and I always had that silent battle. We were he was always my competitor and uh I was I always had the edge on him. Um but he's going to be missed. Uh he's a true member of the Stumby Police Department family. I ask everyone in this room and anybody who's listening online to keep his family in your thoughts and prayers. Um, the funeral service is yet to be announced. Uh, but when it does, I'll be sure to notify all of you. Thank you.

Thank you,

Major Furman. He was always kind of a quiet um, happy to see you kind of person, but incredibly dedicated to this community. And his loss is tremendous. If you would like to assist his family um in the difficult times ahead, you can go to the Dumy Police Foundation um and the website and or their Facebook page and they'll have information. I now would like to ask for a moment of silence to remember Major Furman. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor.

Um, in the upcoming weeks also hold our police department, the members of our police department, uh, close as well as we traverse these difficult days ahead. Thank you. All right, public comments. We will have 30 minutes in this this first session and 30 minutes in the session at the end. We do two sessions of public comments. Each speaker will have three minutes. If you can speak your name clearly into the microphone and the microphone is adjustable. Um we would appreciate that. And um with that I will call the first card I have which is Danny Ross. Um okay thank you. Uh Danny Ross sir just introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes.

My name is Danny Ross. I'm my condolences go out to the police officer. That's a sad news. I remember him well and he served us well and it's hard to lose one of your old-timers, but uh he's one of the guys that helped us stand up the police force that we had and I'm so sorry and my condolences go out to his family. Mayor, council, and city manager. My name is Danny Ross. I was a founding member of the city of Dunwy City Council. One day on day one, we didn't have any laws. We had no cars. We had no police. We had no money. What we did have was purpose, visible, accessible government and accountability. What we did not have was some of the things we're talking about today. We formed unwitted to leave behind the dicab county habit where citizens could not get answers and responsibility always belong to someone else. Kingsley Lake is not a theoretical debate. It's a real place with real families and real damage. Water follows gravity. For years, the city has directed storm water into the Kingsley Lake through city infrastructure. The flow crosses the lake, exits over the spill, and continues into the city's downst downstream system. When the city uses a private lake and spill water as part of the storm water conveyance path, the city has a duty to manage that path competently and address the damages that

result. Instead, we've sent communications pushed to attorneys and leadership step back while the problems grows. That is not what cityhood promised and it is not what the residents deserve. Here is what I am here to ask for. First, acknowledge publicly that Kingsy Lake is a functional part of the city's storm water conveyance system. Second, directs the staff to meet with lake association in an open with clear authority to solve the problem. Third, commission an independent assessment of the flow impacts and damage the spillway and downstream and commit to the repair plans with dates associated with it. Until a solution is implemented, stop treating this like a private inconvenience. You cannot route public storm water through a private lake for years, which you had no contract to do that. Rely on it to leak the city and to claim that it's

Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Ross. Thank you. And I hope that we get some reaction out of you. Thank you. Thank you.

And careful. Uh Whitney Delaney and then Joan Holiday. If you want to be ready to go, that's probably a good strategy. Good evening. My name is Whitney Delaney and I am the president of Kingsley Racket and Swim Club. Since 2015, the city has made a series of series of storm water improvements throughout our watershed. In 2015, the culverts on North Peach Street Delverton were enlarged and raised to accommodate higher storm water flows. In 2023, pipe repairs were completed on Brendan Drive, Redcliffe Way, and Sandell Drive, improving conveyance and allowing storm water to move more efficiently into Kingsley Lake. In 2024, additional repairs were made on private property on Delverton, directing even more water into the lake. And in 2026, the city approved pipe repairs on Daventry. An easement was obtained in late 2025 from the private property owner and that pipe directs storm water into an open channel that feeds directly into Kingsley Lake. In your packet, the properties that directly affect Kingsley Lake are highlighted in blue. Each of these improvements improves upstream drain drainage. Each protects homes and roadways and each moves water faster and in greater volume. But that water does not disappear. It flows into one lake. And when that lake fills, it's forced over a single emergency spillway located on Kingsley property. That accelerated flow is undercutting utter undercutting our hillside. So while the benefit of these improvements is distributed across a 600 plus acre watershed, the burden is concentrated on one failing structure, one spillway, one hillside, one property absorbing the impact of the entire watershed. In your handout, you will see a sinkhole

on private property at 5721 Ben Creek Road. The city obtained an easement and repaired it in 2020 because the erosion was so severe and immediately downstream from a city pipe replacement in 2011. On the next page, you will see repairs at 5364 Redfield Drive for a 4x4 inch sinkhole in a resident's yard. More repairs at 4734 Layfield Drive for a 3x4 inch sinkhole on private property. I do not have time to go through every busted pipe or sinkhole the city repaired on private property from 2017 to 2026. I started with 2017 because that is when the city's current storm water policy was adopted. You can see the full list in the packet categorized by year. There are approximately 61 projects reported through city through Dunwy's memos. Most are on private property. I imagine there are additional projects that did not require council approval because they were under the dollar threshold. So the question becomes, how does the city determine which sink holes and failing pipes on private property receive easements and repairs and which do not? We are asking for transparency in how decisions are made and consistency in how they are applied. We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for a clearly defined standard and for that standard to be applied consistently. If Kingsley does not meet that criteria, please tell us on the record how we are different from the other storm water projects undertaken on private property since 2017. Thank you.

Joan Holidayiday, you'll have three minutes. And then next up is Greg McCann.

Thank you, Mayor and Council, for the opportunity to address you and the other citizens of city of Dunwy. I'm Joan Holidayiday. My husband Mike and I reside on Delbertton Court in Kingsley and are lakefront homeowners. When we bought our house in July of 03, we certainly noticed that there was a storm drain pipe from the street to the lake. We thought nothing of it until June of 23 when Mike found a hole that he thought was from chipmunks. When he poked at it with his foot, it opened to expose what turned out to be a cavity 6 to 8 feet deep and about 4 by 10 feet wide and long around that storm pipe that carries the water from the street to the lake. Mike contacted the city to request someone to come and assess the situation. Feeling that an unknownsized hole in the ground at that time was a huge potential for danger, we felt it was imperative for the city to respond quickly and they did. The city responded to Mike's click to fix click it to fix it entry quickly by sending a crew out to assess the problem. They found a rusted out section of pipe and said that the entire pipe should probably be replaced. These are the people that were actually doing the work. Their recommendation was ignored and they were told to replace a section of the pipe. Because the city didn't evaluate whether or not a patch would fix the whole problem, the cavity opened up again about a week later, and we ended up with another giant cavity in the yard. After many emails and finally getting loud and insistent, in March of 24, city officials came out and agreed that there was in fact a larger issue and they'd get back to us when the repairs were scheduled. Because the city found old county records that showed the original pipe ended at 90 ft from the street, they decided their legal responsibility ended there. They were willing to replace that 90 ft of pipe and end it with a concrete basin less than 20 ft from our house. and let the water

naturally erode a ditch down to the lake. Or else we could pay for the pipe for the rest of the way down to the lake. We felt that we either had to take legal action to push the city to uphold their responsibility of handling storm water from the street to the lake or spend that money on the actual repairs. The key point in our decision-making was that if we chose legal action, we'd have to live with with an extremely hazardous 8x10 ft hole 6 ft deep in our yard and a continually deteriorating drainage pipe for who knew how long. We made the difficult decision to move forward with the $10,000 worth of pipe replacement from the end of the city's easement to the lake. It took another four months for the city to make the repairs for the storm water pipe. In the end, it took more than a year from the time the erosion was discovered to when it was completely repaired. Did we make the right decision? Who knows? We felt and still feel we were in the right for expecting the city to be accountable for maintaining the entire storm drainage line.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh after Greg is Patrick Kelly. Uh, Greg, if you'll just introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes, sir.

Greg McCann. I've been a neighbor in Dunwoody since 1972. My parents live in the house I grew up in. I have decades of experience cleaning up trash, litter, and debris, both around the swim club and the lake. I have a couple photographs of some of the recent uh uh instances we've been talking about. Um, my home on North Peach Tree Way is bordered by a creek on the uh right side of the house where the culver's already been replaced under the road just a few years ago. And then in the back of my property is the creek that flows out of the dam spillway and such. I would uh to say that that creek and both of the creeks have had a lot more debris and sediment through them the past few years as the volume and velocity of the runoff is has increased. A couple of photographs here that were prepared for us over just the last few months. You can actually see um community member Hayward Wescott there uh when the first big chunk of concrete broke off and was still on the uh sewer pipe. As the water cleared, more land mass around the sewer pipe, more of it became exposed. I think this is about an 8 or 10 inch cab sanitary line. The more recent rains over the last couple of months, about six weeks, have removed more of the hillside, which is now flowing down the creek into my backyard and continuing to clog up the creek. I feel like that uh over the number of years that I've been involved, there's been a lot more water, a lot more debris. Certainly, there's been more development in our community that's led to more runoff. It seems like if we can repair these other u damaged areas around the city, Kingsley and the

spillway provide an important utility to the city and they should also be repaired. Thank you.

Uh Patrick, if you'll just introduce yourself, you'll have three minutes, sir. Sure. My name is Patrick Kelly. Oh, no. You got to be in the microphone. Okay. Patrick Kelly, uh, 2235 Santo Court in Kingston.

I think I want to start off by first establishing who's who in in this whole Kingsley mess, right? There's two entirely separate entities. One is the uh, swim and racket club and one is the lake association. We are separate. We're not together at all. Okay. The lake community itself has not hired an attorney. Right. We're hopeful that we can open dialogue with council, but I understand that the city attorney is not allowing that to happen. Right. Again, we are separate entities and have no representation currently, legal or elected representation. This lake was built back in the 1950s. Okay. This is Kingsley Lake for those that don't know. Okay. The whole area feeds into this lake. 650 acres of Dunwen Woody land, developed land. Right. In the packet that I gave you, I don't know if it already got around. The roads over there were built in 19. Let me get the number right. Sure. 1965, North Petri Road was built. At that time, they did a 72 a 72inch covert. That covert was just replaced in 2015. Okay, imagine the road was built. There were no houses anywhere near there. Okay. And that covert maintained that access for the storm water to go into the lake for 60 years, right? 2015 the city came and they themselves in the packet you'll see on page one. They enlarged the covert into a 9 ft x 5 by 4 foot um opening. Okay. By doing that, that allowed a lot more water to flow through this lake. Let me show you where that is. It sits right here. Okay, that's one of the coverts. There's another one on the other side of the lake as well. It's in your packet. Okay, the city decided to

enlarge this covert and the purpose was it was overflowing North Peach Tree, right? So much water is accumulating on this side, it was capping and flowing over. So, the city hired engineers and they designed a new covert. That wasn't their only option. They could have put detention over here and then metered the water through, but they didn't. They went with the easiest, cheapest route, make a bigger covert. It solved the 100red-year flood problem for the city, but it pushed it into the lake. Now, the lake is being asked to do what it was not engineered to do. Right. The spillway is being called on more frequently because the city has allowed more water to enter the lake. And this isn't the only one. It's also in Delverton Drive, which is on the opposite side where they enlarged that one significantly from a 62 to a 5x4. So, what we're asking is two things. To talk to us, right? We don't want to hire attorneys. We do not want to fight with the city. We want to have dialogue.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Lawrence Harris. I should have said that before. And then Michaela, and I apologize. I hope there's only one Michaela here. You You'll be next. Go ahead, Lawrence. You'll have introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes.

Hi, Lawrence Harris. Uh, lucky volunteer member of the Kingsley Swimming Tennis Club board. Um, my family and I moved to Dumby in December of05. So we spent about two years living here as part of unincorporated Dicap County before the city of Dumb came to be. But even that short amount of time was more than enough to see what was and still is a significant positive change in the quality, proactiveness, and overall focus on local needs that the change to city government has provided. While I find it hard to believe that we've been here 20 years, there's no doubt that those who have served and continue to serve in this government have done an exceptional job making this a great place to live. And we are very grateful for that. But that comparison is also about what Dicap County wasn't doing. They were failing at so many of the things that local government is supposed to do. Of course, local government should pave roads in a thoughtful and consistent way. Of course, local government should ensure adequate police and fire coverage for our population and geography. Of course, local government should invest in our parks and public spaces, local businesses and restaurants, and our historical places. And of course, our elected officials should be good and decent and ethical stewards of both our city finances and our community needs. My point in saying all of this is that is to make clear that myself and most of us here are not rabble rousers. We're not perpetually unhappy and angry, nor do we feel the need to regularly show up at city council meetings to express our views. We know the job is hard and compromises are required and priorities are difficult to manage. Personally, I give a lot of grace to you and others that choose this work because I know that the right thing to do depends on your perspective. But on this, that's not the case. Because of course, our local government should be leading when a major storm water infrastructure issue occurs. Not just when the fix fits in the current budget, not just when a 100% clarity exists for who's responsible for the issue and who's liable for the costs and what a bunch of people did or did not do with construction documentation over 50 years ago. Local government leads here because you understand land use and storm water and engineering and permitting and zoning and grant funding and navigating large and complex situations with various government entities, companies, and other disparit

groups. What local government shouldn't do is write a storm water management policy in 2017 that couldn't possibly contemplate all the historical issues and players and circumstances that came before and then because of fear of litigation or liability or uncertainty abandon the citizens who looked to them for support as they struggle to solve what is a serious and intractable challenge. But that's what this council has chosen to do. Months before frustrated individuals touched by this situation filed complaints or hired attorneys to give them guidance, city staff and council stopped engaging. and we were left alone to try and untangle what is a 50-year mess of complexity and uncertainty. And that's wrong. Our purpose in bringing these people here today and sharing these details is because we have no way of knowing if all of you have been fully read into what's happening, how complicated the situation is, how long it's been coming to pass. We're asking you to leverage the offices that you hold to lead on this. Please work with us to not just find a solution, but the right creative, thoughtful, and long-term solution for a worsening problem with a major component of the city storm water system that you're responsible for managing. Thank you. Approach the microphone. Introduce yourself. You'll have three minutes. Thank you. Oh, and wait. Uh Jason, your husband, is next. Okay. Go ahead.

