City Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Music.

Well, I don't know how the entire room was watching the clock backwards. I don't think there's one behind me, but you all came to a nice respectful hush. I'm going to open this meeting in the City Commission and ask you all to join us as is our pattern with a moment of silence. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Thank you. Mr. Clerk, if you could call the roll.

Commissioner Belichick? Present. Commissioner Esasi?

Present.

Commissioner Knight? Present. Commissioner Kilgore? Here. Mayor Legrand? Here.

Yes, can I have a motion to excuse Commissioner Perdue who's off at a training?

So moved. Support.

All in favor say aye. Aye. And if our interpreter could come back and explain her role.

Good evening, my name is Sandra Nickel and I'm here to help you understand and be understood. If you don't speak English, I will interpret from English to Spanish and vice versa. Thank you.

Thank you. This brings us next to our first opportunity for public comment. This is on agenda items. So if there's an item on the agenda that you'd wish to address the commission on, please take a glance at the rules up there and come up and address us. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, commissioners, members of the public. My name is Ivan Diaz. I stand in the first ward on the southwest side. I'd like to speak to item C1, the care violence contract. I was watching your guys' meeting earlier today, and I was actually pretty heartened to see some of the conversation that was happening up around the dais, specifically around trying to reduce recidivism. lot of that conversation having to do with the upcoming votes on increasing the millage. No worries. Yeah, I'm trying to reduce recidivism alongside the conversation of the upcoming vote that our county is going to have on increasing the county millage. Specifically, some of the comments that you were making, City Manager, around doing our best work you are doing your best to make sure that we're not only with this initiative but with other initiatives hopefully trying to make sure that frankly we don't have the need for increased space in the county jail or to send more people down that path. I'm going to bring this up also in the other half of public comment but I would love to have the city commission through your lobbyists advocating at a much stronger level at the federal and state level to have them do everything they can to actually invest and social services and housing and all of these things that you all already brought up that I'm not really going to get into because again you did in my opinion a pretty good job discussing that earlier today. We all know that unfortunately that's not going to happen at the federal level during the next two years but there's a very good chance that Democrats will take back the trifecta in Michigan this year and given the fact that we have potentially up to seven people representing us in the legislature on the Democratic side, I think that will really represent a true opportunity to have those investments coming from the state level. Alongside that conversation, and I know that some may be less willing to say so publicly than others, we're going to have to talk about increasing taxes on the wealthiest people in the state in order to fund these services. And so again, I would prefer to have, I would love to see as a member of the city, as a resident of the city, to have you all actually through your lobbyists taking these positions, because I think that would be much more impactful and powerful than to have you all through your individual voices doing so. So I hope that those are discussions that you're having behind the scenes. I'm not going to take all of my time to say the things over and over again, but again, I really hope that you take that message seriously and that you do everything that you can in the upcoming term to make sure that the state and federal level is truly investing in our communities. Thank you.

It's not even remotely okay that Donald Trump outlived Dolly. Good evening esteemed commissioners, city attorney, city clerk, city manager, Mr. Mayor, and all of our hardworking city staff. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to and engage with the public and for allowing us the privilege of these three minutes at this revered podium. My name is Lucas and I live in the first ward and I'm here to talk to you about your upcoming meeting schedule for 2027 or I believe E2 on your agenda. And I hope you all realize what a total waste of time that groveling introduction is to those of us living inside the intense frugality of freedom that is your three minute limit. I never say any of that stuff because to use our tax dollars and get the privilege of our votes is more than enough grace to be presumed by all of you. I'm not here to re-litigate the 2 p.m. time slot or the insiders, cronies, wealthy, and powerful people that mostly benefit from it, but I am here to highlight the way you flipped the cadence of these meetings at times, and this past July, you canceled the evening meeting that you had flipped to the beginning of the month, which more working people would have been able to make it to, but you conveniently relocated it. That's the shady bait and switch that pisses people off. I'll still quibble with flipping May for your own convenience at the expense of access, regularity, clarity, and convenience for the public. And it was disappointing to see every commissioner up there just nod and play along, push this forward. For a body of seven, oh wait, I'm sorry, six bosses, you sure do allow your employee to tell you how things run a lot. I need you to stop and consider how canceling meetings because you supposedly have nothing to do is a failure to do your job. You should hold every single meeting if there's nothing more than to listen to the public at this microphone about whatever's going on in this city. The issues that affect all of us don't get a night off, and the job nobody forced you to do should not either. We all end up left with a fat stack of flock, ice, and corporate welfare handout issues that most of us would like to say many things about to your faces. Pass this schedule, you're gonna, but uphold the schedule with dogged dedication to making space for the people, whether they genuflected to you for 30 seconds of their three minutes or not.

Hello friends, Mark from Grand Rapids. CDC number six, the resolution involving the contract agreement with VO for the shared marketability services. I see y'all go get rid of all the line products. You know, don't have nothing to do with me, but and you're having a contract with a new company. But if the Transportation Secretary has his own way, he might want to get rid of all micromobility services, all bike lanes, all share rides. Because we all know what MAGA does. MAGA does what MAGA does. Because they're into the greedy billionaires who pay them with fossil fuel dirty money. And y'all had a vote on this, y'all agreed to the deal, so it's too late now, but I better be leery about what they're gonna do. Because these folks will stop at nothing to maintain their power. over this nation. So once this new equipment comes, you better be ready. Because with this regime, anything is unpredictable. Thank you.

Mayor Legrand, Mr. Washington, commissioners, staff, my fellow citizens. My name is Daniel. I've been a resident of the city over 30 years. Again, my real identity is I'm a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would like to address Number nine, letter C, the resolution authorizing a contract with Cure Violence Global for $125,000. I can say from holy scripture, you can use that money much better by doing all you can to stop the violence at 425 East Cherry. 100 babies, innocent babies, murdered every week. And the scripture says, you shed blood, you will reap blood. Shut that place down. Also, Corwell Health and Metro Hospitals also have their departments to do that. I mean, murdering babies, that is. Hopefully we never become like California and Washington, where now babies can be born and their parents can wait 30 days after birth to decide to destroy the child. If you get bored, look it up. You can Google that. Commissioner Knight, I don't know where you got your information. about the leading cause of death in the African American community. You called me out a couple of meetings ago. I got my information at Guttmacher Institute, Center for Disease Control and the CDC, where they said and documented the leading cause of African American death in the United States is the killing of their babies.

That's why they set up their centers in the inner city.

many of them. And of course, again, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Genocide, i.e. Planned Parenthood, said we must destroy them. We must destroy the black or the Negro community, quote. That's the spirit of 425 East Cherry. I would encourage you to spend your money more wisely, our money. The violence will decrease, I assure you.

Hello, Mayor, City Council. I'm Alex Strath. I'm wanting to talk about 7.3, the moratorium on expanding the Flock Network.

I'm going to trust everyone else to comment about the- Sir, I think you may be, that's in petitions and communications. That's not a matter for public, it's not on our agenda. That's not something that's in front of us to decide. We're receiving things. So you're welcome to come back at the end and there's two opportunities for public comment. So thanks. I just wanted to clarify that.

Absolutely.

Sure.

Mayor, she needs to come to the mic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.