Hi. Good evening, U mayor, council members, city manager. My name is Michaela Hunar. Thank you for postponing the vote on the Flock OS 911 and drone agreements until tonight to get more information uh just on this impactful decision. I see that we have Carrie McCormack, Flock's public affairs manager. Um he'll be presenting from Flock. According to his background, uh he joined Flock about five months ago after serving nearly a decade um on the Cleveland, Ohio City Council. He resigned from city council shortly before the city began considering an expansion of its flock contract last year. I raised this not as an accusation, but just in the spirit of transparency. I reviewed Flock slides in tonight's agenda. They reference a lot of privacy protection, which in theory is really promising, um, if true. However, I'm I'm struggling to find where these protections are clearly laid out in their contract terms. Also, the terms were updated as recently as a week ago from December's version. Uh, but Flock does not document these changes online anywhere. um and version control. And if these terms can be changed during the life of our contract with no record, what ensures that Dun Woody's privacy safeguards will remain concretely in place? While Flock sent a rep tonight, given that the main concerns are data security and privacy protection, it's probably not enough. I believe we need to hear from a senior rep um with direct expertise in cyber security and privacy law and receive one unchanging set of

contract terms. As a Dunwhaty resident, I recognize that tech surveillance products like these can offer a lot of benefits uh to our public, but they also carry really heavy civil liberty implications. I believe the privacy and governance risks here outweigh the benefits. I respectfully urge you to vote no on the contracts before you and consider terminating the city's ongoing relationship with Flock. Thank you for your time and your service to our community. Uh Jason and then Hal Parish, you'll be next. All right. So, hi city council. My name is Jason Hunar. Thanks Michaela. Um I want to talk about two important things tonight. Block's capabilities and their terms. It is of the utmost importance that you and the public know about the vast capabilities that Flock has and what our police department has access to. What Flock is going to show you in their presentation is an extremely narrow subset of the products that they offer and that Dunwhati currently has. You'll notice that all of their statements will be narrowly tailored to something along the lines of license plate reader system or license plate reader data. While these claims are technically true, Flock is trying to misguide you because their business model is absolutely not just LPR collection. These claims only apply to their LPR systems and nothing else. This presentation is like Amazon presenting how they sell books. Amazon, by the way, through Ring has canled their partnership with Lock. Their main products are data collection and data analysis software. While yes, a fraction of this is LPR data. The rest of this data comes from AI video cameras, which we have over 400 spread throughout Dunwhaty. Microphones, drone footage, our 911 calls when you call into the 911 center, property records, private

cameras, credit history, and health records. Their newest softwares, Flock, Nova, and Flock Free Form explicitly are to track people. I'll just quote quote Flock on this one. Free Form Flock's AI powered search tool now works not only on owned LPR cameras, but also on shared ones. It also supports video searches, meaning you can now search for characteristics on people. For example, man in blue hoodie with backpack, just like you would search for vehicles. You can even set alerts on these searches. Think person in orange vest, so you're notified in real time that there's a match. Orange vest, by the way, was in their quote. Um, this brings me to their terms. I know you've previously got my email about them, but they really removed we do not sell customer data the second footage and metadata was included back in the definition. There's literally zero harm in them including the statement if they don't intend to sell that. So why did they take it out? Having a license to use our data perpetually uh is essentially ownership with one extra step. They have also removed all guardrails about training AI tools on our data. There is no data traceability once you put something into an AI system. And once again, we have absolutely zero control about what products they have or are planning on creating. They upgraded all of our license plate reader cameras to video cameras without letting you know. They're not even being honest with you about the products the Dunwy Police Department has tonight. If they are a public safety company and we're not the product but the customer, there would be absolutely no issue with us legally opting out of data sales or training, whether it's footage, metadata, aggregate data, or any version of it. If they can't legally agree to even the most basic protections for our citizens, I urge you to vote no against the renewals that are in front of you tonight and cancel our contract. Thank you.

Mr. Paris, uh, approach the microphone and you'll have three minutes, sir. No, you give it to the clerks. Mr. Paris, go ahead and start, please.

Hello, my name is Hal Paris. Uh, I've been a proud citizen of Dunwy and a member of Kingsley Lake Association for 20 years. I love Dunwy and all it has to offer. I thank the city council and the contributing departments. I stand before you to discuss the city storm water drainage as it relates to the destruction of Kingsley Lake spillway. In order to comprehend the size and the complexity of the city storm drain system, I found an interactive online Dunwoody smart system. The first page of the handout that I gave you, which is the one on the far right, your far left, uh is a detail map that shows the individual green dots that are by itself. storm drain. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And there you see where Kingsley Lake is in relation to all of those storm drains. The second page here is a blowup of the same map system where you see 11 storm drains that dump into the Dunoody Lake or Kingsley Lake. Uh at the spillway, that's the only way the uh the drain water can come over. There is nothing supplied by the city to drain the water out of the lake. Not one. The Kingsley Spillway was constructed in late 1960s when what was now what is now Dunoody was a rural area with certainly less housing, streets, and storm drains. Over the last 60 years, the storm water flows into the lake has only increased. Storm drain diameters have been intentionally increased to accommodate additional city drainage in recent years. The lake has served as a retention facility or a bucket to receive storm water. But of course, it it's not an unlimited water repository. The destruction of the spillway is clearly one of soil erosion uh which is undermined spillway resulting in

fracture and collapse that you saw in some of the other uh posters that were shown to you. The cause of the spillway is simply increasing flows and velocities over the years which uh services the 650 acres. The inflows now exceed the capacity of the outflow causing the soil erosion and ultimate spillway. Without a doubt, the the spillway needs to be repaired and potentially redesigned. In its current state of disrepair, the spillway is a dangerous structure to children and citizens of the city. The city is responsible for storm water collection which the city routes to the lake. How can they not be responsible for the proper exit of the associated city drainage? In the Georgia state constitution, there are two sections addressing municipality storm water disposal. On page 72, uh it combines storm water and sewage collection and disposal. on page 82 of the constitution, storm water and sewage and disposal. There are other side effects such as increased flows carry with it the increased street sediment.

Thank you. Uh Kevin Watts.

Go ahead. You'll have three minutes, sir. Okay. Hello, I'm Kevin Watts. and I'm in support of the Flock uh camera system. I've lived in Dumb for 26 years and I've been in Ashford Chase Hate President for four years. Flock has been instrumental with solving at least a couple of car breakins in our neighborhood. We see Flock as a great tool for Dway Police when the issues arise and we strongly support Flock and Dway. Thank you. David Syskin, you'll have three minutes and then that concludes this session of public comment wherever you are. David, are you coming? Thank you.

Good evening. My name is David Ziskin. First, I'm very sorry to hear about the passing of Major Furman. I was just reminding Chief I remember Winsow and um both Chief and Major Ferman were in charge of the community outreach. Uh went through a citizens police academy with them. Uh so very uh very sorry to hear this passing. Mayor Dors, members of council, as part of its student assignment project, Dicab County School District has proposed closing Vanderland and Kingsley elementary schools. Let's be clear about what this means. Closing 40% of Dunwy's elementary schools while expanding Chestnut and potentially redistricting some Dunwy students to schools in Dorville. This is not a minor boundary adjustment. This is a fundamental restructuring of our community schools. The impacts extend far beyond the families with children in the Dicab school system. Anyone who drives North Peach Tree Road past Chestnut Elementary and Peach Tree Middle already knows the traffic congestion there. Now, imagine absorbing hundreds of additional students at that site and the potential loss of neighborhood schools that anchor our community will affect every Dunwy resident, whether through diminished walkability, increased traffic, or the uncertainty it creates around property values and taxes. These schools are not just buildings. They are cornerstones of the neighborhoods that make Dunwhaty desirable. I recognize the city council does not control school district decisions, and I appreciate that the council has invited the Cab County School District to present at its March 23rd work session. But anformational briefing is not leadership. Hosting a presentation is passive. What Dunwitty needs right now is an active unified voice. I'm calling on the mayor and city council to pass a unanimous resolution directed to the Dicab County Board of Education, a resolution formally opposing the closure of Vanderland and Kingsley, demanding a comprehensive impact analysis and insisting on

meaningful engagement with Dunwhaty residents before any decisions are finalized. A resolution may not carry legal authority, but it carries political weight and public visibility. At a minimum, it tells the cab that Dunwhati is paying attention and will not be an afterthought. The community feedback window runs through May. The clock is ticking. It's time for our elected leaders to stand up. Thank you.

That concludes the first session of public comment. We've hit more than 30 minutes actually and we will have another session at the end if uh I'll go through the cards that I have at that point and of course if there's time there'll be room for more cards or more people to speak. Um hold on I've lost my agenda. Thank you. Um all right public hearings. Oh wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. Don't come. Alan, Eric, I was going to ask you to make some clarifications about some of the things we heard tonight if that's okay with council. Can I have a point of order? Thank you. Go ahead.

Okay. All right. Thank you, mayor. Um, I do have a statement that hopefully will answer some questions and provide more information on the history of Kingsley Lake. Um, so Kingsley Lake, first of all, is not a natural lake. a developer damned a creek to create a private lake for the private enjoyment of the homeowners surrounding it. Prior to cityhood, Bicab County included the following language on the Kingsley Lake and Kingsley Racket and Swim Club property plat. So, this would be on every plat that was part of that subdivision. And it said this, Dicab County is not liable or responsible for the extension of the cross drains shown on the property or for erosion or flooding of storm drains. Um the city of Dunwi does not control the lake, the dam or the flume that is damaged. The city has not negative uh negligently constructed or maintained its drainage system in any way that damages the lake, dam, or the flume. historical photographs that the flume has been has not been maintained and as far back as 2010, the photo show damage to the flume in the same area as the current damage. This is private property that the general public does not have access to and the city of Dunwy is not responsible for repairing this private property. the storm water fee that is collected by the city and uses and used to maintain and repair storm water infrastructure for two primary reasons. Number one, storm water infrastructure located adjacent to and under the public roads must be maintained and repaired so that the general public can continue to use those roads. Number two, storm water infrastructure impacting public properties must be maintained and repaired so the general public can continue to have access to those properties. There are certain properties

in the city where recorded plat required Dicab County to maintain stormwater infrastructure on private property because the property was in a special stormwater tax district. When the city was formed, the city assumed this responsibility from the county. Redfield is one of those particular properties, but Kingsley Lake and the Flume are not. The city meets all state regulations regarding storm water management. Uh given the pending threat of litigation, the city will not comment further on this matter at the time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now, Matteline,

uh Matteline, uh you're up next public hearing. Uh good evening, mayor and city council. Um at the last meeting um back in January, we had discussed two reasonzoning uh or two zoning cases, a reszoning and a special land use permit for um 84 Perimeter Center East. So I just wanted to give an update on that. The applicant has withdrawn those um those applications. we just kept it on the agenda because it it had been advertised and we wanted the public to be aware um that it had been withdrawn and so that's why it's on the agenda this evening. Um and the applicant is here if you all have any questions um regarding the withdrawal beyond um what he provided in the letter that's attached to the agenda. Thank you for your time tonight.

Does anyone have questions? Um, I'm just going to check because it was advertised as a public hearing. If there was anyone here to speak for or against this application and still wants to, we'd be glad to hear you. Okay, I don't see anybody. So, with that, um, what do we do? Do we just accept the withdrawal? What's the action we have to take? My understanding is there's no action required.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right, Eric, there's no uh Is someone going to introduce the speaker of this next the flock safety presentation? Chief Carlson is Okay. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. uh at your direction. Um uh you have uh received some concerns uh from the community regarding to the platform uh of flock that we use for our investigations and through our real-time crime center. Um at this time I'm going to call up Carrie McCormack. Uh he is a flock representative. Uh he is going to give a presentation to all of you and be open for questioning. Uh I will of course I'm going to be here as well and Major Patrick uh is here as well um to answer any additional questions that you may have uh regarding our use of it uh once Mr. McCormack is done. So I'll call him up to the stand. All righty. Good evening. Get this up. Okay, great. All righty. Mayor and Council, thank you so much for having me this evening. And members of the administration, my name is Carrie McCormack and I am on the public affairs team at Flock Safety. Um I am based uh in Cleveland, Ohio and I cover the eastern time zone of the US for Flock on our public affairs team. So our mission is to go out into the community uh both councils, mayors, community groups, organizations and to talk about our company and our products uh for anformational purposes uh for our company. So I'm going to give about a 10ish minute presentation and then more than happy to answer any questions. So just a snapshot of our company. Uh so Flock uh is an American company. We were founded and are still currently headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. So nearby. Uh we've got about 6,000 uh community partners across the country. So, we work with folks uh in small towns, uh big cities in 49 states uh across the country with the exception of Alaska. We also have about 1,500

businesses that we work with. Um and these can be from um HOAs to small mom and pops to retail uh larger retail locations as well. So, tonight um one of the most common products that we sell uh is the license plate reader. So, we're going to review that. So, our license plate reader technology um is a tool for law enforcement across the country. We're very clear. We do not replace law enforcement. Uh we help them uh do their jobs more efficiently and more accur accurately with objective evidence. So, what a license plate reader is is that uh it's a camera that faces a public road that takes a photo of the back of a vehicle. And what it captures is the license plate of the vehicle as well as the back of the vehicle. And why that's important is because the majority of crimes across the country are committed uh involving a vehicle. And so what this does is two primary ways that your police department will use this. First, they will either um they'll upload a license plate to the system. So why would a license plate be in the system? A license plate would be in the system if it's involved in a with a missing person, so a child or a senior citizen that's gone missing or connected to a crime. If a license plate that passes the camera is connected to one of those items, either a missing person or a crime, it sends an alert to your police department to say, "Hey, that uh vehicle that is tied to a missing person or a crime just passed at First and Main Street." So, that is the information that it will provide to your police department. It does not provide anything about the individual in the vehicle. We It does not provide BMV access. Just

like communities that do not have license plate readers, your law enforcement officers are still uh will still go through their process of identifying that license plate uh as well. So, it's the same process for those who do or do not have license plate readers. uh the uh your police officers still have to run the plate to gain information whether there are warrants or things like that on the plate. Um if you drive by a license plate reader and your plate is not connected to a crime or to a missing person, your police department will get no notification. Additionally, uh police departments use it uh for uh crimes that happened after the fact. So they can go into the system and say this license plate was associated with a crime and over the last 30 days and we'll talk about that data in a minute. Um they're able to see if that license plate specifically related to a missing person or a crime passed one of those cameras. Okay. Uh these are this is the alerts. So again, uh if a plate uh goes past one of the cameras connected to crime, missing person, it will alert your police department. This is going to be extremely helpful. And I'll just kind of give an example of why this is helpful. Let's say there's a purple Toyota license plate ABC123 that was involved in an armed robbery. What would normally happen without this technology is at a roll call or something of the nature, um, your police officers would be told, "Hey, there's a purple Toyota ABC123 that was involved in an armed robbery." Your patrol officers would then go out and spend days, weeks, months, and if they're able to locate that individual, it's a a a very uh cost inensive and labor intensive exercise. So, this technology really helps the PD hone in

uh and save them time to identify those vehicles. So, vehicle fingerprint. Um this is again the uh camera takes a picture of the back of the vehicle. Why is this important? If you talk to your uh local police departments or sheriffs or state police, um frequently when folks are especially involved in chronic crime, they will take their plates off. They'll switch their plates. Um, they'll have a plate guard on there as well. So, the product takes a photo of the back of the vehicle identifying things like the make. So, Chevy, sedan, black, um, bike racks, top racks, toolbox, things like that. So, it essentially takes a photo of the back of the vehicle to identify those additional features in the case that a plate is off or switched.

Okay. So, our night vision, this is this product is what it sounds like. So, the the cameras work at night uh and they're able to capture the plate and the features of the vehicle in the evening. So, privacy and transparency. So, we're proud of this tool uh in helping uh police departments find missing people and solve crime. We also know that it is important that privacy and transparency are built into this product. We fully understand that while folks are committed to public safety, they also very much care about transparency and privacy in their community. So with that, I'm going to review. There's a lot on this slide, but I'll I'll walk through it. Um, so on the left hand side, the white section of the slide, it overviews some of our core principles of privacy that are built into the product. So 100% of the data which is the photo of the public license plate uh is owned by our customers. So you own that data. Um and it is never sold. So our we are don't have that in our model. It is written into your contract. Uh we do not sell data. So you might think of a social media site or some other site that will aggregate customer data and sell it to a third party. Block has never done that and does not do that. Um, our private customers never have access to government data or hot lists. So those businesses I talked about or those HOAs, they do not have access to those government databases that your police department uses on a regular basis again on things like identifying crime uh and other information. the data. So the again the photo of the license plate is automatically deleted after 30 days unless it is downloaded as a part of an investigation. So every 30 days the data that is collected is hard deleted and unreoverable.

So we've had situations where um a customer will call us and say hey listen a crime happened 32 days ago. Is there any way you can get that uh photo and that data back? And the answer is no. it's hard deleted. Uh the LPRs, as we talked about earlier, do not have access to personal information. So again, um they do not know who's driving the car. They don't know anything about them. Uh any of that type of information uh is not included in the photo of the back of the vehicle and the license plate. Um and also o and only your agency decides who you share with. So sharing uh permissions are completely up to the agency. Um so for example, why why would you share? So as with or without our technology, law enforcement uh cooperates all the time. So they may cooperate with a neighboring community who's, you know, experiencing similar crime. They may cooperate with a neighboring state on a missing person, for example, who is suspected to have crossed state lines. That type of collaboration happens all the time with or without our technology. The same principle applies here. Your agency decides if and with whom you want to share access to your data with. Again, a benefit there being that you can collaborate on active investigations with other police departments and that you can change uh at any time as well. on the right hand side. Um you this is photos of a public license plate issued by the state on a public rightway. However, Flock treats that data as if it were very sensitive at the level of security that we have. So you'll see here a list of of uh verifications that we are proud to go through including SOCK 2 3 ISO. Those are independent

stress tests on our system. We've also uh recently hired a chief information security officer who is bringing in additional third-party independent stress tests for our systems and our servers to ensure that our customers data is protected. Um flocks uh servers, our customer data uh since that type of information has never been hacked period. Um, you know, we're aware that some folks have ripped our cameras off or gotten a hold of our cameras and taken them apart. Um, but they essentially got to factory settings mode. So, uh, our data, our servers, our customers data, the server, all of that has never been hacked. We want to keep it that way. And that's exactly why we go through these measures to ensure that we have the highest level of security. So again, transparency another one of those key components um of the technology. So every single um search requires a registered ID um with a search reason or case number. Uh users have to choose from a list of search reasons. So you can't make one up. Uh and why that's important uh goes down to the next point. All use of the system is permanently in a audit log. So even though the camera photos delete after 30 days, the use of the system is permanently logged uh for any use. So that could be use of an officer, that could be, you know, you shared it with the town next door. All of that use is permanently audited and you can um access those audit logs to understand exactly how your system has been used. We recommend that folks um pull those audit logs regularly to again have insight and eyes on how the system is

being used. And we're also working on proactive auditing to alert on potential misuse. right hand side of the screen is an example of what we call a transparency portal. Um those are optional um and but what they do is they provide a public facing website that overviews um how the system is used in your community. So things like how many cameras, who you may or may not share with, uh your policies, those types of items. um anyone that wants one of these uh those can be stood up and again those are available for public consumption. So community safety, community values um you know one of the things we're proud of is that these tools are tailored around local control. communities across the United States vary significantly on the values of those communities and that is exactly why the product is built to be tailored around your values in your community. So things like search filters um to prevent searches on reproductive health care and immigration are available. also that permanent audit log that we talked about uh tracking all of the use of the system as well as very clear um uh parameters around federal access. So to be clear um there the federal government department of homeland security is not a customer of flock. We do not have contracts with uh the department of homeland security or ICE. Um and the only way that a community would engage them at all is if they the community the local community proactively reached out to that organization or any organization to share information. So by default um th

those sharing relationships any sharing relationships are not on but again no federal agency has access to uh our servers automatic access and even if you're in a national lookup where you share with people around the country the federal government is also not in that national lookup so just to provide clarity on that. So, a couple myths versus facts that we hear sometimes. Um, and mayor, I'll get through these quickly. Thank you for uh your time tonight. So, um,

thank you. License plate readers can track people and show police everywhere they go. Um, LPRs take a point in time image of the rear of a vehicle in a public rideaway. They do not continuously track vehicles. uh unless an image is part of an investigation, it is deleted after 30 days. Um and again uh these are of public documents of license plates. LPRs violate the fourth amendment myth. The fact is that f uh federal appellet and district courts in at least 14 states including the 9th and 11th circuits have upheld using evidence from license plate readers as constitutional. So across the board and there was actually a recent ruling out of Virginia that again affirmed the fact that license plate readers are not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Uh the myth that Flock sells customer data, compile it into a national database. Once again, you own 100% of your data. We do not sell data. Uh and that data is deleted after 30 days. A myth flocks private customers have access to law enforcement data. Covered that a few minutes ago. So those HOAs or businesses do not have access to law enforcement databases or information. A myth flock LPR cameras use facial recognition. Uh we do not uh use facial recognition. Period. Hard stop. Myth LPR cameras collect person identifiable information. We already talked about that. They get a a photo of the back of the vehicle and plate. um not information on the person or anything about them or any of that information. Uh a myth LPR cameras negatively impact communities of color. Um groups such as the Oakland NAACP and others have lauded

LPRs as objective evidence reducing uh bias in policing myth. LPRs don't have an impact on crime. There's examples here from uh San Diego and others, but I would encourage you all to talk to your your own local PD uh about how uh LPRs are used to help support public safety and to find missing children and seniors here in Dunwy. So talking about impact. So here I won't read these but the these are all real headlines uh of uh issues around the community around the country where our cameras have been used to assist law enforcement. Here in Georgia over 400 law enforcement agencies uh utilize Flock. There's a few right there just as examples. And here are are some real life stories of how the technology has been used by law enforcement to make an impact in Georgia. Here, and I won't read through these, you can read through them on your own, but here there's a case of a missing senior citizen. We are particularly proud of these partnerships um because unfortunately uh sometimes seniors with cognitive challenges are reported missing by their family members and the technology has been used to bring them home safely to their families. Here example uh in Savannah a shooting suspect arrested after LPR is used to investigate uh the case uh as well as an escape prisoner arrested after LPR enabled investigation. So again those are just three real life examples here in Georgia of how the technology is used. There are many many many more. We're proud of our partnerships. Um, for example, we partner closely with the National Center

for Missing and Exploited Children um because of that work to bring missing children home safely to their families. We also partner with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. As we discussed earlier, uh we're also happy to be supported by folks like the Oakland NAACP, uh who here in their statement said, "In a moment when communities are demanding both public safety and equitable justice, Flock Safety's LPR technology offers a powerful tool to reduce bias in policing. So, we're proud to have their support." And that's all I got for you. Thank you. Hi, hush, please. Yeah, I'm southern. Sorry. Um, all right. I think we're going to have questions from council now and perhaps questions at Chief. Who would like to start? Katherine, Councilman Lenbucker.

I thank you for the presentation and please understand that I recognize the value of flock. I recognize what it does for our community. myself and the community concerns privacy. So, where to begin? Um, there was a Condor camera on Peach Tree Creek Greenway that a Marietta blogger hacked into and showed the the video of a child who was blurred out just because he blurred out the child that he he said he hacked your cameras. You say that never happened.

Uh, so our what I said is our systems, our data, our customers data has never been hacked. Correct. So that we're aware of one instance which we put out and by the way we folks know about this because councilman, thank you for the question. We put it out um on our own on our website on a blog post. So we put that out proactively I believe a year ago to acknowledge the technical issue that we face. So, I do want to recognize the fact that we put this stuff out when we find out about it. It was they were being installed and there was an issue with the uh ver the network, the cell network that we were working with and for a short period of time, the cameras that were in the public right away uh were um live streamed online. That's correct. Okay.

And that was fixed immediately. All right. Well, concerning. All right. Where is our data s uh stored? AWS gov cloud. So we pay you to store our data. Correct. So you don't have you claim any access to the license plates that are photographed in the city.

Exactly. So you own your data and have access to it. What we will do is when there is a glitch in the system so like let's say a license plate is new and not reading we can take that glitch strip all identifying information from it where it came from community time etc to help our system improve. So that is the situation in which we would utilize that photo to help our system address the glitch that happened.

Who is reporting that glitch to you? Uh usually the the communities will have police officers who will call us and say, "Hey, we had a mismatch here. What's going on?" Generally, that's how we learn about them. Do you use AI to do do you put our data through an AI learning system to get better at whatever it's trying to achieve? Yep. So there is AI for example that can help identify the the make the model of the vehicle um when it takes that photo. Again it does not have any access to who's in the vehicle the BMV record but it helps identify the features of the vehicle. Yes. So I Okay.

I want to clarify that because you Katherine's question was do you use our data for your AI? That's what I asked. That's the question. Yeah. Thank you. So um the again when there are issues like with a certain plate yes we can again stripping all identifiable information utilize that plate to understand what the issue is. I think that's what you're asking. I'm sorry. I guess it's about learning for your your next tool all the things that you are developing. Do you have access to our data or to any other city's data to teach the AI

for product improvement when there are problems? Yes. But with all due respect, that's our data. Like

yeah, it's Yeah, it's so again uh we have no like direct inherent right to access your data. We again when there are issues within the system and this is all written in the contract when there are issues in the system when there's a problem um again and it's all the identifiable information of the plate is removed and that information is analyzed to understand what the issue was but is there a um inherent just outright uh access to that data? No. Okay. Um, so for very specific situations is what I'm trying to say. So I'm going to go with that. Sorry.

Go ahead. Do you ask us? Yes. Because it's because it's our property, right? Like so I guess do you contract contact our police department and say, "Hey, we would like to use your property to help our AI with this problem." Do are we aware when you are using our property? Yes. has the So, we'll notify and again, usually it comes from the department when there's a glitch or an issue. Um, but yes, we work with the PD's. Um, short answer is yes. Well, has our Tony Police Department agreed to your usage of our data for training or whatever? Uh, it's it's in our contract.

So, I would I would say yes. Okay. We could ask the the chief that. Uh we're talking about the there's a discussion about change in terms when we sign a contract there are terms and then they keep being changed like taking out customer data is never sold. Um are we do we adhere to the changes that you continually make? So the terms and cont terms and conditions of your contract that you signed are the terms and conditions of your contract. Period. Yes.

So if the company the company did recently update them to streamline and clarify them, folks know about that again because we put it right out on our website. So we proactively put it right out there in a big blog post outlining all of the changes as an effort to be transparent. But again, the T's and C's of your contract are the T's and C's of your contract. Those don't change. Um, you know, you signed a contract. Okay. How have you seen the website? Have I been flocked? I'm aware of it. Yes. Okay. How is how is the website getting all the information onto that website?

Thank you, Council Member. Uh, public records request. So, mainly from the state of Washington. So each state and just for the viewing public I know you all know this but each state has uh their own public records laws not just for LPR data but for all sorts of documents and information um the state of Washington has a very broad public records law um and there were public records requests out of the state of Washington and other states where the majority of that information came from. So all that information was coming through public records requests of that audit log that I discussed earlier that's into perpetuity. Well, Dewan is listed as a choice.

I couldn't find my license plate, but maybe it wasn't run. So do you contend that there is no Dewey data on that website? I don't know the answer to that. I apologize. Okay. Um

but so if I could, council member, just really quickly. So if um if Dunwhaty were in a partner in a sharing relationship with a community then there were activity so let's say that community Atlanta I'll just use for reference um you know worked with Dunwy to access a plate related to a crime in Atlanta again all that is permanently audit logged for transparency so Dunwy might have shown up for example in Atlanta's audit log that was then public records requested because of that collaboration for examp I made that up just for I got you. I got you. Yep. Okay. What about the Condor cameras? We have 400 or so. They can do facial recognition. No.

They can do white eye, black eye.

No. So, what they do is uh for example, if you have a park that closes at 900 p.m. and you want to be able to see if there are humans or people walking in the park, they can alert. And this is all stuff that, by the way, you have to turn on. So, um, they can alert your PD, hey, there are people in Maine Park after 9:00 p.m. when there aren't supposed to be. So, that's what it identifies. Or a vehicle in a parking lot that's not supposed to be there. But it does not, you know, does not do facial recognition, can't tell who the person is, anything like that. So if I were to search that data and that is video is that correct?

Correct. You're Yes. You're over. All right. So if I were to search for a man with a beard in that video just but that is a search item. What comes up? So the within the last 30 days um if that's your retention policy uh is when it would be saved and you I guess you would search you know 900 p.m. park was there individuals working there and it could pull footage of people walking around but not specifically say somebody looks like you. We don't know who they are. Correct.

Okay. Okay. Um uh now my questions are for the chief or for major Craig. We're sharing with uh 17800 agencies. Um where yeah that's that's what I'm told. How do you share like like let's say the city of Marietta the city of Marietta has got an agreement with ICE and if they run a plate and it's in Dewey are we sharing with ICE? Is that what's happening? Ultimately we're sharing with

any law enforcement agency that's reaching out to us in a law enforcement capacity for their investigations. We're not limiting their access essentially to search us individual associated to their case. If they have a representative, say that agency has a representative that is assigned to a unit that is associated to said ICE, would they be able to search our database? Most likely. Yeah, that's what I think. Okay. Uh do we do an audit? We do. And what what are we what are we auditing?

So we do an annual audit. We do it similar to the Georgia Crime Information Center. So we do 10%. So we'll pull our overall logs. We'll pull 10%. We'll adjust that to case numbers, cases associated or identifiers. And then we look for anomalies. Also, um, this database is actually the only of many that we use in law enforcement for searching capacities that advises us that there's anomalies that alerts us of bias or things like that outside of our audits. Uh, we honestly wish that all databases that we use would inform us that there was a potential concerning search. Uh this is the only database that actually does that for us to the

and um oh uh I lost my last question. Okay, I will I'll bring that back. I'll concede if uh anybody else wants to ask. Yeah, go ahead, Rob. Oh, wait. Oh, I remembered it. Do we delete our data at 30-day mark? Yes, our data deletes at 30-day mark unless it's pulled for an investigation. But like you're pulling a frame and then everything else is deleted. Yes. Essentially. So it is if we're speaking LPR data, it is just a frame. Yeah.