Sorry about that. Sorry, it's my first time here. So for people who have commentary regarding flock cameras and such, is that for after everything else has been done, after the consent agenda reports of standing committees? Is that correct?

Exactly. I mean, this can be a little confusing, just so everyone knows. We had a And I hope everyone watched the public safety hearing earlier today. We spent a couple hours on flock. That was a briefing, so that's not actually on the agenda for action items tonight. But there is a second comment period, and I imagine a lot of people in the audience are going to come up and probably want to talk about flock at that point. So, yeah. Thanks. Thank you.

Hello, everybody.

Hello, commissioners, mayor. My name's Eric. I'm in the second ward. I'm a commissioner. Just wanted to say real fast, the VO thing, the no-cost agreement or whatever, I'm glad this was on here, because I did just want to say, like, thanks for doing that, like, picking that. I was a fan of spin in the first place, and it got overruled by Lime. So, and I have become kind of, like, a menace with those Lime things. I live right next to one of the, like, parking spots. And so it's been really nice. And I was in Denver, and Denver actually uses VO. So it was really interesting to see the technology. And it's like just vastly superior. Also the cost options being good there. So I just wanted to say like I'm really glad that that was approved. I'm glad that there's still attention to that. I had never ever really done the whole like e-bike e-scooter thing for I mean really ever until I moved into my new apartment. And so, I mean, I guess with that, just like I obviously hope, and I know this is true, Mayor, because of how you tend to travel places, like just the more expansion of bike lanes, like more safer lanes, you know, making sure we have some options. I know part of those, I know the VO stuff has specific sidewalk related, like traffic speed adjustments and stuff, but it just gets really tricky on some spots. I live like just over by Wealthy and places over there. And so it's tricky when sometimes the bike lane is kind of anticipated to be where the cars are parked and on the streets and stuff like that. So it just makes it a little tricky. You get a lot of beeps, people almost hitting you because they think you're not supposed to be in the road. So obviously just the more we can continue to kind of reinforce those e-bikes and the forms of transportation being safer would be really great. So I just wanted to say I'm really glad that we're changing our vendor and hopefully getting the cost down a little bit because Lime takes up quite a lot of my money, even with the Lime Pass. So thank you.

How y'all doing? I'm Dee Jones. I'm speaking on official committee resolution one. I was there when you first guys actually first brought the guys from Care Violence here in 2018. I like that you guys are continuously the technical assistance and advancing Care Violence, but we also need care poverty. So we also need to be sure that these Care Violence initiatives are also trickling into being sure that we can get affordable housing, that we can get people health cares and jobs and careers above the poverty line. So as I do support that initiative, I also like the city to support local initiatives too. There are local people like, you know, the Stock and Community Hub and other naval organizations and community organizations that do have global goals too. People like to dream beyond the city. So as I do support care violence and do believe globally that we should be able to care violence and be able to actually contribute to the economy, I would like you guys to also support local or neighborhood organizations and local organizations that have global goals and would like to contribute to the global economy too. Thank you.

Thanks.

I am Martha Cooper from Grand Rapids. Point of order. You just stopped someone from speaking on the flock cameras and you didn't stop the guy before him speaking on abortion and I didn't notice that that was on the agenda. And I'm thinking to myself, if you're going to treat somebody a certain way, maybe treat everybody the same way. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Cindy Hicks, and I live on Sheldon Avenue Southeast on the 1000 block. Y'all should really get familiar with it. There's more than seven flat cameras right on my block. Seven. Excuse me, Mayor Legrand, can you please hear me? There's seven cameras.

What agenda item are you addressing?

I am addressing fiscal committee number one, cure violence, because I'd like to talk about how cure violence has not cured any violence, not where I live, and I live right in the middle of it all. My neighbors, there's teens and 20s, they're burying their friends and their family members. Every single day that I get on Facebook, there is one more person that's losing someone in their life. to extreme violence. I really get so upset when I get no eye contact. I really feel like you don't give a shit. I feel like you don't. This is extreme. Two nights ago, they beat a kid. The GRPD pulled a kid out of his car, and he said, why are you doing this to me? It's all on video, not just mine, but several people took videos. And then 10 officers lined up in front of us Like we were going to have a mob or something. We're just neighbors videotaping them beating and harming another resident due to a flock camera. But item C1, cure violence. No. I would recommend that you take one officer's salary and divide it by four. And four... Young adults would have those jobs in Park and Rec. How would I know how to do this? Because I used to be the last view mayor's representative for community development. I'm very familiar with budgets. I've managed million dollar accounts for other investors. I know what a budget line item looks like, and I know what a flat camera looks like, and seven of them on one block is, what, not excessive? And they said it's only... to track crime, but they did admit that there's crime in every neighborhood, but flat cameras are not distributed evenly according to every neighborhood. but we won't answer that question. But your violence, yeah, haven't you given them money now for a few years? What's happened? An explosion of violence? That's because every time a GRPD officer grabs a kid off the street, most likely someone around them in their circle is gonna get bullets in their house. Somebody want to call me a liar? Want to call me a liar? Please do. Okay? That's called mistrust. Nobody trusts the cops. Nobody definitely doesn't trust you after you've been in that car. Okay? So please, I would say rethink giving money to cure violence. As far as I'm concerned, I've experienced a hell of a lot since they've gotten money. But thank you.

Seeing no one else for a public comment, that takes us to petitions. Pardon me. Approval of the minutes. Can I have a motion from our last meeting? Support. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. That brings us to petitions and communications. Mr. Clerk?

First one is communication received from Jolena Spelling expressing disappointment in the Cambridge Park pilot program. Received and filed. Communication received from the concerned clergy of Grand Rapids expressing concern for the Grand Rapids Police Department's use of force on Friday, June 19, 2026. Received and filed. Communication received from Remy Monaghan urging the City Commission to reject, prohibit, or place a moratorium on the installation or expansion of automated license plate reader systems including flock safety in Grand Rapids. Received and filed. Communication received from Ariel Lefum Ellis regarding her resignation from the Vital Streets Oversight Commission.

referred to committee on appointments.

Petition received urging the City Commission to maintain quality of life policing methods.

Received and filed.

Communication received from Randy Shearer regarding excessive noise from Akershire Amphitheater.

Received and filed.

And three communications received expressing concerns about automatic license plate readers, LPR systems.

Received and filed.

That brings us to reports of city officers. Mr. Clerk? First one's a comptroller's warrant report for the period of July 28, 2026 through August 10, 2026 in the amount of $189,200,114.64. Received and filed. And finally, the treasurer's report for the period of July 9, 2026 through August 11, 2026.

received and filed that brings us to our consent agenda these are items that passed out of committee unanimously and were not pulled from the agenda for further discussion by any of the members of the Commission can I have a motion so moved support all in favor say aye aye all opposed motion carries and that brings us to there being no items removed from consent this meeting to An ordinance that we're going to discuss, and that's an ordinance amending section one of the budget for fiscal year 2027. Can I have a motion? So moved. Support. And Commissioner Sasse.