So it's a simple frame. If we're pulling video data from a crime that occurred in one of our parks, we're going to pull the entire incident. We're going to save that for criminal prosecution. But then that's going to live with on our system and our storage database, not on theirs. Because if we were to leave it there, it would be deleted after 30 days. So we house that in our evidence. That is a like an automatic thing that it gets deleted. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. With all our flock data is pushed out after 30 days. So, it's actually quite important we're able to get on top of these cases and find these leads within that time constriction because many investigations take far more than 30 days to get to your identifier or your offender and data that could be viable to solve that crime is gone.

All right. Thank you. Since you're up there, I guess I just if you could maybe share some numbers just so we have an idea of um how ubiquitous this technology is, maybe how many LPRs we have in the city. Um I know we've got some gunshot detectors. Yes, sir. Um other kind of cameras just for the for the public, for people that are interested for my own edification, what what do we have? What what where are we collecting? Kind of just a maybe a quick summary of what we've got going on.

Quick summary, and this is going to be estimate. Um I'm I'm not speaking to exact numbers. I don't have that in front of me. We have approximately 80 LPRs that exist within our entire city. They're strategically laid throughout the city and all the entrances and exits. We also have live view cameras. I believe that's around 25. But we also have integrated every genitech camera and access camera that the city owns to include our traffic cameras so we can see our intersections and what's going on. That's included into our real-time crime center. It's not a flock product, but we've integrated it into our products so we could see it. It's separate, but it is cameras to speak to. We have gunshot detection. We cover a a lion share of our 40B and PIB area, and we cover PCID with gunshot detection. So, if a gunshot is to occur, we are notified well before a 911 call hits our dispatch center. To include, we have at one point we're running a live 911 product. We're running a flock 911 product at this point that feeds that 911 call directly to our officer and our real-time crime center so our officers can self-dispatch prior to waiting for that dispatch time. We have trailers. So we have trailers that are fixed with cameras. So those trailers are put at special events, lemonade days, Fourth of July parade and upon private partner that's looking for assistance. That would be Lazy Dog, Perimeter Mall, and areas that might have a fair amount of property crime where they need assistance and they can't deploy cameras to pretty much address that issue. We also have a drone as first responder. We've started running that late into last year that has been running, I would say, and don't quote me, but I I believe six to seven months throughout our city and has been quite successful. I think I've covered it. I hope I haven't missed anything.

Thanks. Um, next question. I know I've asked this the chief before, but um just for our own internal use, we have policies for who can access and how they access and those are publicly available. Correct. We absolutely do. Okay. And then uh the the gentleman who was giving the flock presentation mentioned a transparency portal. Do we have anything like that specifically related to the flock? Um so um yes, we are going to stand that up. I just learned that the other day. Uh right now we only have a trans on our transparency page. Uh we have it for our drone. Um, but after speaking with Carrie, yes, we are going to incorporate that into our uh into our website.

All right. And and while I still have you up here, I just um prior to the meeting, I pulled up um crime stats for 2024 versus 2025. And I know I've talked to you about this before, but um everything is down quite a bit in the city. Um can you speak to the role of technology in helping with that or not and and how it has in impacted those statistics?

Yeah, absolutely. Um it's a deterrent. Um, every surrounding jurisdiction uh around here has it. Um, Carrie alluded to um how they're switching tags now because they know uh of technology. Um it has been extremely instrumental in um giving us those solvability factors. Um double homicides, the shooting at the mall, uh we saved uh um a lady's life that was in a mental health crisis with our drone first responder. It is a direct reflection because c criminals know they know what jurisdictions they're coming into um and how to defeat our technology um you know and that's when they do then when they switch the tags um so yeah it's it it is a deterrent uh as major pointed out we put the flock camera to lazy dog there were no we had an issue with entering autos there it's a deterrent we have a blue light on there and not only that um with our special events seems like every year our special events get bigger and bigger um we need the technology to cover that where our eyes and ears can't be everywhere. So that's why we deploy the trailers, we deploy the the um uh the drones to check rooftops. It's it's the society we're in right now that we have to take these steps um for the safety uh and security of the citizens here.

And then I don't know that you can answer this next question, but um there was a gentleman from one of the neighborhoods that mentioned that they had private flock use. Do you have a sense for how much private flock use is occurring in the city? And how if in any way data collected by those systems is integrated? Do do you have access to that or is there a firewall between um those two pieces of information?

So many HOAs or private businesses will go into contract with the Flock LPR through a through the idea of the partnership with their local law enforcement. So they will fund and put that camera in place and allow us access to that information so we can additionally protect their neighborhood. So if they want to know if somebody who is entering their neighborhood at 3:00 a.m. is wanted for burglaries or entering autos and they want our officers alerted without observing the person to enter their neighborhood, they'll get that straight to their MDT in their car and they can be in route without being dispatched and potentially prior to a crime occurring. and those agency or those entities have their own data retention policies I'm assuming

and and I have no part I can't speak to that but I could only assume um I'm probably have more questions but I'm looking through my list here I just since you all were saying I wanted to ask um you want me to go to somebody else yeah go ahead I John and then we can thank you for the presentation much of your conversation today gentlemen were all about LPRs but on the agenda today we have two issues one is drone and one is the OS 911 and I'd like to have some background on the uh security transparency and what those products are so that we can vote intelligently in the next you know half hour whenever it comes up. Tell me more about the uh drone system. Sure.

The technology, the security, the safety of it, the how long those videos are held, deleted, things of that nature for both the drone and the uh OS 911. Uh, so the two two products, uh, I'm going to let Major speak on the OS 911 a little bit more. He's he knows more detail about it. Um, but for the drones, um, this really is just a renewal agreement with the, uh, PCID, Periner Community, uh, improvement district. Um, because they have partnered with us by getting us, uh, shop detection LPRs here in the PCID area. Uh, and they're also, uh, funding an additional drum. So, as of right now, as I've said to you, our side of the city is not covered by drone because by the time our drone that's located here uh gets over there, it's got to come back for another battery. So, we're going to have another station um out there um so we can cover down to the PIB area uh as well. Our Flock 911 system um very advanced. We've been using prepared 911. Um uh the chatcom did not want to go with that. So we went with the flock 911. We were testing and evaluating that for several months. Um and it has proved very beneficial. And what Major Gre was talking about is we hear the 911 call come in uh immediately. And so what's happening is that um our officer that's in the real-time crime center, if it's a crime in progress or a violent crime, she is self-dispatching by the time the call taker puts in the notes, sends it to dispatch, and the dispatch sends it to us. we're sending it automatically while the call takers are still taking the notes. Uh so that has proven very beneficial and it also has reduced our response times to those critical incidents. I'm going to turn over to Major K. I want him to talk about the 911 system a little bit more.

So in flock 911 is its competitor would be live 911. So we ran live 911 in the city of Duny for some time. Uh it was unsuccessful for us. Uh the audio connections were very poor and we did not receive all our 911 dispatch calls. We moved away from that product. We were looking for another solution. The difference with the Flock OS 911 is not only does in how they are similar is it connects the 911 call at call taker. And I'm going to I I understand that many of you probably know what I'm talking about, but I'm going to break it down at at the very base level. When a 911 call comes in from an individual, it immediately goes to a call taker. A call taker will take that information, break down that data, and funnel it to a dispatcher. Once it's relayed to the dispatcher, the dispatcher will then identify the resource that's closest to it and dispatch that officer. It touches many hands before your emergency gets to the officer. What this is is it's allowing us at connection to get that information and strategically get ourselves in place once the information is collected by dispatch to be in a place where we can effectively respond in a more meaningful way. that has shown and proven very successful because that call immediately geollocates. Something that Flock OS 911 does that live 911 did not do for us is it transcribes that data. So instantly when that call is coming in and that could be English speaking, Spanish speakaking, Vietnamese when a call comes into 911 and it has to be pushed to the language line. We are now moving to what could be a 30 second to two minute dispatch to a 7 minute to 10 minute dispatch because they have to get language line on board, get that information verified and out to the officer. We are getting that transcribed in real time and our officers are responding and getting on scene in real time. That does not stop language line from occurring. Chatcom still does their job and they continue to verify, but we

can get that important data and we can save seconds likely minutes many times with this product. We've used it for approximately 6 months and been very successful. Another thing it does is it act immediately connects to our DFR system. So when that call geolocates on our map in our realtime crime center I'm sorry, drone is first responder. Um, our drone is first responder system. That call will come up. It has geoloccated and we can auto launch that drone through our 3D radar and our certified pilots through the FAA. And we can put it on that call and give us overwatch to that critical incident likely. And I I know many of you understand Dunwy at a level that even I don't. You've lived here longer than I've worked here. But Ashford Dunwy can take an enormous amount of time to traverse from here to 285. I can have a drone there in 15 to 20 seconds. When we have a major incident on the highway, an overturn tractor trailer, I can have overwatch there directing EMS when entrance ramps are blocked, letting fire know how to get in and in route and I can have that auto dispatch through the 911 call. That's what Flock OS 911 does for us.

I appreciate the information. If the Mr. McCormack, can you then address both the drone and the OS 911 in the sense of the security? How long that information, the video, how long is it on our system in the system? When can it be relayed? What's give me the transparency as well as the security of all the data from both the drone and the 911 system. Sure. So um any and all data again it's saved on the uh AWS gov cloud and that standard 30-day uh deletion and unless again downloaded by the department it's the same approach for any data that comes through the flock system. Okay, go right ahead. Um,

just and I guess this is really to chief and major um with the chatcom because the 911 call went into ChatCom, right? So, but then you're saying that the with the Flock OS 911 it's saved there too. So, who actually owns that 911 call? Like because Chatcom saves it as well, right? So, what is their protocol? Just out of curiosity. I can't speak to Chatcom's protocol on that. You may be able to. I'm not sure. No. Okay. I just I'm sure we can get that answer. I just, you know, do they delete like and then how does that sharing go? Aaron, are there record retention requirements for 911 calls? Do you know? There is, mayor, and I would have to get back and give you that.

So, I think that 911 calls are probably somewhat different than Rand, but our attorney is shaking his heads. So, anytime we're investigating, you've sent me some time to that. So, we might actually have to file an open records request through check to get that call. Right. Okay. John, two more. Uh Joe is mine because my head's turned that one.

Um thank you for putting all this together here. Um Mr. McCormack, I don't I don't debate the value and benefit at all. I appreciate our police department and and chief up here speaking verbally to us. Um I spent over 25 years in technology. I worked at Oracle. I sold uh software to the department of army DoD federal and cloud environment. I understand sock one and sock 2 and fed ramp and and nist and so on. Um however um I don't expect any of these people and I shouldn't have to hear that here. Um I I would say right now if we're supposed to be voting on this now I I'm not ready to make a decision. If I had to be forced to, I would say no. Um, what what I would like and I understand Mr. McCormack, you're here and look, I was in sales, but I'd rather have a CISO type person talking to our CISO. I'd like to have our our I I would ask Eric Glenn to have our IT director Ginger Mc M uh Ginger Leage do do a presentation to the council on her findings given looking at your socks 2 reports, your socks one reports, looking at all the trust, privacy, data security and governance gaps and so on and let me hear that from our IT director and then let me hear that from our legal bill and if it's in the terms and conditions specifically in the contract, then we can go with that. If it's verbally, we can't um it needs to be in writing in legal. So, I I'm just a big process guy and I would I we shouldn't have to understand your technology and topologies and multiffactor authentication and and terms and conditions of license agreements and no sale of data and data sharing and so on. We we shouldn't have to be having that type of conversation here. I'd rather have our IT director presenting that to us and having them staff do the due

diligence and say, "Here's all of your concerns and we we we're it's green, amber, or red from our our staff presentation." Um so all this stuff I that's what I would propose. Okay. Mayor, if I may. Yes, council. Absolutely. um our entire team um regularly makes themselves available to engage with um you know IT directors, law, whatever it is. Uh absolutely we're happy to do that. Uh was that it Joe? Um Tom

um thank you and uh so yeah as as has been mentioned all of the flock technology has been uh a valuable tool for the police department. Um, and there's there's been crimes and bad people taken off the streets as well as lives saved as a result of it. Um, but like any tool or technology in the wrong hands with bad actors, it can be used for bad things. And so I think it's critical for us to ensure that we have the public trust moving forward if we're using a system like this and we have the proper guard rails and controls in place uh to ensure that data isn't just out there for anybody to use and that the systems aren't being uh manipulated or used by people that we don't control. So I have I have a few questions. Um, John kind of touched on this before, but I just want to clarify because I I found it interesting that uh so we use a and I know that we've been kind of an early adopter with FL and and and using a lot of the technology and and while that's a great thing, there's also risk that goes along with that as well. Uh but uh the the the presentation focus on LPRs. Uh a lot of the information on your website is specific to LPRs, but there is a ton of other products and services that are collecting data and everything just seems to focus on the LPR. So, I just want you to clarify 100% that the data collection policy is across the board that data from all of your technologies is not being shared and is and is subject to the same 30day retention period and that the ownership is strictly with the city of Dunworthy or whatever agency is producing that.

Correct. Unless a state requires a different um period. So some states for example require 21 days but yes is that correct? So with the exception of So does Georgia require anything different? Uh no I I believe that Georgia um does not have a requirement date in there. So that's why it would be the 30 Georgia law. Okay. So all of the technology the city don't uses is subject to that same 30-day retention. None of our data is stored, sold, um, shared with anyone without the express consent of the DOI police department or city. Correct. And it is store is deleted after 30 days unless uh downloaded for an investigation.

Okay. Um, okay. I I'm going to go to some of that. Um, Council Member Lenbacker brought this up. Uh, some of the videos. I'm sure you're familiar with Ben Jordan 44 Media and a lot of the videos out there. You said that the the Petri Creek was an isolated interest uh incident, but if you view a lot of the information that's out there, it doesn't appear to be one incident. So, there seems to have been a lot of vulnerabilities. What What is What is your response to that?

Yeah, so we're I'm I'm aware of the one live video incident um that we put out on our website, and forgive me if I misunderstood the other one that you brought up that I'm not aware of. We we I'm aware of one um miss the individual the YouTube blogger that you referenced again that's who I referenced earlier who took apart one of our cameras if you watch the video he admits he never got into customer data or servers or anything like that he himself um admits that in his videos but there there seem to be some some access issues uh that were raised in those videos and I just want you to respond to uh you have to be aware of more than just the one because they're out there so yeah oh there's lots of videos out there on the internet about our company for sure.

So what what what's what's your response to the fact that there's there seems to be multiple vulnerabilities in the system. Yeah. So again I and the company has seen no evidence and are not aware of any breach of our customers data, our servers or systems period. Okay. There are videos of folks, excuse me, sorry to videos of folks taking apart the cameras and then when there are issues like the live streaming issue at a park, we put that on our website. We own it. It was a mistake. We put it out. Um, and it's all it's still on the website. It's it's on the blog.