Thank you, Mayor. As always, there's a number of items. I'll go through these expeditiously. First is for the Public Works Department. This is for receipt of a Next Cycle Michigan grant through EGLE to support funds to purchase food, food scrap bins, drop-off bins, and create signage, which we had a lot of that in the news last week. Number two is for the Engineering Department. This is improvements for the Grand River from Fulton Street to I-196. on that project. Item number three is for the Parks and Rec Department for the Belknap Park pickleball court design. Item number four is for the fire department. This is for a FEMA hazard mitigation planning grant that is being received. Number five is for the parks and rec department. This is supplemental funding for planned capital improvements at Lincoln Park in the first ward. Item number six is for fleet management, fleet management department. This is purchases for fleet vehicles, equipment, those types of owned items, planned items. Item number seven is for the Office of Equity Engagement. We talked quite a bit as we had a review today for ArtPrize, but this is for the support for South Town Arts and Culture Initiative with the Third Ward Equity Fund allocation. Item number eight is also for Parks and Rec. This is for the parks capital bond and millage funding alignment. This is just to make sure that the required spend downs occur by the end of this month. Item number nine is for the Community Development Department. This is program income for our Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, for also our Community Development Block Grant Fund, home investments, and our lead hazard control and lead hazard reduction demonstration funds. Item number 10 is also for, we talked about ArtPrize, but specifically for SouthPrize. So before it was about the Third Ward Cultural and Mural Tour. Item number 11 is for the Second Ward, the North Corridor Improvement Authority. This is for some new signage that was also planned. Item number 12 is for the Public Works Department. This is a grant from the Wege Foundation and matching funds for work around the wood chipper procurement. And that is the last of those items out of this ordinance, Mr. Mayor. Thanks.

Thank you. Any discussion, colleagues? Commissioner Guevara.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I'd also like to just lift up some things I do plan on voting yes on this item, but just some things for the public to highlight. I'm very happy about the South Prize. So we have multiplied our number of art prize venues in the third ward by 24. Last year, we only had one official art prize venue. And the third award, a mural at Link Up. And so we, the city, this is a world-renowned thing. I'm sure many are familiar with ArtPrize. If you're not, please look it up. It's sort of like a one-of-a-kind thing that we have in Grand Rapids. We're very fortunate to have it. But the third award has not been able to really get into it and receive not only the social benefit, as we know we have an epidemic of loneliness right now, and how art and culture can unite us, but also the financial benefits. We're making tens of millions of dollars, if not more, off of ArtPrize, and I'm so thankful to my colleagues for supporting our funds that were allocated through the Third Ward Equity Fund to support this work. and through our budget period to support this work because I'm hopeful that our south town and south side businesses, small businesses, local businesses, will be supported through folks coming and seeing these new venues. Maybe they'll stop and eat something, maybe they'll stop and buy, some art or a good from a third ward business. So I'm very thankful for that. I also wanted to speak very shortly. It's not going to be as concise and good as our city treasurer mentioned this morning at the fiscal committee. I'm very thankful for the folks who came out to the public safety committee, but I'm hopeful that you all will, you know, while you're working, if you're able to tune into some of our committees that happened earlier in the day, because we have some really good just bites of information. And one of those was from the fiscal committee, and the city treasurer said, you know, we, the landscape of the economic landscape that we're seeing, some from some of the dysfunction from Washington, but not all of it leads back to that. But as you all feel at the pump where gas goes from $3 to then $4.30, some of our contracts, such as the fleet contract that I'd like to speak directly to that Commissioner Isasi just noted, have escalation clauses. So when we have such dysfunction in this really rocky landscape with our economic outlook right now, it causes us as a city to pay more for goods and services that we need. So it's something to continue to think about in this economic landscape and I would encourage people to continue to talk with their federal representatives about what decisions in Washington are being made that trickle down to the city and take away dollars for things, take away dollars that we could be using in other places that constituents want us to use So those are two things I want to highlight from the fiscal committee and just want to continue to encourage people to tune into that because it is very helpful and the city treasurer is going to say it much more gracefully than me about the impact of some of the financial outlook right now. Thanks.

Okay, Mr. Clerk, this is a roll call vote.

Commissioner Assasi? Yes. Commissioner Knight?

Yes.

Commissioner Belichick?

Yes.

Commissioner Kilgore?

Yes. Mayor Legrand? Yes. Can I have a motion for immediate effect? So moved. Support. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. There being no city commission resolutions on the agenda for tonight, brings us to public hearings. And I don't know that I saw them. someone from economic developments coming up, not Mr. Raniero, but this is, we're gonna couple these two public hearings. These are both related to an industrial development district and an industrial facilities exemption certificate for city-built brewing for an operation at 1560 Taylor. And if you could just, for the public, frame the benefits and the conditions for it just generally. Explain what the industrial facilities exemption is.

Sure thing. Good evening. I'm Rachel Gray from the Economic Development Department. This is for a 12-year industrial facilities exemption certificate located at 1560 Taylor Avenue, and the project is with City Built Brewing. So that is a Grand Rapids-based craft brewery, taproom, restaurant, and a full-scale beverage packing operation. They distribute statewide. So this project would support the company's expanded beverage production and continued growth. The proposed project again at 1560 Taylor Avenue is a half acre property and it would rehabilitate the vacant property for use as a beverage production facility a tap room and commercial use the estimated total project cost is 1.6 million and 1 million of that is eligible for the industrial facilities exemption certificate This project would retain 14 jobs and create 12 new jobs. The average wages would be $30 an hour And it is valued at approximately $100,000 a year or $1.2 million over the 12 years. And I have here the owner, Ed Colzano, with CityBuilt to speak a little bit more about the project.

Hello, Commission. Thanks for having me. Excited to share more about our project at 1560 Taylor. This is not... We didn't choose this. We were put in a situation where we had to make a way for our cold storage and dry storage, and we were based on a project at 131 in Franklin, forced to find somewhere else to do business, and most of those opportunities were above and beyond what we were already paying, and so this was the next best step, which was invest in property and develop it for our production. So that's just what we're going to do. We're going to license the facility for alcohol service. There's not a clear plan for moving our tap room right away, so we'll continue to do business at 820 Monroe for at least the next year or two while we develop that space into potentially a tap room as well as an event facility. We have a reputation for making a place for community, and that's just a bigger space for us to do that. We're excited at what we've done at the corner of Monroe and Mason, and we're excited to do that in the Creston neighborhood as well.

Questions, colleagues? Yeah, City Manager. Commissioner Sasse, then I'll go.

Age before beauty, Commissioner? Okay. If that's the case, I'll go. Thank you, since this is my award. And I would just say, I think you're being a little too humble, Ed. In this environment where it's been really difficult for small businesses to get a foothold, you've innovated in different ways, which includes supporting other businesses to support your business. I know you're very... very intentional on the culture of staff and sort of what is put out to community, not apologizing for who you are. So I'm just, I'm really excited. Even though this was something that wasn't planned to happen, I think this is something that I'm certainly glad that you're in one part of our ward and now you'll be in another part of our ward. And I just appreciate you continuing to invest in the city of Grand Rapids, and I'm glad that we're able to try to identify all the economic development tools that are available to support your small business. Thank you. Thank you.

At this point, my pivot foot is very sore.

You're pivoting, sir. Right. So thank you.

Mayor, I was just going to add that this is – I appreciate Ed's work as well, both – what he does for his customers, but also what he does for our community. And this, as I said, it's not an expansion project, as you said, that you sought for added prosperity. This is to sustain what you have been doing and what you need to do. And I think, if we'll be so frank, without it, it'd be a huge disruption to your normal operations. So I hope we're able to help them in this endeavor.

Commissioner Kovar. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thank you, Ed. We've gotten to work with each other in multiple professional capacities. It was great to continue to host Green Drinks from WEMIAC at City Built. And once again, I sound like a broken record for good reason, but I am very excited to continue support folks who are making community right now. And as many folks want us to be siloed and separate, I'm really thankful that you all are working to continue to build community. And when you all do want to expand, I'm hoping I can come and look at some places in the South Side with you. I'm never going to stop saying that. And then also just noting I'm very thankful for the Economic Development Department and yourself for including the wages. This is really huge for me. Seeing a livable wage from any employer, no matter how many jobs it is, is deeply important for me in today's times. Livable wage means that people can go a little bit beyond just barely making it and keeping their head above water. So it is very encouraging to see a dozen, you know, over a dozen folks who will be making a good livable wage for our county. And I'm hopeful that we can show other employees that this is, excuse me, employers, that this is something that can be possible to pay folks a livable wage. We do have folks in the third ward like Gentex who also pay a livable wage. But just this will be another highlight story that I'll keep with me.

we talk to employers about how we can make sure folks aren't just nearly surviving but able to thrive in our city so thank you for sharing that with us absolutely thank you thanks any member of the public wish to come up and comment this is a public hearing on the city-built matter in case you're confused I'm sorry this isn't our second round of public comment for general comments, but this is regarding this item.

Mr. Labrat. Lucas again, to support this inspiring growth of one of Grand Rapids' amazing local breweries. Now I know y'all West Michigan natives have a hard time computing that I can come at you critical, while also loving a bunch of what's going on in this city, but one of the great things I love about Grand Rapids is city-built. We should all celebrate Ed and his business as a fine example of doing it right in so many ways. This is also an example, however infrequent, of how the little guy can have access to the same support you shovel at the oligarchy in this town. When I complain about that, I would be derelict in my civic duty not to come and encourage this. Citibuilt also seems to be a place that understands the idea of being a business citizen. I was overjoyed when I saw Ed speak up about the stupid street closure management, lack of contractor oversight, horrible communication, and lack of placemaking offsets that we all too often see in GR during construction projects. As a business that clearly cares about the community, seeing them grow and expand is nothing but good news for future crucial conversations in our evolving town. I hope that your counterparts in the corporate overlords controlling the menus at our city venues like the Arena and Amphitheater are paying attention too. Because it's a crime against everybody's taste buds and our local economy that City Built and others have been shut out of the taps at Van Andel and Accresure by the likes of Legends Global and Live Nation, to whom our county has surrendered their responsibility to administrate and operate publicly owned venues. It was deeply satisfying to see a packed house at CityBuild during the Dave Matthews shows. For people like me that openly endorsed the hotel tax, this is an activation of local business like we were supporting. But I bet those fans would have loved to buy some 5th Street hooligans or werewolves while they rocked out. Now, I know y'all seem to want to make everybody guilty by association in this city's immature high school cafeteria of politics, but nothing I just said was co-signed by anybody at Citibuilt. Before you hold Ed responsible for anything I've got to say, I want you to know he hasn't even implied that I'm getting a free beer out of this. He's not responsible for any of this. Well, except that part about being great. That's his fault, because Citibuilt is great.

I oppose this venture. Once again, I have ministered in Hartside neighborhood for 46 years. I see the results of alcohol abuse almost every day. Now it's spreading to the west side, Lexington, Bridge area. Drive down there sometime. One of the leading causes of broken marriages Child abuse, violence, homelessness is alcohol. Again, the almighty Lord God proclaims in his holy scriptures, the Christian Bible, woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, who puts a bottle to him and makes him drunk. That you may look on his nakedness, you will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Scripture declares the drunkard shall come to poverty. I've seen it for 46 years in Hartside neighborhood, and now I'm seeing it in other parts of the city. Our guests talked about all the financial benefits. Please consider the negative financial benefits. The drunkard shall come to poverty. Further, scripture says, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging. Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. They who practice drunkenness shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. He that sows to the flesh shall the flesh reap corruption. As I've said before, I was a drunkard myself until Jesus Christ changed me. So I've seen the results firsthand. I oppose another brewery in this city. Thank you.

I'm Cindy. I'm still Cindy. I'm not going to yell at anyone. I just wanted to recommend that it says average wages $30 an hour. Cure Violence needs to take some notes, guys, because $30 an hour is a livable wage. That helps cure violence. That's all I have. Thank you.

Mark Beck. Unlike my Calvinist speaker a minute ago, I support this for one reason, one reason only. You're bringing jobs here. That's a good thing. Because bottom line is this, jobs are being lost. which means the economy is tanking. It's been tanking for the last five to six months. So if these people behind us wants to do good for the community, I'm all for it. And if anybody doesn't want to purchase from these individuals don't purchase from these individuals. It's that simple. Because crab brewing locally is growing. Because, hey, Woodward Sports has sponsorships with their rifle company here in Grand Rapids. So what's wrong with a little competition here? So therefore, I congratulate these individuals for bringing more jobs into the community, helping the community. And if they want to do any guerrilla marketing, they can get their products out to the public. And if they like it, they can come. Because it's like this. The curiosity brings them in. The attention and their products and the prices will bring them back. Thank you.

When her interpreter was speaking, though, I feel like she should probably get a little bit of time for that. And I did not really like the That's fantastic, thank you. And I'm a little bit worried about the racist comments that were made toward our commissioner. My therapist said I should probably talk about that. Thank you.

Thanks. Seeing no one else, I will close this hearing and refer it to Committee of the Whole.

Can I say one thing before we get into public comment?

Sure. We're about to move into public comment. Mr. Clerk.

Just because of all the people in the room, everybody will get a chance to speak. There's no need to go running to the side wall and line up all throughout the room. Everybody will get a chance. Please keep that doorway open because that is your exit from this room. So there's no need for everybody to go line up against the wall. Everybody will get a chance to speak. As the line dwindles down, then you want to go in line. So I just want to make sure we don't have like a mad rush over to that side wall. So just want to make sure we keep order. So Mr. Diaz is starting the line, but there's no need to make a rush all over there.

Also, you can just sit in your chairs a little longer and be more comfortable. May I? Yes, absolutely. So one more thing before we start.

Okay.

Yeah, just that was my question of just a point of information of how are we going to do the sort of cycling for folks who are downstairs.

Yep. So there are fire limits on the room. So if you've spoken and you want to make room for people downstairs, totally up to you. You can stay. But if you leave, other people will be able to come up and make public comment. We're not kicking anybody out. The other thing I'll say is I think everybody up here has got note-taking abilities and note-taking mechanisms, and we all tend to take notes. And I know sometimes people confuse our taking notes with your comments and keeping records of them and trying to incorporate and listen to those ideas with us not paying attention. So be aware we're all listening and we're all taking notes. The other final thing is Because we want to be respectful of everyone, please try to limit outside noise. We want speakers to be able to be heard, whether it's cheering or booing or clapping or snapping. It all tends to detract from us being able to focus on the person who's speaking to us. So, Mr. Diaz, if you want to speak.