Okay. I I have a question on the contracts and some of it will be for you and some of it may be uh for a city attorney, Ken. So, uh, pay So, right on the on the order form, this is kind of unique to me and this is the only contract that I'm aware of that the city has where basically our contract's online. It's not a written document for us. Like so the order form here states that um terms and conditions uh incorporates and includes the terms and conditions located on Flock's website at flock safety which describe and set forth general legal terms governing the services set forth in the order form. Um and then it goes on. So basically it's not spelled out in the contract or the order form that we have. It's online and then when you go online um there's information there. But when I went on to to investigate that, it says that the terms were changed on February 16th. Um, and then it's there's a link that you can go and look at the historical changes, but you need login information to do that. So I so I couldn't see what the what's on there now versus what was on there prior to February 16th and whatever other changes may have been there. So um, for public transparency, it's very important that these contracts are available for the public to see. And if me as a sitting council member can't even look at the terms of the contract prior to two weeks ago, it's a concern to me. So why is the system set up that way? Ken, is there is that are there any vulnerabilities for the city having a contract with terms that can change? And and are we not when those terms change, are we notified in advance, given the opportunity to opt out or or how does that how do the changing terms work as as far as uh our contract?

Let let me address that if I can. Sorry, I don't have a voice tonight. Uh technology, can y'all pull Jill Dunn up? Jay, can you help? Jay, can you get uh or it can you pull give Jill Dunn um presenting permissions? Wait one second. Let's get our other attorney on the phone. I mean, not on the phone, but on the computer, what whatever it is.

I'm going to address Hey, Jill. I'm going to address the first part of that, Tom, and then I'm going to turn it over to Jill. Separate from flock, a lot of these technology contracts are very short and then they have a reference to an online 100page, 150 page terms and conditions. As a result of that, all of those contracts we get reviewed on the outside by Jill Dunn at Freeman Mat Gary. Jill's on the phone. Jill has gone through all these flock contracts not just for this meeting but in the past because of those additional terms and condition. So Jill uh can you so I hope that answered the first part. Let me ask you a second part then I'm going to turn over to Jill. if they change a material term and condition on their website that we don't like like there's a material breakdown of the contract which would enable us to then you can't just have moving terms if we if we don't accept a material term it changes the agreement and therefore is a way to get out of it now may require litigation but there's a way to get out of it Jill can I want her to dig more deeper into more substantive question you have but the superficial top view. Jill, can you pick it up?

Yeah. So, the gist is that in all of these contracts, we always build in, this isn't true just for Flock, it's true for everyone. We always build in where there where there are terms and conditions incorporated, a notice requirement. So, that we have, the city has to receive or whatever department has to receive notice if those terms and conditions are changing. What is not always built in is a a a specific, you know, opt out right uh for any part of those terms and conditions that we do not like. But Ken is correct that we would have a the city would have a legal argument that that is a material uh a material breach or material change of terms that no longer reflects a you know for legally speak a meeting of the minds of the contract. So we would have an argument that the city would be allowed to terminate the agreement uh on those grounds. It would not be uh it would not be just a matter of you know writing a letter to that effect. It would probably can correct involve some litigation, but it would be a a strong legal argument that you could you could terminate the agreement if that happens.

All right. And so to be clear, so if there's changes to the to the the contract or the terms and conditions online, we are notified in advance and then that will be reviewed by legal every time that occurs. Yes, it would be

signing of the contract. Excuse me. Once we sign the contract, we have signed the terms and agreements as they are standing at that time. I wouldn't think that any change to those affects us. Typically though, these agreements allow for terms and conditions to be changed. That's why we always build in where we have to have notice of any such changes. a lot of times and and and councilman a lot of times they're they are very minor uh unimportant immaterial changes so it doesn't really matter but in the event that it's something material we would get notice of it review it and then decide what we want to do from there

right so do we have a do we have a standard then so like so the contracts need to be approved by the council is there a standard of of what's considered a threshold that moving forward if there's a change to the terms is that it would have to come back before council for a decision or is that strictly an administrative or legal decision?

Well, I think the first question is who do they notify when they make the change of condition? If we don't know about it, we wouldn't know to bring it to you. And so the question, Jill, and I guess uh Major Craig and Chief is who do they notify? Because I haven't received a notice that there's a change on their web page. Yeah, Councilman, I'm going to have to consult our legal folks to understand who they notify, how that works. I'm going to be honest. I'm going to have to get that information from them.

Okay. And um I'm going to leave you up here for a second. I got one more question. I have some other questions about the the agenda items, but I'll save those until those items come up. Um and this is this is with the data sharing. And um so a a resident did a an open record search to find out who who who done what he's sharing uh data with. Um and uh that was shared with me. So full disclosure, that's the source of my information. Um the that person shared that with me. Uh there's 1864 agencies on that list that we are sh that nobody is sharing um information with. uh only 492 are actually sharing back with us. Now, some of those, to your point, are private HOAs or stuff like that that wouldn't uh um you know, have that access, but um a couple of things that stood out to me when I was reviewing the list. Um you said there aren't any federal agencies, but I found three on the list with Duny. Uh Wright Patterson Air Force Base, uh US Postal Service, and uh US Park Police are all have access to Dunwood's data. So those are all federal agencies. So

yep. So communities have the full ability local control to opt into sharing relationships with federal agencies. My comment earlier was federal agencies are not inherently in our national search. You you have to opt into those sharing relationships.

Okay. Um and this may be a question I for you or for chief to jump in. Uh, two of the organizations that I found on that list. There's a lot of, you know, obviously a lot of police department, law enforcement, that's all natural. Um, there's some unusual ones um on there. the Virginia Department of Wildlife Management, Alabama Department of Revenue, Fish and Wildlife Commission in Florida, um Missouri Information Analysis Center, um CSX Railroad, uh Sunni uh State College up in New York, um two agent, two organizations that were listed on the list, one was titled do not use and one was titled delete. and that uh so I'm a little concerned of what what controls are in place and and so what I want what I guess the next question is for internal is is what I I understand there's advantages to sharing information with other law enforcement agencies. I would say that advantage is probably uh geographic. So if we were to draw a 20 mile radius around the city or whatever you deemed appropriate or or other state agencies um is there a gatekeeper function to this where I can understand that perhaps you know the kipsy New York has a fugitive that they believe is in Dunwy and they want want access to to review that. What what can we is there a gatekeeper function where they would need to actually request that permission from the city of Dunwy before they get access to that rather than just having access to our data at any time they wish? And do we have those controls in place? Is that something that we can evaluate who we're sharing data with and and come up with some some guidelines? I know that's a lot of questions in one. So, I'll just stop there for a second. I'm going to speak to that the best I can. There are there are gateways where we

could stop and we could choose not to share with the vast majority of agencies that request it. Um, unfortunately, and probably more as of recent, uh, information sharing in law enforcement has been deemed as as nearly a bad word. Um, for the past 20 plus years, we've fought to share information to apprehend criminals that didn't know city lines, county lines, state lines, or borders. Um, it has been probably the number one failure on our part of an agency housing data that could solve a crime or rescue an individual that was housed in a small agency or large agency and they didn't know existed there. So the goal not just with Flock with every database with our record management system our every database that we use across the board and I could go into each one of them. The goal is to be able to share and work together. What we have to ensure is that the policies by those agencies and our agency are upheld that that oath is upheld. And if it's that that's on us. I can't blame and that I'm going to take Flock out of this conversation, but Flock or any other vendor that provides us a tool if we are using it with MOS. If we're using it in a manner that is done inappropriately and we need to effectively address it as an agency, as a city, and we expect that of all the agencies we partner with. I would hate to an investigation and many of ours and I could speak to many that an offender came for a jewelry theft down to the city of Dunwy. They came from New York. They were tracked all the way down here. They set up at one of our jewelry stores an armed robbery overtaking of the jewelry store that we were able to use and we used flock data and LPR data and additional data to apprehend. But that was information training sharing through multiple agencies, New York and all the way down. Our first major case with an

LPR in the city of Dunwy was a group that did burglaries at night for pharmaceuticals and ATMs on pharmacies like CVS up and down the East Coast. They were good for well over 24. They ran up and down. This was a federal case that went across state lines. We got that data through sharing. We would have otherwise just been another victim of a crime, but we were able to apprehend that. So I don't want to speak to information sharing as it is a bad thing if used in the wrong manner. Absolutely. And it is our job and the chief's job and a major's job to ensure that we're doing it appropriately and effectively and if it's not done addressing that immediately. I don't hold any private vendor to hold our standard or tell us how to do that. I wouldn't accept a private vendor to tell us how we need to do that. As an agency, we need to handle that appropriately. I hope that answers it. And I I got lost on a tangent.

Yeah. No, it does. And and I appreciate the points that you made. I guess the question is I'm not saying restrict access, but Thank you.

have a gatekeeper function where they need to get access to our live cameras. They just need to notify whoever it is at the DPD and then we grant that access or, you know, rather than just because the more people that have access, the more chances there are for bad actors to be involved. And we could and we could cycle through our data and who we're sharing with. Uh and it sounds like because and I don't oversee that personally. That is not that is not my mission. But I will I will absolutely look into that and there may be some things that we can shore up. But I do want to ensure that access is immediately available in real time to ensure that that data can assist any others investigation. But if it's an agency that has no business being able to use that and that's that's a hard line to draw in our type of work. But we can do our best to identify what we're doing, what other agencies are doing and what would be most appropriate.

You spoke earlier uh one of the other questions uh about uh auditing? Yes, sir. Is that is that an internal audit? Do we also audit external users that are gaining access to our system? Our audit shows everybody that accesses our system. Okay. So we have anyone that accesses our system we're getting. Are there are there flags in that that like certain activities that would draw attention

there? there are as and that's what I spoke to earlier and that is only increasing and this is this is new to us and actually only in this singular database but we are getting anomalies and bias alerts and and things that other and sometimes just alerts we to speak to that we had an investigation where we just recently had a bias alert because what was searched in there was identified as political what we found out was involved reported in that crime was a color and make of a vehicle and a said bumper sticker on it. No tag number. So, they searched the exact bumper sticker verbiage and were able to locate and identify the person that was involved in said crime. So, but that came up as an alert for a bias because typical we shouldn't that it's not a normal search for law enforcement. So, we do like that and we appreciate that and we're actually urging all our other vendors to give us those anomalies and give us those biases and so we don't just catch it in an annual audit or a semianual audit um because we can't live in only audits too

uh by any means. We Oh, no. AB absolutely agree with that. Um, and uh, I I would like to request that we kind of look at our our our policy as far as who we're sharing with because I I found it interesting that we're sharing with 1864 agencies, but only 492 of them are sharing back. Um, so at least according to the list that I had, I don't I I don't know the accuracy of that. Um, so you know, why are the other agencies not sharing back that information with us? Um, and do we do we need to maybe well I'm actually requesting that we look at establishing a policy for who we share with under what terms and and

absolutely no I agree with that. Um policies were they're always evolving especially with this technology more technology we come on the more we have to um you know update our policies you know and uh and procedures. So, currently right now, I'm about to publish our updated um drone policy because we had one because we were one of the first agencies around here to use drones uh in another capacity, but now that it's with Flock, we're um updating it to coincide with our real-time crime center. So, absolutely, I'll make note of that and um we'll take a look. I do have a policy committee here that we look at it, look at everything, come up with recommendations. Um, and of course I have Major Creed, my subject matter expert in there as well to uh to determine what what we uh what we need to focus on and make sure that you know we're abiding by and you know yeah is a concern of who we're sharing with and you know if if uh we need to look at being a gatekeeper um and why they're not sharing back, we'll definitely look into that.

Yeah. And and again, just to clarify, the most important factor of this to me is is and I don't need to tell you this is is maintaining the public trust because if the if the public doesn't trust what we're doing, if the public doesn't trust how we're using this technology and this data, it's it's going to be an uphill fight uh for the police department. Uh so I want to make sure that there's a confidence level in that trust that our that the data is being used properly and not subject to uh widespread access that perhaps we wouldn't want to have. So that that's really the what I'm looking for.

I I've been in direct contact with one of one of the citizens that's raising a lot of these concerns and I've invited him to come into the real time crime center once we are done here with any additional questions he may have. Just we are transparent. Like I said, I'm adding additional uh flock uh data um that I found out just the other day that was free to us. It's just part of it. And I overlooked that, but now I'm going to make sure that gets on our transparency page. So, uh it'll get more answers out to the public and uh to show that we are completely transparent with our information, what we do with our technology. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay. So, I have a few questions, but I want to start with a story that's going to age me, which is way back when when I was a senior in college, I did my senior paper on the New Coke debacle, which it was a big debacle. I don't know how many people are old enough to remember the whole roll out and o was it a mess. But Ring may have beat them. Uh, the Super Bowl Ring commercial may have beat them. I have never seen I mean obviously when new co came out there wasn't internet to age myself even more but the reaction of Ring camera owners to know that they were supposed to opt out of sharing that they were automatically opted into sharing which leads me to some research I've done which um is about Mountain View California. I don't know if you're familiar. They just discontinued their flock contract because they realized that they were sharing their data unknowingly with a bunch of federal agencies, which you say maybe not a thing. Mountain View says it was happening and they've at least temporarily suspended the use of the program. I'm really I have to say that I'm really confused about this sharing thing. So, in my mind, first of all, I am all for technology. Sorry. I am all for technology. We have a crime problem in Dunwy. You may not realize it. It's It's complicated and complex. Or maybe it's not complicated and complex. We lost a Walmart allegedly over shoplifting, which may seem minor, but it is what it is. Um, and so, and I take public safety very seriously and I take supporting our police department and our police officers incredibly seriously. What I'm finding really confusing is in the olden days, say two database versions ago, if the city of Canton

thought someone was robbing a bank here, I think they'd probably have to pick up the phone, right? Or send an email maybe three versions ago and ask you to look, find, search, whatever, right? So technology has made this much easier. Is the city of Canton looking at our flock cameras without and I'm not the mayor of Canton's a friend of mine. I'm not really picking on them, but if are they looking at our cameras without us knowing like are they able to access our feed without us knowing that they're looking to see if their bank robber alleged bank robber has decided to rob a bank of which we have a lot of in Dunwy. Is that how it works? Is that how this technology works? Just

right. So, our live view cameras we treat very differently than we do our LPRs. Okay. Our LPR data we share widely and it's likely the number you're speaking to right here. Okay. I am not the gatekeeper over that. We have a manager over that that handles this. Okay. But the city of Canton, if they had a crime that occurred, they no longer have to pick up the phone if they are looking for that offender. What they are going to do is they're going to search a tag database. And I'll take this to even closer. Okay. City of Roswell had an incident. Uh individual was under some type of mental distress, pulled out a firearm, started shooting up his own apartment, did not harm anybody. Okay, that video you saw, right?

So, what occurred through that is investigators showed up on scene, it got reported, they immediately ran that tag and they notified us because that tag didn't just hit Roswell. Then it stopped at Roswell's city line and they went, "He's out of here. Not our problem anymore." It hit Roswell. It hit Sandy Springs and it stopped in Dunwy. Okay. And Roswell called us and said, "You may have a problem. There's an armed individual in your city that's now in a highly populated restaurant district and he is currently or as of moments ago took a firearm and shot up an apartment and informed us and notified us of a crime that occurred through their access so we could respond in that way.