Yes, thank you, and again, still Ivan Diaz, still live in the first ward, southwest side. Thank you to the community members for pointing out the people who are still waiting downstairs. I will be leaving as soon as I finish, and hopefully others will do the same just so that we can have more people willing able to come up. I want to talk to the city commission to all today about flock probably no surprise to all probably everybody behind me is going to talk to you all about that. I actually did watch the entire city commission earlier today and the public safety hearing that actually did answer a lot of my questions. I'll be frank in saying that in my opinion And I actually was talking to the chief on my way up here. Crime is going down across the entire country. And in my opinion, crimes, most crimes, a lot of crimes were able to be solved before flock rapidly expanded across the entire country. So my preference would be to not have flock cameras, but I can't have what I want all the time. So what I will say is the top recommendation that came to mind for myself after watching the public safety hearing earlier today was potentially having somebody else that's not GRPD and not flock auditing those records. I was reading a news article that I think said that there's a separate company that's currently doing that. I don't know if that's the case or not, but I would rather it be somebody that's a lot more closer to home here in Grand Rapids for our local cameras so that we actually have somebody that we can go and talk to about our concerns or know who we need to go to to review those audits. Additionally, I would like for when the time comes for you all to renew this contract so I don't know if it has to be done before. I know that the FLOG representative was saying that the feds don't have access to these cameras, that there's no contracts currently. I think that's specifically what he said with the feds. I hear that, but I also know that the feds have a lot of toys that they can use to do all kinds of things. These things are watching us all the time. And so again, my preference is to not have this mass surveillance all the time. I was again saying to the chief today that I've got a different perspective when it comes to law enforcement just because of growing up all the time going to Mexico and being in areas of Mexico that are being fought over by cartels. We need to have law enforcement that is keeping us safe. But I think we all know that given what's happened here locally over the past couple of years with GRPD and people who have been killed by GRPD, GRPD officers that have helped ICE when our community members a lot of them who are behind me show up to protect our community protecting ICE is not what's best for our community so again based on what I said earlier I would love for you all to use your lobbyists to advocate more forcefully to the state and federal government to actually keep us safe if you all don't want to do it as a group and want to do it with your own individual voices I great, but I think building trust with the community by actually being in a lot of these places personally will do a lot for all of us to increase the public's trust. And that's all I got. Thank you.

How y'all doing? I'm Dee Jones, passionate entrepreneur and visionary. It's been a little high second since I've been here, but I am the chairman of the Stocking Community Hub, so I have to definitely say that I like for the city to actually support our vision, to support local organizations. David, you made me a promise that you would support us, and I'm going to keep holding you to that, David, because I'm a man of my word, and I've stood on business for the community, and I'll continue to stand on business for the community. But we needed your support, David. We needed your voice. We needed you, David. And I really like you to support our vision, to support other neighborhood organizations and associations, too, because they understand their side of the community. They understand the things that goes on in their community, things that you don't see, things that you commissioners don't see, that the police don't see. I believe you need to support organizations that know what's going on directly in their community, David, and every single commissioner up there. So I'm not just asking you to support the Stock and Community Hub or Cure Violence or any of those organizations to support our community just in general. And be sure that you stand up to them before the billionaires, before special interests, before big utility companies. but stand up for the everyday people because that's something that we do every day. We stand up and we hold each other together. We probably have our difference in policies and politics and political ideology. I'm one of Lilly's senior advisors. I've been with her every single campaign cycle. I've seen people endorse against her. seen people endorse with her but I've seen it there and I've seen the different sides of politics so I believe that we all want better for the community and that we can do better and let's be able to see what this next election is going to bring us but hopefully through the next election we'll be able to continuously support neighborhood organizations and associations and Joe I did ask you about the ordinance and not seen that I did ask about the ordinance because I I'd like you guys to continue to support 3D printing construction. I am going to be speaking at EGLE on September 12th at the Michigan Sustainability Conference on the benefits of 3D printing construction and how the sustainable materials and how you can actually eco-friendly use materials to actually 3D print houses because housing is a big issue across the nation and I believe that we can 3D print houses faster. You guys didn't put 3D printed construction into our city's consolidated community development plan until 2031 to not be able to see a 3D printed house. And I'm one of those people that's going to take continuous action and present to whoever I got to, state governments, federal governments, different countries. I don't care. The United Nations. Bring it on. Police department, if you need to learn about it, I'll bring it to anybody because it's a true need for our community. So I'd like you guys to continuously support 3D printed construction. Appreciate the community, y'all. Make sure that you continuously support the community, David, because the community needs you. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. My name is Sheena Wallace, and I'm a resident of the Third Ward. I just want to come for a few announcements just about the great things that's happened over in the Third Ward. But I'm also here representing the City of Grand Rapids for the CRC, which is the Community Relations Committee. And I would just like to invite the public to attend our meetings as well, which is held on the second Thursdays of every month. at 1120 Monroe. We know that we cannot do everything, but we are always willing to hear. We have several subcommittees that is also really excited to help the community in any way possible. Also, thank you to our first board commissioner for coming in and checking out one of our meetings. We are really excited for that. And we hope to see other commissioners as well. And also with the mayor, it's not known, but the CRC has in the past sat down with the mayor to kind of work out some of the community issues or disagreements or how we can come together and serve the best of the city of Grand Rapids to be there for all community members, but also for the city as well. So I just want to extend that invitation to all, including the mayor and commissioner and city manager as well, that the CRC meet Community Relations Committee on the second Thursdays, 3.30 to 5 p.m. Please come and check us out, and we would love to hear public comments. Thank you, city.

Lucas Trilogy. We've all heard the Ben Franklin quote. I won't belabor it more. Today we got some word salad and a few genuine concerns from you about flock. But we still have a corporatist government holding back the will of the people. And we again see the collective bargaining showing up as a reason crap like flock gets grandfathered. But hey, everything's going to hell, crime is rampant, and fear should drive us every day, a narrative regularly debunked by facts and statistics, including last week's latest FBI numbers on dropping murder rates. Our own police chief tells us that auto thefts and shootings are down, but it's always back the blue till they don't fit the narrative. Just ask the J6 insurrectionists. Anecdotal manipulation and gaslighting is always the crutch. When the carpetbaggers come to tap dance like we saw today. Nobody wants crime unsolved or people unhelped or violent right-wing maniacs interfering with ballot boxes, but we do not want to trade liberty for security. If this is about trust, then let's talk about other police forces like Kalamazoo who didn't trust GRPD enough to share info with them on Flock. the ATF was spying using our toys. We had no idea. Almost no such event is an accident and you look like gullible chumps when you accept that. None of these supposed tools is ever as limited as it's sold to be. We cannot trust GRPD. We know better. We have eyes and ears. Why should we take their word for using search filters? The fact that the options exist is problematic from the jump. If you're not using the features, why upgrade to Flock at all? Self-audits are not trustworthy either. Flock overseeing their own audits and referencing federal law or certifications is useless in a MAGA hellscape. And Flock saying they aren't working with ICE is irrelevant when we already know their client, GRPD, can't seem to square the truth about their ICE cooperation. And when somebody goes sideways, we already know filing complaints don't do any good, cops always get out of trouble, OPA is almost useless, or hamstrung by more cop union BS. Flock is just a lazy and dangerous shortcut. Human-based public safety is all we need. Not every new tech needs to be popular. No curated tales of success are ever going to pardon the evils of this sinister, oppressive technology. Today you kept talking about changing people's minds. Why don't you change your minds? Stand for our rights against the tech bro, big brother, oligarch-serving police state. At least three of you up there were elected to do that by us, and we can unelect you real fast. It's time for you as elected leaders to boss up, take control, draw lines in the sand, make demands, and put hard third-party scrutiny in place like you should have done without us having to tell you to.

My name is Gabby. I'm a concerned citizen. I've lived in Grand Rapids my whole life. I graduated from City High. I graduated from Grand Valley State University. I'm a food banker, an advocate, and a poet. I'm here to talk about flock. Flock cameras cause harm to our community. I know that you had somebody here from flock earlier talking about how great flock is, but... Like all surveillance companies, they're going to come here and try to sell you their product. Their product is hurting people. Their product is being used by police officers and sheriffs to hunt down ex-girlfriends and to stalk women. They are being used by ICE and CBP and police to stalk protesters, and they are being used to enact violence on our most vulnerable communities. We don't want flak in our cities. I emailed a lot of you recently and got a couple responses from you about the flak cameras in Grand Rapids. And I would just like to point out a few things based on the research I did. There are three flak cameras inside of MLK Park inside of the park, not near any of the streets, and they are not pointed at the streets. They are pointing inside of the park. I grew up down the block. I grew up in the hood next to Easttown, and that is a predominantly black area, and it is mostly used by BIPOC people in that area. There is no reason that there should be flock cameras within MLK Park. They're not pointed at the parking lot. They're not pointed at the streets. They are pointed at the people. There is a food pantry on Fulton, and there is a flat camera in front of this food pantry. I work at the food bank. I know the food distribution there. They happen every week. And across the street is a secret, like, house for the YWCA domestic abuse survivors and children and women who are fleeing domestic abuse. Why is there a camera in front of these more vulnerable places that people are reaching? These cameras are pointing inside of apartment units on Fulton and Lake Drive. They are not pointing at the street. They're pointing in a park towards the apartment buildings. And there are Many areas in this city that are predominantly black and underserved where these flock cameras are not pointing at the streets, but they are pointing at the people that are populating those areas. The fact that there are no flock cameras in East Grand Rapids or Northeast Grand Rapids or Northeast Kent County should say a lot to you, okay? I want you to think about these communities. I've dedicated my life to serving people, and this is not how you serve people. This is not what you were elected for. You are not elected to watch people, you are elected to listen to people. So please listen to them when they come up here and tell you that these flock cameras are causing harm. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Miles McCracken. I'm a resident of the Third Ward. First off, I want to apologize if my message comes off as overly confident of the powers that this commission may have. I'm a 21-year-old college student and I still have a lot to learn about our local government. I came here to speak on Flock and how we, the public, have concerns about its misuse. There has been other cities where women have been stalked? What happens when our culture becomes crime? All of us, every single person in this room, and I know I'm not supposed to address the board, we all come from different backgrounds, different stories. I'm sorry. We've been told by the companies and other conglomerates that they are only used for license plate reading. ALPR has been a thing for a long time. In highly populated cities, police cruisers are fitted with ALPR systems that when a person who has committed a crime drives past, they get a hit on their computer. So I don't really see a reason to have cameras facing parks, facing our food banks, places where the most vulnerable, the most susceptible people in our society can be targeted by these things. I feel as if technology is advancing in ways we have never seen. I ask that any funding or investment that goes towards AI or flock from this board be stopped until companies can guarantee that these technologies won't be misused. I heard what Commissioner Kilgore said about asking our representatives in federal government to make a difference or a change, but we both know that that's not going to happen until local governments share the same concern as their public or a change in public vote come November. Commissioner Belchak, we spoke about the changes that need to be taken when we met at an event a couple of months ago sponsored by the Michigan LCV. You all are here to inspire the next generations, so please take any action possible so that the next generation isn't disappointed in the fact that no one spoke up on their behalf. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Sadie Boxall, I'm a resident of the first ward. I apologize, I have nothing prepared for today and I'm very tired, so I'll try not to meander too heavily. But I am here to express a firm opposition to the placement and the rapid expansion of the flock network in the city. It has expanded massively just within this past year, as other people have said. There were already other systems of identifying license plates. There's absolutely no reason that these privately owned cameras that go into privately owned databases should be put all over the city. They can be accessed without warrant by our police officers, meaning, or infringing upon our Fourth Amendment rights. They can be accessed for essentially any reason, only being audited internally and by our police forces. I apologize. I believe that we should be able to walk our streets without fear of being surveilled by that information being put into databases that we have no control over. I apologize for this being rather meandering. I do not believe I have anything more to say. I believe there is absolutely no reason for these to be in our cities, and I believe that they should be shut down. I believe that the resources we are spending on them is a massive waste of the resources and the funds of the city, and I believe that as soon as it's an option, we should end our contract and deactivate these cameras and stop the surveillance of our people. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Emma. I'm a resident of a third ward. Say thank you to everyone who also came up here and spoke out against flock. I'm here to join them. There's a lot of people here in the city who are against it. I think it's the most unpopular thing in the world. You ask anybody and they are against flock, so I'd. I hope that all of you would follow suit. There are other cities that have deflocked here in Michigan, such as Menominee. I don't know how to pronounce that, but I think that we could get, yeah, thank you. I think that we could get Green Rapids to do that. We're easier to pronounce, too. In Ypsilanti, they've bound ALRPs entirely. Like, they've done it, so why can't we do it here? There's precedent here. So it's up to all of you to protect our constitutional rights. A gentleman said this earlier, but I just want to reemphasize again. A filter does nothing to separate data from immigration-related stuff. That means that it's already been fit in and labeled that, and then you're just pressing a button, being like, I don't want to see it. That's not how AI works. It's already profiling people. It's already pulling data, your social security number, where you've been, what McDonald's you went to, what time, how many times. All of that. It's already in there. And it's in the hands of these ridiculous tech pro billionaires who think they're, I don't know, Batman or something, but they're just giving Hitler. You really trust these corporate, private companies with all of our data. Data I wouldn't even trust my grandma with. And they just have it here. It's against our Fourth Amendment right, as was said earlier. And I just want to ask if you are with us, the citizens, or if you are for these private billionaires, because you're not them. You're never gonna be a billionaire, sorry. You're with us. And we can and we will vote out anybody who supports Flock. And I want to tie in that these deflocking initiatives also go hand in hand with the sanctuary policies, which Rapid Response and Gosecha have written out step by step how to do it. And I want to remind you, the rest of the time, what they are. Policies that prohibit local law enforcement from detaining individuals on civil immigration warrants. Paper violation. That's it. We are treating them... It's giving, again, Japanese internment camps. It's giving Nazis. It's horrible what we're doing. We need policies that prevent the GRPD and Sheriff Department to collaborate with ICE. Policies that prohibit the sharing of personal data gathered by the city and county, including by flock. policies that ban agreements with ICE, just ban flock outright is what we're demanding now too, policies that oppose the establishment of detention centers in the city and county limits, and policies that prevent agreements with entities that have contracts with ICE. So this is how you protect your neighbors. This is how you protect all of us and yourselves. Thank you very much.