Okay. So they are able to look and follow the license plate from jurisdiction to jurisdiction if they have access through those jurisdictions. If if those individual jurisdictions have granted the access as they have granted us it. So if is this like the oldfashioned av be aware bola. Yeah. Be on the lookout right. So but this is a much faster. Yes we

smoother less labor intensive. Okay. So my ask, which I think is kind of some of our ask, maybe all of our ask, is that we come up with a policy on how we share and that we make sure that we're not oversharing. Now, I will tell you, as someone who has spent an extraordinary amount of time dealing with Dumby's specific post office mess, I'm guessing that the US Postal Service is looking because we continue to have the theft from our post offices. We've had an enormous amount of associ we are special. Um, and so I I suspect that some of that makes sense, but I sure would like our audit to so our job is not to tell you the how. Our job is to tell you the what.

The what is is that it is making some of us uncomfortable that that's an awful lot of agencies that we're not necessarily sharing that we don't feel the need to share. They don't feel the need to share data back with us. And we ought to be looking to see we need to be much more careful about I should just fix it. Let's just fix I mean I'm not going to tell you how to fix it because it's not my responsibility. I'm just going to ask you to fix it. Okay. The contract thing Jill and Ken is gonna drive me baddy because a lot of times it's my name that's on that contract. And I do not understand a system in which I sign a contract that say it's a subscription for a year and then six months in or nine months in that the terms can change.

I don't get that. I mean I understand like software updates but these changes don't feel insignificant to me. And again, I support this technology, but I am all about being concerned and all I have to tell you a lot of my you know, I have a lot of mayor friends and we're all talking about this to be clear. We need to own the data. We need to control how it's retained and we need to control how it's accessed. And it feels like this latest round of changes just suck that right away from us. And if that would, you know, I hear that y'all say it was just to correct some redundancy. I don't understand it. I expect that our attorneys are going to look into this, but I don't we're your clients. We're the customers and we don't need you to own our data. We're paying you. We should own our data just like we would own on a bolo the picture that is sent, you know, we send out that maybe becomes evidence in a case or not because maybe there ends up being no case and we dispose of that file whenever their records retention allows them to dispose of it. I don't need you to own our data and we need to address that.

Yeah, I appreciate that, mayor. Thank you. Got multiple levels of homework here I'm taking home with me tonight. But one, so to clarify, you absolutely own your data, mayor. I will make sure that um your legal team connects with our legal team to work out all these issues. That's one of my various pieces of homework. So, I appreciate that, mayor.

Okay. And then when I was reading, I think I said that already about the Mountain View case, they're saying that they discovered that they were supposed to opt out, that they opted in to share with everybody. It sounds like we want to share with a lot of people, but I just want to make sure that we know what who we're sharing with. And I'm not questioning anyone's skill set. I'm questioning Flux um because of the whole Ring camera thing. Um, and so I think that we need to make sure that that we control that too. And e even if it means that we have to change Eric how we audit um and all that. And then I have I'm sorry I have a few notes then I got more notes. Um, okay. I think that I'm going to recommend even though we're not at those agenda items yet, that we step back and we have our technology people talk to their technology people and our attorneys, which is really critical to me, uh talk to your attorneys so we can understand what we signed um and and and how that's maybe evolved. So nice and mayor um yeah

absolutely you know every uh contract every renewal we have to earn your business 100% that's you know we're happy to make sure that all the applicable folks from our team are connecting with you all and and just to uh respond to one of your previous comments too um it's uh not abnormal for cities to get policies in writing so we encourage it um a lot of cities do do that so that's that's my next not abnormal yeah So, Chief, everyone, I think we have to on this transparency page. We have to have all these policies that we may have internally that we aren't sharing or maybe they are already on our transparency page.

Yeah, we're we're working on that, Mayor. Um, I looked at it and it's it's only our high liability policies. I want them all on there. I'm working on that. And then just because I want to understand and any of y'all can answer this. So there was an incident in central Georgia where an administrator accessed uh their data like block data camera. It was flock data but I don't remember what technology to stalk allegedly stalk an ex partner. North Georgia I believe.

So might have been North Georgia. It was in Georgia somewhere. So, I want to make sure that when we're talking about the what that so like when I access my bank account on my phone, it sends me a note. Do you want the magic number through your cell phone or through your email? It feels like to me a common not really technology person that while we want to do it quickly, like if the officers in the back, like if they need to know something quickly, they should be able to punch in a number like we do for our bank account. There has to be again I'm solving the problem. supposed to solve the problem. We have to make sure that somebody dillydattling in our system doesn't look at stuff we don't want them to look at. And maybe we already have that policy

and not even a lot. A policy didn't save that situation. That was an individual that was of high rank that made a poor choice and violated every one of their policies and committed a crime accessing GCIC and NCIC databases. Okay. So the that was sorry unfortunately we do have policies in place that restrict how we use it and we are upheld to enforce it. Okay. Yes ma'am. All right. But there's a log or something that shows you. Absolutely. There's an audit log that shows us that is kept forever. That is not deleted every 30 days. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead Joe.

Are those audits you mentioned the audits we doing internally. Do we have them done ex by external folks as well? We don't we don't have any of our ex audits done by external folks at this point. Uh the only audit that runs externally is the managed GCIC audit that comes in through GBI. Once we pull our personal audits, they come in and verify and that's held true through the state which we we continue to do annually or every two years whenever they require. And again, this data that's being read through here, the true protected data in there is the GCIC, Georgia Crime Information Center. Okay. Data.

All right. All right. Thank y'all. I think we Does anybody have any other questions? All right. We'll be back for these agenda items. Thank you, mayor. Appreciate your time, council members. Thank you. All right. Next up is consent. And I'm gonna let Tom take over the meeting for

consent. We're on consent. All right, we're on consent. Move to approve. Second prom. A uh call to pull items seven and eight off the consent agenda and movement to business items. Make it known. Okay. Items seven and eight. We'll move those down to business items. They'll become the new Sorry. Okay. Those will be the first two items. Uh first two business items. So we had a we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I second. Okay. Moved by St. Stacy, second by Rob. All in favor of approving the consent agenda as amended say I. I. Any opposed? That passes unanimous. Okay, we'll move on to um the newly amended agenda and we'll start with former item number seven which is the approval of resolution of commitment to provide local matching funds federal request path to approve. Second motion to approve uh by Joe, seconded by Stacy. Any questions or conversation? John?

Yes. I'm against this item in the sense of the Winter's Chapel uh path. I think it's cost too much money and it doesn't serve the best needs of the citizens. I wish it uh were to fail. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion on the floor. All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose say nay. Nay. That passes uh five to one. That's one two five to one. That's what I said, right? Okay. Okay. Uh agenda item number eight, supplemental project framework agreement with the Georgia Department of Transportation for the village crossing project.

Move to approve. Second. It's moved by Joe. Second by Rob. Uh any questions or discussion? I John has that I have John. Uh yes sir. I'm against this product project as well. I don't believe it serves the citizens well in the sense of any transportation improvements besides the 12oot paths that I think are over uh costing too much and includes storm water that we don't need. So I do have a Did you have

further comment? Um like to clarify correct the my friend here, Councilman Henan. It's not 12 foot wide paths here. It's a 6 to 8 foot wide sidewalk. It's in the plan and that's what's presented. And it is also a separate space of a 5ft space for people that would be on bicycles. It's additional uh street scapes and we're adding additional traffic capacity of a left turn lane on the uh northbound turning left into Mount uh ver um Shamley Dunwy. Um, so, um, I think this is going to be a great enhancement of making our main street, uh, more walkable. I remember back when I wasn't on council when the big controversy was for the Dunwy Village Parkway. I'm not sure how many people here lived here over 10 years ago, but we get about a 40% turnover of people every 10 years in Dunwy. So, we have people that probably weren't familiar of the huge controversy of go from four lanes to two on the Dunwy Village Parkway, but now there's sidewalks and now there's trees growing. And of course, we want to plant the trees to have the shade that you may never grow walk under because it might not be here in your lifetime, but we plant the seed. So, I see people walking on those sidewalks every day in Delwiny Village now and using it just like it was nothing. And it was super contentious in circa 2012. I mean, people did not get elected or reelected. And it was a lot of lot of contention. And and I look at do they like it? Does it appreciate it now? Does it look look good in the community? I I believe it does. So, uh, this project will be, you know, years in the making. Um, but I think it's going to be similar to what happened on Shamley Dunwy in in the Georgetown area and hopefully instill, uh, in and send some more economic activity, create a nice sense of place and make it more walkable for the village. Go ahead.

So, my my question, and I think I know the answer to it, so I'm just going to ask it just to confirm. Um this is to accept federal funds, but it does not preclude us from making um adjustments to the design based on public input. We have a meeting I know planned in March. So if we decide based on public feedback, we need to make some adjustments to the plan. That's not precluded by us approving this um acceptance of the federal match right now. Correct. Correct. This this is to accept federal money that will replace local money that we've already budgeted. That's it. Okay.

And I will just kind of add to what Joe said. This is a village crossing project and I was recently at a meeting with the um the a lot of the village business owners. They were talking about, you know, the the holiday festival they're trying to put together. And one of the major concerns is getting people from the fresh market side of Sham Dewony over safely over to the we'll call it the Dewony Tavern side. And this project really works on that. and and making uh the village a whole and and and more pedestrian friendly.

Um and I totally walked in late, but I understand there's emotion on the floor. But king off what you said, I was recently at one of the national retailers that's in the village, and he recognized me and stopped me to ask me questions and tell me how much they think this will be a very positive change um and address some challenges they believe they have at our that location in the village. All right. to call the question. All right, I call the question. All in favor? Any opposed? That fact is six to one. Sharon. All right, so now we are on 11. Thank you, Richard Mloud.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. We recently received a Wait one second, Sharon. This is a resolution. Do you have to read it the caption before he because it's a business I know your voice is gone. Does Jessica want to read it? She does.

My voice is going as well. Um a resolution to reduce the 24-month time interval between successive reasonzoning applications for six six months for 4891 for Dunwhaty Road. Good evening. Um we had received a letter from 4891 Ashford Dunwy Road at the uh blood bank uh asking to reduce from 24 months to 6 months uh they are still working with other purchasers who may need to uh submit to reszone. So it's just a simple resolution uh for that.

All right, this is an action item. Are there any questions? Go ahead. This is just a question for staff. Your thoughts on allowing an exception. Are we are we concerned about lots of requests for this kind of thing? Are we concerned about demands on staff time? Are there any issues or concerns from from your staff? It's not not a issue of staff. And I think it's good because if we want the property to develop, let's not hold them up for two years. Let's give them six months. So, and you all still hear the case and everything. So, all right. Move to approvement. Moved by Rob,

second by Katherine. Um, I would just point out that we ought to look at that policy and our code rewrite. I think I think it makes sense to limit like some restriction of the same like exact thing coming back, right? But potentially just reverting to six months, which I think is the state Yes. rule. Um, for everything else. So, any further discussion or questions? I call the question. All in favor say I. Joe's not here. So, that's 6. Sharon. Thank you. Thank you.

Rachel, I don't think you have to read this one. Sharon. Good evening. Um here tonight to revisit our seven athletic agreements. Um just a quick overview. Um each year each association is asked to review the current terms. Um we work with each organization to um try to come to an agreement between community need parks direct need and what the organization would like to see. U brief history some of these organizations has been have been with us for quite some time. Um again they're they're able to offer great programming that um just really helps extend um cast our net wider if you will for for our small parks rec department. Um the two changes are no changes since the prior meeting. Um I did per council um excuse me Lambert's request. Um add the times for the free play know there was a question around that. Um so I've added the time. So free play 7:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Sundays. And then in addition, free play would also occur every Monday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. in June and July. Um, and that's the only that's the only little tweak um from the last time you saw this. Um, happy to answer any questions you may have.

Um, go ahead, Rob. Um, there was a proposal last time to um change Don Senior Baseball's request to use the fields all the way through October to just specific weekends. Did we get any feedback from them at all or on that um on that proposal in comparison to last year the May, June, July? Yeah. Well, I I I think I um I believe it was Stacy mentioned just giving them the weekend that they wanted for their tournament rather than the entire time period. Did we get any feedback from them on that proposed change?

So, the the May through October um 31st um and that conversation started with May through November. um that won't work because it will conflict with MABL who uses um the fields on Sundays. So that's why we have the specific date of October 31st. Um but we can again we can always go back and and make some tweaks and and get back to them. Um yeah, I I had just thought that there was another suggested change and I don't know. Right. Well, there's no motion at the moment. No, but I it was just part of the discussion this time so I didn't know. Do you suggest a change somebody? Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve with the following changes that it really um reverts back to the 2025 agreement for

for Demi senior baseball to not exceed 400 games annually um with they can have the tournaments in June through July uh along with the weekend of Indigenous People's weekend in October and that um the free play is on uh both fields as it was in 2025, not just Westfield but both fields and that is what was um stated in the 2025 agreement and Councilman Henigan had a question about you know is the same for Rush Union. Um they actually get fewer tournament hours um and they do have both fields available for put free play that same weekend and I'm So the motion is to approve all the athletic agreements with the change for the Dunw senior baseball that I just spilled out.

Oh, we need a second. There's a motion on the floor. Wait, we can't talk about it and it dies if there's no second. I'll second. Thank you. Okay, now we can talk about it. Sorry, John. Sorry, Rachel. Um, have we had conversations with Dunway Senior Baseball and what their opinion be of this modification? Would it be better to pull that one application out or that one out and have it discussed with Dun Senior Baseball to be brought back? I did. I had conversations with them. Did you have a conversation with them, too? No, not not since this

I did. Okay. say he agreed to 400 games or 400 whatever this 400 is. So I met with the president and um so what I think happened last year someone correct me if I'm wrong is that I think we changed it to 400 last year but it didn't get changed in the user agreement. Is that correct? No, they didn't sign the user agreement. They didn't sign the user agreement so they just did 500. Yes. Okay. Correct. So when I met with him, I I believe he agreed with 400 hours. Um

and the the the tournament really is just I think that one weekend. And so I think we're good and if they have an objection, they can come see us. But I think um we you know, I met with him and he was fine with the 400 games. I don't have my notes with me. I might actually have my notes with me, but I don't know. Well, it sounds like there's been communication and it sounds like he's good to go with it. So, I just want to make sure that we're not making changes that's adversarial to what they had intended, right? I think we right. I don't think we're we're not trying to be adversarial, but we have to maintain our property.

Okay. Uh, are there any further discussion or questions? Seeing none, I call the question. All in favor of approving these user agreements, say I. Point of order here. We're approving the amendment. Yep. First, can she not amend it without No, we had there was no motion. Y'all didn't do this right. Stacy's motion was to approve all of them except the Dunwy senior baseball with those exceptions. No. So, I thought the motion was approve all the contracts and make these changes to Dunwy senior baseballs. And I think that can be the motion, right? Appreciate. Thank you.