Sam, second ward, here to surprise surprise talk about flock and asking for a moratorium on them. Not to say that all present are not typically super civilly engaged, but I do think that a lot of us are here about that. I certainly wouldn't ask anybody to violate any of the public comment rules, but maybe if you could hold a hand up regarding if that's why you're here. Yeah, good point. I would first like to talk about the place of them. And of course, one of the prior speakers talked about them currently being an MLK park, which seems immediately problematic. But I would say that if they are continuing to expand as they have in other communities to places like you know, public pools where they are in other places, just what those things are viewing, especially when children are around and how that can be problematic, especially considering that this is a private company that we're giving that data to rather than anything that has public scrutiny. And with that, I mean, if there was to, we don't know how that data is stored or what happens if it leaks or anything like that, regardless of all the issues of just police officers and such having access to that information. Regarding police officers, I mean, certainly in the past there has been issues where Lots of police officers around this country are getting caught stalking girlfriends and other women. There's been several women that have been jailed because a flock camera has made a mistake. Flock camera mistakes are as high as 72% for false positives, which is pretty high. We are seeing that they are being used to follow people until they commit crimes rather than, I understand recently some GRPD representatives said that they're anecdotally used to solve crimes recently. But that thought cameras are being used to watch people. One report was that a man picked up, I think, a $20 bill off the ground and didn't return it to... you know, who knows where. And then he was arrested for that because somebody was able to sit and watch him on the flock camera until he did something wrong. And all of this, of course, is while crime is down nationally and at least within certain major crimes, down within the city as well that we're putting all this resources, you know, police time and funds into the cameras themselves. to make this massive expansion that violates our Fourth Amendment rights. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Sierra. I grew up on the northwest side of Grand Rapids. Obviously, I grew up here until I went to college. I went to MSU, and I got a bachelor's of science, specifically in neuroscience. And then I went to University of Michigan, and I got a master's of public health. Not that that really matters. You can't tell that from looking at me. And that doesn't make anything that I say matter more than what everyone here has to say, which is that flat cameras do not build our trust in y'all and the work of the Grand Rapids Police Department and what we have done here as a community. I find it concerning that I grew up here, and I knew I could go to the Ralphs, like over on the northwest side if you knew Ralphs. My grandma would send me down there with some coins, I'd go and get stuff, I'd bring it back to her. Now, it is a supermercado, or supermarket in Spanish. But there's a flock camera there, but not a flock camera on the northeast side, Aldi, next to Meyers. I'm just wondering why. Who are we concerned about at the supermercado that we're not concerned about at an Aldi's or a Meyers? Doesn't seem really fair to me. And it's disappointing that there's so many cases and accounts across this nation where, although according to the live feed earlier, Our police have not abused their privileges within their job. And I should hope that is true because there are police across this country who have lied and have said things in the name of a badge And it has caused such great harm to many. So I hope when you guys are hearing all of us, you understand that we're not here to make your job harder or just to be here and annoy you. We're here because we're deeply concerned that people have taken advantage of privileges. And a private company who we have no regulation of, who also is using artificial intelligence, which does not have regulation on, It just does not seem like a safe, smart idea. And it is not something that supports our community at all. Things that support our community, probably going out and getting to know them, going on walks, using pedestrian manners of transportation around the area. It's a beautiful way to get to know the area and the people here. But a flat camera doesn't let you get to know anybody. It gives you a quick snap judgment. You can judge somebody on the car they drive and their driver's license. And it's not even accurate all the time, as it's been said before. So thank you for listening, and I hope you can continue to listen to all of us.

Good evening, commissioners, mayor. My name is Zoe, and I'm a Grand Rapids resident of the second ward. I'm here this evening to stand in solidarity with Kosecha's sanctuary policy demands and to further demand that the city cancel any existing contracts for automated license plate reader technology and prohibit any future contracts. Flock is not the only company that produces this technology. Axon and others do the exact same thing. However, any ALPR that collects data on you, me, or anyone here is a direct violation of our Fourth Amendment right to a reasonable expectation of privacy. Flock is a privately held company trying to maximize their profit by spying on us, and they are not beholden to GRPD, the city, or the public's best interest. By entering a contract with Flock, the city is giving away our privacy without any oversight. Over and over again, we have seen data collected by Flock cameras used by police to stalk and harass their ex-wives and girlfriends. On top of that, an internal GRPD email has shown that Grand Rapids flock cameras were used by the ATF, setting a deportation warrant at a time when the ATF was known to be assisting ICE. So what do we get in exchange for these deep violations of our safety, dignity, and privacy? As it turns out, nothing. Over 99% of license plate scans are unrelated to criminal activity, and anywhere from 20% to 70% of readings contain errors. And even when those readings are correct, there is no statistically significant reduction in crime associated with ALPR use. Flock cameras have led to innocent people being stalked, harassed, racially profiled, and arrested at gunpoint and with dogs. These cameras violate our privacy, have no meaningful oversight or accountability, and rather reducing crime make Grand Rapids a less safe place to live. For those reasons and more, I am demanding that the commission in the city's contract with end its contract with FLOC, and prohibit any future ALPR contracts. Thank you for your time.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Matthew Sanders. I live in the third ward and I stand in solidarity with Kasecha and their six sanctuary city demands. policy demands rather. I was in attendance this afternoon at the public safety meeting, and my initial reaction is that most of my concerns were not assuaged. There seemed to be some confusion among the public safety committee and even within GRPD leadership as to whether FLOC, as to whether the FLOC contract is governed under the city's surveillance policy. But two weeks ago, this commission, and specifically you, David, made it pretty clear that it is not. I took that to mean that our elected representatives, you all, have had little to no oversight over the hardware and software leased to GRPD by Flock. So to begin, I feel it necessary for this body to take whatever action is necessary to bring all Flock tech under the purview of that surveillance policy. I have a list of things we still don't know about GRPD's use of FLOC following the public safety meeting. Is GRPD opted into FLOC's national network? How about the statewide network? How many departments is GRPD sharing data with? How many of those departments are out of state? How many are federal? We were told the transparency portal will be coming soon, but we weren't given a date or a timeframe in which to expect the publication of that portal. And I don't expect any of you to be able to answer these questions because FLOC and GRPD have not extended you that level of transparency. We were informed this afternoon that an internal flock system exists that flags irregular activity for auditing purposes. But in response to a direct question from you, David, we were also informed that not a single investigation has been launched by GRPD on the grounds of misuse or abuse of the flock database, even though we know of at least one incident involving the ATF, a federal agency, using our city's data for an immigration-related search. GRPD's obfuscation in this manner greatly concerns me. Does a threshold for opening an investigation for misuse of the flock system even exist? If it does, we haven't seen it. However, what alarms me the most is Flock the company. There were some bits of transparency today, and I appreciate that. For example, the admittance by Flock that they are experimenting with new AI technologies we know next to nothing about. Flock is adamant that our city's data is owned by GRPD. However, we know that the data is still stored on Flock's servers, making this a distinction without a difference. I'm no software expert, but I know enough to know that when leasing software, the client is typically given a front-facing portal with a significantly limited scope compared to what exists on the back end. In other words, we are left to take Flock at their word that they are not accessing our data despite, per their typical contract language, Flock holding, and I quote, a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free right and license during and after the term of the agreement to use and distribute aggregated or anonymous data for their own purposes, unquote. At the end of the day, Flock is a private corporation that does not answer to this body. Because I do not and cannot trust Flock to act in the best interest of our city, our residents, or even our police department, I remain steadfast in my belief that the safest outcome for everyone is the end of all Flock contracts and the removal of their hardware from our city. I understand there are steps in between, but please start taking them.