I took a fall last night. I hit my head. We should not be doing this. All right. All in favor? Right. All in favor of this motion say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. This motion carries. Thank you. Unanimously. Joe, you want to just make the motion for the next one. Mayor, the next item is approval of block OS 911 agreement. Chief Carlson. Okay. All right. Chief Carlson.

No, I didn't break this. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um yeah, before you uh like we discussed uh earlier in our um presentation from Flock um looking to approve the Flock 911 platform uh because of its effectiveness and addressing the needs um I know we explained it pretty much in length but if you have any questions in regarded to this um be happy to answer them. Anybody have any questions or discussion? But how timesensitive is this contract? It's in use. Is it now? Okay. I know they can change their terms. It feels like we could be flex.

Just based on the earlier discussion about wanting to dig into this, I want to make sure we're not It feels like if they can change their terms in the middle. Yeah. I I just want to make sure we're not constraining you somehow if we if we take a deeper dive. So that's that's another question. Move to approve. Okay. Okay. So, there's a motion to approve. I need a second. Uh, there's a second. So, that motion dies. Correct. That's how that works. So, okay. You call for another motion. I can call. Right. Is there another motion? Let's do it.

Discussion or point of order. Can I ask the attorney here um the difference between uh so defer or a table? Can you give us back to that defer versus table? You caught me on a Nike well night, but if you if you defer it, we we want you to move to defer it to a date certain so the public is aware of when it'll come up. If you table it, it stays on the table until somebody pulls it off the table. And so we prefer the idea of of um I just got wrapped myself around defer. You prefer us to defer it. table it table it to a date certain or defer it to a date certain I don't have time

I I I would prefer a deferral and it would be based on how long we think it'll take to is the representative from did he leave from flock no he's still here but I do have uh Steve Hampton he's the uh he's with flock as well in regards to this do we think what's a Eric what's a reasonable expectation and Ken what's a reasonable expectation of Can your time to get with the attorney stuff, I know you already were talking to the attorney about it. Can you do it in the next two weeks or do you need four weeks? Madam Mayor, this was also about governance it type questions, right? Well, that was going to be my next question. Okay, that was my next question. So, just from the legal department, right?

We would probably want 30 days to be safe. We're already on these issues as they've been brought up. We've noted it. Jill's already working on them. But I think we need to hear the IT people talk to us because we don't talk that language. Right. So is two weeks reasonable or should we just do four to make sure? Eric, mayor. Yeah. I would defer to the March 23rd. Okay. Meeting. All right. That's our motion then. Move to defer till March 23rd. Come back. Second.

All right. Moved by Joe, second by Katherine. Any further discussion or comments? Seeing none, I call the question. All in favor of the deferral say I. Any opposed? Hearing none. We will see that back. Number 14. You're what?

Number 14.

The next item on the agenda is approval of block DFR expansion agreement and tech partnership renewal with BCID. Chief Carlson. Two years ago, we entered into uh an agreement with uh the perimeter community improvement district in regards to the cameras I spoke to earlier uh in our 30be, which is our um perimeter area uh also with uh shot detection. um in in an effort to um increase our drone first responder uh to get the uh drones to the other side of the city, uh they have agreed to increase that amount um that they're going to give us to fund that second drone so we can have full coverage of the city. This is just um an agreement with them uh to move forward for them to completely come out of pocket and pay us to use utilize that technology.

Do approve. Second. Moved by uh Councilman Hennean, second by Councilwoman Harris. So to be clear, we're approving an agreement with the PCID. Yes, ma'am. Perfect. For them to give us money. Yes. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. For the program. Okay. Any questions or discussion? I call the question. None. Okay. I call the question. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Hearing none. That passes.

All right. Thank you. All right. Miss Councilman Lenbucker, you are up next. Thank you. So I am bringing forth to you all for your consideration charter changes that I in I started introducing these in March. The mayor and I have talked at length and these are the four that we want to put forth. This is the initial discussion of these items. There'll be two public notices to follow this and they'll be voted on in April. Starting with the first one. We are defining the title number and confirming powers for the for our judges. There any questions that I can answer?

Does anybody have any questions? Go ahead, Tom. Um, yeah, I I just have a couple quick questions. Uh, so we're we're defining a role of chief judge. Do we need to describe put into there a definition or what different a chief judge from an associate judge? Is that if you're creating a role, do we have to define what that role is?

Well, we we're we feel like we're really cleaning it up more than anything because you need a chief judge to be overseeing the court schedule, but the powers of the associate judge is the same as the chief judge when sitting. So there's they all have the same powers and it's reconfirmed in this uh proposed amendment which I worked on under direction. Okay. And I assume uh A and B are remain they weren't in under resolution so or the so I presume that those are unchanged correct

under this category. And I know we're also doing term limits. Is is there a particular motivation for that or is there a reason for does that create any problems by putting term limits on the judges? We we've had a judge for the 18 years of our existence. Same judge. I just feel that it is a good policy for turnover just to change for change of sake. Nobody owns this court.

And also, we've not followed the charter at all on what it said about judges. Just to point it out, it says, what did it say? We would have one or two. Would it say two? Two. One and then like a substitute judge. And we have seven, eight. So, we somehow we lost the show on this one. Not that I think it matters that much, but I think we have compared to our peer cities, we have a lot more judges, even though in some ways we're a lot in many of these cases, we're a lot smaller. And so we just thought we would streamline the whole process. And if I can add to Tom with respect to

I drafted all these obviously but it wasn't my uniqueness that draft it with some direction I drafted it but it applies prospectively after it goes into effect. So it's not a retroactive application. Y'all have your when you appoint them to terms they serve the terms but after May 1st I think is what the date is. They will be subject to term limits thereafter. So if get people get reappointed, they're on they start this if this gets adopted, they start their new term limit. It's not going to affect somebody that's in the middle of a current term that hadn't expired yet until after a new term of May 1st.

So okay, any more questions? All right. All right. The second item is was pointed out by the charter commission in 2020 also by a citizen the very day that of our we were sworn in and it was pointed out that this is an actual error. So this is a change to make it um the swearing in the first Monday after a legal holiday.

Go ahead, Joe. So, I just um I've got a question about the idea of being uh seated. When you read this, the council shall meet. There's when the council should meet and then there's a swearing. There's two things in this amend in this in the charter here in embed in intertwined. And when I look at other cities, you don't have to have a council meeting to be sworn in. And if you're not sworn in, what defines a quorum? if you haven't been sworn in, but you got to declare a meeting open and then you get sworn in. So, I know the nuance and in this current this our first meeting of this January, we if you looked at our agenda, we before we called the meeting, we swore people in. So, the nuances of this is you go to Shambbley, well, they have a little private reception and they get sworn in and then a week later they have a first meeting or something. So I get defining the first meeting. I understand that. Clarify that. Absolutely. But it says the meeting shall be called to order order by the mayor elect and then the oath of So what if we have three more people that are uh haven't been sworn in yet and do we have a quorum? I guess

call the meeting to order. Yeah. So I think there's some just a a slight tweak and nuance of this because you it's saying to call the meeting order first and then administer oath of office. And I just don't see the need to have that intertwined. Just thought I'd What do y'all think? I think that this is set up to say that we are going to have public swearing in ceremonies. No, earlier than or no later than what the first Monday working Monday in January.

And we've done that before actually. I remember at least one swearing in where it was like January 2nd or 3rd or something and all we did was swear in people and then somebody spoke about the fit they could they didn't they came into public comment about the fitness center but I think that meeting was just swearing in. So

and Joe Joe this is my read on how it currently reads. Okay. The city council shall meet on the first working day in January immediately following each regular municipal election. the meeting shall be called to order by the mayor elect and the oath of office is the very first thing. So I I wouldn't tinker with that. I just get past that holiday which was the problem. The first Monday is usually a legal holiday and so that's really why we're trying to affect. But if you have a public swearing in the charter already says the mayor elect

can call the meeting to order to swear people in and then you're seated. What I'd be careful about is trying to alter the terms of office. That's why I'm tinkering with this very, very carefully. Now, I will say I've been in jurisdictions that will have a ceremonial swearing in and then they do it again at their first meeting. But I think so we don't get it accused of changing the term of office, we need to stick in that lane if we can.

Okay, any more questions on that one? All right. The the next one in uh is a cleanup of inconsistencies with constitutional law and general law in terms of special tax districts and it leaves the millage cap. Millage cap and the requirement for I mean the it talks about the vote, right? Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't change. Let me let me address this because I think it's very important for the public

and I'm this one's going to take just a minute because it's important to understand it from the get-go. So in Georgia the very first thing that controls everything is the constitution. Article 9, section two, paragraph two is the home rule statute, which essentially grants municipal powers their their power unless general law restricts it. General law is legislation passed by the legislature that affects everybody in the state, not just a local community. Your charter is a local law. General law says that you can change your charter. Every word of it except for terms. You can't change the term of office. And there's an enumerated list. And I'm going to read this because it's important to follow. And then I'm going to explain what the change is. Uh this is OCGA 36353 home rule. Municipal charters may be amended by ordinance duly adopted. And it's got the process. There's two reads. There's a three-w weekek notice provision in a window that you can change your charter. That's going to happen. But the most important thing is that you can change the charter. It is the law in the state of Georgia and it supersedes this charter. I also want to go back in the numerated powers under article one section three that gives y'all the powers to act because that typically is the first thing that gets asked about. Under section 103 of your charter, the powers of this body, this city shall have all powers possible for a city to have under the present or future constitution and laws of this state as if fully and completely as though those were specifically

enumerated in this act. What that means is every word of the Constitution and every word of the general law giving you power is in this charter already. So what we're doing is cleaning it up. We're not adding to it. We're cleaning up things that we believe you already have the power to do and in some cases have done. And so, um, the charter provisions that are are and and by the way, the next paragraph says this under B, the powers of this city shall be construed liberally in favor of the city. And so, the law has been a long time. It's accepted by every lawyer that I know, and I've been doing this 36 years. You can amend your charter because the legislature doesn't want to have to deal with it. They pass that power on to you. What you can't do is in 36356, you can't change your charter to create an independent school district. You can't do that. There's seven things you can't do. You can't change the form of your government. How many members? That takes legislation. You can't um change the criminal laws of the state of Georgia. You can't create uh you can't adopt any form of taxation beyond that's already provided in the constitution of the state of Georgia law. Period. You can't affect ex the exercise of imminent domain that's granted by the constitution and the general laws of the state of Georgia. You can't expand the power of regulation over business activity that is governed by the public service committee beyond that that is authorized by the general laws, the constitution or the charter. And you can't uh affect the jurisdiction of any court other than municip well you can't really affect the municipal court. You can affect the makeup of municipal court

but its jurisdiction is defined by law. And so these changes, the first one I I'll walk through if I can under uh 103, this is the enumerated powers and there's like 43 of them listed. But remember, you start with the constitution's written in this charter already. And what we said is under article under special districts article 9 section 2 paragraph 6 of the constitution grants y'all and all municipal powers the right to create special districts. Y'all have that in section 43, special districts, to exercise all authority provided by article 9, section 2, paragraph 6 of the constitution of Georgia to create special districts for the provision of local government services within such districts and to collect fees assessment taxes within such district blah blah blah blah blah to pay wholly or partially the cost of providing such service therein and it goes on. And so what we've said is the provision of 36 special assessments to levy and provide for the collection of special assessments cover the cost of any public improvement subject to referendum. That does not include section 43. And all we're doing is pointing out that doesn't apply to section 43. It's already in there. It's not something new I created. Under 37A under taxes, you're not affecting the millage cap. You're not taking away the right of referendum even though you could. I'm gonna say that you could. It may not be politically correct, but you have the legal power to do it. And I can tell you they have done that in your neighboring city, Brook Haven. They rewrote the exact language to take out the cap and remove the referendum because they can. But you're not doing that. All you're pointing out

in this is that that section does not apply to section 43, which the constitution grants you the power and it's already in your charter. And it does not apply to revenue g uh uh general obligation bonds. Why? Because you have to vote on general obligation bonds by referendum already under the laws of the state of Georgia. And lastly, your power of a contract includes the power to sign long-term leases with other governmental agencies. In Georgia, a government to government lease or contract can go up to 50 years. And sometimes those are uh those contracts are done. I'll give you a hypothetical. You want to build something with the border regents. Theoretically, theoretically, the border regents could issue bonds to pay for the infrastructure. you lease it back and then you get it at the end of the time that you pay for it. Those are already authorized by law and you don't have to do anything but simply approve the contract. And all we're pointing out is that section doesn't apply to those two those three things. Section 43, general obligation debt, which has to be voted on anyway by referendum. And the third thing, lease or contracts that are that are backed by revenue bonds that you already can do without anybody's blessing because it's already provided under the law. So that's what this does.

Any questions? Can I make another Oh, go ahead, Tom. Go ahead.

On the section, it's not really a question or anything that was just said. I'm actually going to propose an additional change here um for consideration uh for to section 43. Uh, and my proposed change is to eliminate the final sentence of that paragraph, and I'll read it just for the record. Is the intent of the general assembly that any fee imposed pursuant to this paragraph for the provision of fire and rescue services not exceed the average of adalorum taxes levied by Dicab County for the provision of those same services for the previous 5 years prior to the date the city began providing such services. So, let let me just make a statement right off the bat. I I'm not proposing that we start our own fire department or anything anytime soon, but if in the future a future city council wishes to do that, I think this constrains us. This is a public safety issue. We shouldn't be constrained by what the CA County has in place. I'm also concerned that there's a lot of legislation at the gold dome this year that may change how these services are funded in the future. So, this might really prohibit us from actually starting our own fire and u uh and safety services if we wish to. So, I this seems to me more like text language that was put in there for a city that was starting up and the founders didn't know what direction we were going to go with fire. It seems outdated and unnecessary at this point uh in our history. And so I just propose that that be eliminated so that if in the future we decide to add those services that we are not constrained and any any any efforts to do so would be done obviously with a lot of public input and a lot of uh public discussion. So I don't think there's any danger of doing anything um wrong here. So that's just my proposal today.

Tom on that language I think it's perfectly fine to remove it. And let me tell you, the Georgia Constitution already says that one of the services that cannot be provided in Dunwy is fire services unless you contract. The county does not have to provide it unless you contract with them and y'all do under service delivery, which is fine. A lot of people do that. So, I think you have that power in the Constitution. I would I would my first draft took that out and then I just left it alone because I I don't you know I didn't forecast like you're doing but I think it's perfectly permissible to remove that that sentence that phrase if y'all choose to.

Yeah. Last sentence. So I want to just tell a story. So many many years ago when there was sort of an unserious discussion about starting a fire department here, Dicab County lowered that rate so we would mathematically not be able there wouldn't have been a way to do it. And so do I think we're going to do it anytime soon? I hope not. I hope that our EMS success with the county continues. really the only reason I see to take over fire is emergency medical and um and so but I think it's since we're changing that section, we should strike it. I do think and I'll talk about that in a second when you're done. Some some changes potentially are coming. So, um I'm okay with that change. I think most people I think everybody okay? Okay. Um the thing Oh, John, go ahead. Sorry.

Thank you again. I'm the last original. I've made some promises to the citizens as far as the tax rate and I have some heartache over that that tax rate. I want to try to manage the expectations of the citizens that we are working towards that due diligence. The special district was really about fire in a lot of ways and the I'm good with taking that change out. As Lynn said, we have negotiated with fire in the past and the rates and this are we getting the right services for the money paid and could we do our own and we actually do that about every five years with sanitation and you know it's probably impossible to start our own water but again the services that are contracted out sanitation fire things like that the cab county gives and they do it a a decent service at a decent price. The question comes is can we do it cheaper for better? But fire stations uh we own one or two one of them. We uh fire uh trucks are very expensive. We would have to bond. We would have to find a way to do it. I'm okay with that change out because it gives us leverage if we ever need to go there, which I don't think we do for a long time. But I'm okay with that change. That being said, um I just want to make sure that we're looking at it from a perspective of we're putting changes in and it's not going to the citizens. They're not voting on it, but we are. And we should be very mindful of how and why we're doing this. One of the things I'm seeing, for example, is the revenue bond. If a few years back we decided to take the hotel motel money and take a pocket of cash for the revenue stream that was coming in, we would have been hurting big time when the uh when COVID happened. Hotels were way down. We would have had to raise our taxes. We would have had to pay for that somehow back for those bonds. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if that's that's a

possibility that that could have happened. Um, I don't want to take money for special districts unless we have to. And again, if we're providing, let's say, public safety, we're providing public safety under that millage rate that we currently have, I would hate to try to then say, let's do a public safety public ser because then that's just an backdoor raise of raising the tax rate. So, to me, I don't I understand we have the powers to do what we want to do. I fully understand that. I just think this council needs to be weary that we live within our means, that we do what we need to do, we have the ability to make changes, so be it. If that we are pushed to do so, we can. And I understand that's what we're doing today. We're trying to make sure that we're giving ourselves power that I hope we really never have to use.

Go ahead. I just have, I guess, a question. Um, we're making this change and I suppose like our our street light districts and storm water districts, how how were those created historically if our charter precluded that because they exist now, right? So, was were they just voted on by council and Yep. Yep. in violation. Okay.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Hence the change. I want to make a comment um about where we are. I think right now referring to what Tom said. So right now, if I had to bet money, I would say there's a 50% chance that in November there will be on the ballot a vote to get rid of property taxes on homestead except properties in Georgia. I think it's 50/50. Can't quite gauge what the Senate's going to do. Don't really know what the governor thinks. and the governor doesn't get to veto it because it's a constitutional amendment. He could veto the enabling legislation. I'm giving you way too much information, but that's why I don't quite have a feeling for it. In the case this happens, Dicab County will be because of how much revenue there'll be a sales tax replacement. Your sales tax rates will not go up, although there is a little wiggle room on that. It will be your property tax if you're a homestead exempt property will be replaced by sales tax. And Dicap County is one of 91 counties where we can fully cover the ch the loss of revenue from homestead exempt property taxes with the way they're reconfiguring sales tax. I won't get into how they're doing that. Uh school systems, I don't think the math maths I don't think the math maths necessarily for cities. Uh but I'm just telling you where we are. the legislature legislation as of Friday um and has been pretty consistent that the way they expect us to fund the first seven services that cities are allowed to fund which is police, parks, fire, whatever is through assessments. We have to smooth out our charter. This is an opportunity because we've been working on it and talking about it, but we have to smooth out our charter because it come January

uh or come November really. So, we know if this is on the ballot, it's going to pass, right? No one votes to tax themselves. So, it's going to pass. And so, even though for a lot of people it might be a tax increase with sales tax, but whatever. And so, we we know it's going to pass. We have to be preparing. This will be the first of ch some changes we might have to make. The legisl legislature might actually make changes for us um down the road if this all happens. But we don't have exactly the right language. It turns out that probably one of the other things that I think about a lot is is that is that we can't ask our commercial properties to pay differently than our single family home neighborhoods in terms of fees in the current dynamic. We need to figure we may need to figure out that one day. And so, um, and that will come to play if they get rid of property taxes on homestead exempt properties. So, I like Tom's change. I'm sure Ken will make it.

Okay. And if Ken will make it, then that is what Sharon will publicize. Sharon, I'll make it tomorrow and send it to you. Do you When is your first publication date? Thank you. When is it? When is it? When is it? He asked you when the date is. When's the first date? The first publication date. Okay. Okay. No worries. I had it somewhere. In other words, you're not sending it in tonight. I can give it to you tomorrow. Okay. Good. Yeah. So, it'll it'll get published for three weeks. Then there'll be two reads and at the second read, y'all can vote. I would like to send the ads to the papers on Thursday by noon. I'll have it to you tomorrow.

Thank you. I mean, one thing I also want to point out that as Rob pointed out that fees have been changed in the city since we became a city. Go ahead. Sorry, Katherine. Go ahead.

The last charter change that I'm recommending is also one that the charter commission recommended in 2020, which is to change the date at which the operating budget is u shown to the council and the date at which it's adopted by the council. Richard Plateau agreed to this. The later in the year that the budget is um offered to the council, the better his data is for what he expects to be taxes will be paid next year. I see he's asleep, but there he is. He's nodding. He's nodding. Tom,

um yeah, I just um I have a quick uh statement and another proposal for a minor tweak here. Um so our fiscal year is set by ordinance not by the charter and currently that's matches the calendar year January through December. With some of the changes um proposed again at this at the with by the legislature uh it may be beneficial to change our fiscal year because of how collections come in with with with property tax and everything. So we may switch to a fiscal year from June to May instead of a calendar year. So, I say all that because we have specific dates in here. And I'll just propose that we change uh from by no later than October 1st to by no later than the 10th month and no later than December 1st to no later than the 12th month of the fiscal year. That way, if we should by ordinance change our fiscal year, we don't have to go back and readjust the charter.

And I I defer to y'all on that. I'll change it to whatever y'all want. That's fine. because because the current language presumes a fiscal year of January through December. Uh but if if it becomes necessary to change that because of our revenue collections in the future, uh moving it to the 10th month of the fiscal year as opposed to a calendar date allows us to do that. That's fine. Okay. So if everybody is agreeing to that, then Ken will make that change and get it to Sharon before Thursday. 10th and 12th month of the fis of the fiscal year of the next fiscal year, correct? Council comments. Oh, so we're done. Yep. Thank you. That is all.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Katherine, for this work. Well, gonna time expands to meet the time allotted. Right. Right. Work expense. um you know that uh just for the citizens who might have just been sitting here and I appreciate people uh maybe even watching online but um in 2020 there was a Dunwy Charger Commission that was uh so when the city first initially stood up in the uh enacting legislation it said that no later than 2020 there would be a charter commission stood up with the review of citizen panel and they would write a presentation and have meetings. So they did this during COVID and they presented a letter on November 2nd, 2020 and it was addressed to Senator Sally Harold, Representative Mike Lewinsky and Representative Matthew Wilson at that time who are who are our representatives and so on. So um yeah, there was other changes recommended. Um it divided it up both of what we could do locally here. um this is housekeeping that we're doing. And then there was also things that may require a citizen vote or it may require a legislative change. So there are other things on that list that you know I'm still open to having a greater conversation about. But uh maybe not for tonight, but I'd like to still open that uh conversation and keep talking about some of those proposals like for instance term limits uh or or so on or uh ranked rank choice voting potentially instead of avoiding runoffs, you know, certain things that might require referendum or legislative change and changing the election of the mayor maybe to go to the local cycle versus the at large to help drive voter turnout and whatnot. So anyway, I'd like to keep that conversation. Thanks.

All right, council comments. Oh, wait. No, that's right. Yeah, I thought I thought Okay, council comments.

Then very generic. Um, letting the public know we've got a lot of out um uh a lot of uh opportunities for feedback uh and ongoing with public works projects and so on. Um we had uh last Thursday there was a public information openhouse for um the uh Winter's Chapel uh project phase two. Um if you go to the city Dunwe public works if you go to our social media channel you'll see these things. There's three projects right now that you can provide feedback on. Number one, Winter Chapel path phase two comments are due by March 2nd. So those are online right now. If you go to Dunwy Public Works projects, you'll see Winter Chapel. Click on a link, provide comments. You can do that through March 2nd. See the details. Second one is this village crossing project um public information openhouse coming up on March 3rd. Um it's 5 to 7 at Vintage Pizzeria. Uh just a drop in, so you can come in at any time um and provide feedback as well, learn more. And then the third one is uh a long awaited sidewalk project on WAC. Um that's going to connect up to Vermack. It's been a long awaited one. is going to be a 6' wide sidewalk along WCK from Cambridge where it ends to Vermeck and those are just going to be online and you can just go to the city's website. Again, those are available through March 13th. Okay. Thank you, mayor.

You're welcome. All right. Public comment. I have some cards. If you're still here, um or if you and you don't have a card and you want to get a card, you can get a card and hand it to Eric Sheiley right there. I'll call if you're gone. Um, obviously you won't speak, but if you're here, please approach the microphone and you'll have three minutes. Matt Webster, I think. Okay, thank you. Nick Sims. All right, approach the microphone, sir. Introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes.

Thank you'all. I'm Nick Sims. Is the microphone on? Is a green light on? Yep. It's gone. Sorry about that. Wasn't close enough.

Um I'm Nick Sims. Thank y'all for letting me talk today. Um I wanted to, you know, follow back up with what we heard from Flock. I appreciate y'all delaying the vote to take some more time to look into what they're talking about, especially with changing terms and conditions. I don't like the way that they mentioned earlier on that it was based on, you know, the terms and conditions that we agreed to into the contract and they didn't actually specify that in the contract that we signed. It's really just online. they don't come forward with the information that they have. We have to find it and search for it and then when you check them on it, they'll go, "Yes, of course, the terms and conditions actually do change based on a website." Um, which they could have told you at the very beginning of the presentation. um speaking to shaping a safer future which is their mission. If you look at the crime reports for Deny per capita over the last you know years it's public on their police website I'm sorry on the big paper um violent crime really has just been rocking back and forth and property crime is slightly lower. We're around 2009 levels. Um

sorry sorry I don't know. Sorry. Um, but all that to say, um, I don't think it's having as big of an impact as they claim it is. I think that there are some points that we can point to where there are some cases where it helped. Um, but it's not like crime has stopped because we rolled out black cameras and it hasn't really drastically dropped. It's not cut by 50%. Um, so just taking that into account, especially as we look into um, use and auditing of these uh, platforms. So, they mentioned that they audit our pool every year. Uh, the police department does. Um, but it's open to everyone. So, I don't know if y'all recently saw that in Sandy Springs in October, uh, Reserve Sergeant uh, Francis Espacito was uh, fired because he was misusing the flock system um, for personal gain and potentially for corporate espionage. Um, and I'm sure we shared Denwe data with him. Um, I don't know if y'all are even aware what's going on with that, but um, I'm just kind of curious to see, you know, it looks like there's a lot of data that's just been blatantly handed out that everyone's not aware of, and I just want to make sure that it's not just the police auditing the police to say we audited our data. It looks fine. Uh, speaking to have I been flock website, uh, Dunwy does show up there even though we don't release it on public record. 17,000 searches from the WPD are on that website. Um, the top three reasons I'm going to read to you that we used for our reason for searching were suspect, the letter N, and stolen. Those are our reasons for our uh, flock camera usage. So, in 2025, um, I don't know what that audit means, but thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. Tom Taylor, I think I saw him leave. Lori Alman, you didn't Tom didn't come up, right? Lori Alman, I think she's gone. Sean Collins, I believe you're here. And you'll have three minutes, sir. Introduce yourself.

Hey, I'm Sean Collins. Uh, I was born and raised in Dunley. I've been a software engineer for almost 10 years. Occasionally, I need to be told to hush. Uh, tonight y'all discussed terms changes, so I won't read that part of my speech, but those changes really tell you the direction that Flock is moving in. You know, they removed Flock does not own and shall not sell customer data. They added a terms for perpetual license, meaning that they can use Dunway's data even after the city ends the relationship. So that means your 911 call, your vulnerable moment will live in their services forever. They might say that they delete the data, but their AI is trained on it, so it still exists. Uh they also added a liability cap for 12 months of fees. So if the punishment of a crime is a fine, then that kind of means that it's legal for the right price. Uh and if they are so confident, why are they pushing that liability back onto Dunwy by capping it at 12 months of fees? Uh, you were told that Flock has no access to personal personally identifiable information. They're selling license plate readers but bragging that their vehicle fingerprints can track cars without license plates. Their patent claims that their tech can classify individuals by race, gender, and height. Their system is tagging people in vehicles with thousands of searchable tags. If you are searchable, you are findable. You are identifiable. Uh, just because they beat the Virginia Fourth Amendment case doesn't mean that they are not eroding civil liberties. You'll be told or sorry, you were told only you decide who has access and that Flock does not contact the federal agencies. Uh, as a private company, Flock is subject to the federal subpoenas. These go directly to Flock, bypassing city council and Dunwhat PD. In 2024, Flock enabled a setting allowing federal agencies to access Mountain View, California's data without city permission. The city did not become aware until this year. In 2025, it was found that two individuals used Atlanta PD credentials to conduct searches with terms like locate alien and erro assist,

which is ISIS's enforcement removal operations. Uh you were told that searches are logged and that there there's a permanent audit trail. The number one source of unauthorized access and hacking uh is actually just through social engineering, which is coercing information out of someone. A DEA agent coerced an Illinois detective to share their login. That DEA agent went on to conduct 28 searches for immigration violations. Unauthorized usage is also problematic. In Kansas, a lieutenant lieutenant plead guilty to stalking his aranged wife by using Flock 228 times. Also in Kansas, a police chief resigned after using Flock 164 times to track his ex-girlfriend Brazzleton, Georgia, which we talked about. The police chief was arrested by GBI for using Flock to harass private citizens. The bad actor accessing the system has already gotten what they wanted. So, an audit is too late. You'll be or you were told that data is encrypted end to end and no back door access exists. Uh flaw cameras have been found running Android operating systems from 2017 with over 90 known security vulnerabilities. They have Yeah,

I've got it's whatever. Yeah. Thank you. starting to repeat myself. Nick Sims, I did. I'm repeating myself. Okay, the Sandy Labour, I think she left. Okay. All right. Um All right. What time is that? Uh we need executive session for legal. Um move to Are you Yeah, go ahead. move to e um move exit to executive session for purposes illegal. Thank you. One second.

Move to adjourn. Second. Moved by Stacy, second by John. All in favor say I. I. Meeting stands adjourned. Thank you.