My name is Tanner. I live just south of the city. I stand in solidarity with Cosecha and Rapid Response to Ice and demand you take down the city's flock cameras, not only on behalf of my neighbors of color, but also on behalf of my family, friends, and the workers of Grand Rapids. The commission, the police, and flock keep referring to these devices as automated license plate readers and saying ALPRs are authorized by the 2012 and 2015 surveillance policies. I cannot say this clearly enough. AI did not exist in 2012. Deputy Chief Maycroft gave us a concrete example of the vehicle fingerprint AI tech being used at the Yankee Clipper Library this morning, and the Flock rep McCormick spoke to Flock's machine learning functionality explicitly. This is not license plate reading. Saying these cameras are ALPRs is like saying that this is a flashlight. They cannot be grandfathered into a policy that was created when their fundamental tech did not exist. Mayor Legrand, multiple times you've compared this tech to the Alexa in your home. Here's a key difference, consent. You consented to Amazon listening to you at all times. There's no Alexa in my home. I do not consent to the Flock Corporation and GRPD warrantlessly stalking my movements. Here's a direct quote from your deputy chief. Now I'm not going and giving subpoenas for your surveillance cameras at your private business. I'm not getting a search warrant for this surveillance system. Get a damn warrant. This man, who appeals repeatedly to, quote, constitutional policing, says that explicitly that the advantage Flock gives him is that he can bypass the Fourth Amendment. Let's talk about ICE. Flock rep McCormick said the only barrier between Flock and a contract with ICE is, and I quote, no internal interest from the C-suite. Did you know Flock received $275 million investment from Peter Thiel, the CEO of Palantir, the largest federal surveillance contractor? Did you know that FLOC had a pilot program to license this data to federal agencies until August of last year? Here's a promise. Someday, you will read a headline that says, FLOC signed surveillance contract with ICE and CBP. And when that day comes, you will remember this moment. The second the public scrutiny we're all engaged in right now dies down, FLOC will go get that ICE money. It's what corporations do. Regardless, it is well documented that ICE's primary method of obtaining FLOC data is to just ask a PD that has it. It happens every single day. Chief Trigg said himself, this tool works best when they share the info with as many other PDs as possible. for as many criminal codes as possible. You are never going to know that no one is giving this data to ICE. If you use this tool, you are collaborating with ICE. It's really that simple. I wrote a lot more, but three minutes sounds like a lot, and it's not. I do not consent to being stalked. End this contract. Throw these cameras in the trash. Mayor Legrand, there are plenty of fascists who didn't vote for Trump. You can still prove that you're not one of them. Solidarity with the workers of Grand Rapids.

Hi, you may recognize me from earlier today at the safety meeting as well as the meeting before that or the meeting before that. You'll see much more of me in the coming time. My name is Kyle and I work as a programmer and I'm a constituent of ward one. I'm here to demand that you cancel our flock contract and listen to the thousands of letters calling to adopt the six sanctuary city policies officially. Flock, as an automated license plate reader, is a dystopian violation of our rights because it inverts the very nature of how police are supposed to function. In traditional investigations, a crime happens, detectives identify a list of plausible suspects, then those suspects are placed under investigation. With Flock, Everyone, every day, in the city are all under investigation for all crimes all the time. So that when there is a crime, police have a list of pre-investigated suspects. That means everybody in this city is having their Fourth Amendment rights flagrantly violated as a matter of regular government policy. We heard at today's safety meeting that Flock investigates crimes, but that's not true, because what they actually investigate is called pre-crime. It is categorically false that Flock can be reformed because the technology investigates warrantless pre-crime, which itself is a crime that violates our rights. I believe Flock does not take its security seriously. Again, I'm a programmer. Flock said today in the safety meeting, said that data can be shared securely with other agencies, but they also said in the same breath that that shared data can be sent to ICE by downloading it. For a year, Flock had nearly 60 vulnerabilities submitted to the Department of Homeland Security-funded database MITRE that tracks national vulnerabilities across the U.S. along with verifiable proof. That means somebody like me or anyone else can verify it. Flock never submitted proof of any of those vulnerabilities being fixed, and third parties demonstrate to this day that those vulnerabilities have not been patched. Anyone that wants to can connect and completely take control of a Flock camera, view and modify the footage, install malware, view hard-coded credentials that go to other places, and even track the real-time GPS location of police vehicles. These are among the vulnerabilities listed to our government's national database. Flock's CEO responded to this by claiming that Flock had never been hacked. Pay attention to this. This is an official response to a formal report about security vulnerabilities verified by MITRE and our city pays for their services. Not a single person I know that isn't connected to the police department and flock is in favor of ALPRs. That's why you should take the stronger, more immediate action to cancel our flock contract and adopt the six sanctuary city policies because that is the will of the majority you are supposed to represent. Thank you for your time.

I would like to continue talking about Flock's technological capabilities and security issues. First off, We're renting the cameras. The city does not own them, nor the police department doesn't own them. You don't own the data on them. You don't own the software. All of the data gets sent to their servers, wherever they decide their servers are. It gets sent through Wi-Fi, which we all know isn't the most secure. to their black box where they can add whatever they want, whatever AI, whatever other data that they take from the internet to put in and mix up to, and then what they do as, so we have the data. and now you have the camera side, right? The cameras, what data that they record is not only license plates. They capture faces, they capture race, they capture bumper stickers, any damage on cars so that you can very specifically identify a single person. We do not know how long the cameras store data. They're supposed to be within the 30-day period, but we all know that data, once it's recorded, can't really be deleted, like permanently. We don't know where all our data is going. It is not secure. And we all know that data can be used in ways that are very dangerous. On the police side, police get an app, they've got an app that has, if they're looking for somebody, it will have a list of people that the AI or whatever program of their black box suspects is the thing. So you are allowing this third party company to manipulate police officers into targeting whoever they want. Do not allow this. It's ridiculous and it's extremely dangerous. Please get rid of all of the flock cameras. Thank you.

I'm sorry, could you come back up and give us your name? I'm sure you just forgot at the beginning, but we're doing a public hearing.

I go by Vox.

Thank you.

Also, for the time being, can no one else get in line? We're getting a serpentine into the room here, so if we can make sure we keep aisleways and stuff clear. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Matthew. I've been here millions of times, like my dad. My real identity is I'm a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'll never be ashamed of such things. I have come up here to speak about the last commission meeting that we were at. It was held out there at the public museum, and our friend at 425 said we were bashing people. In our defense, neither Lord needs any defendant because he could defend himself. We are not bashing anyone. We are just... We are just working in the Lord's because we do not hate anyone and neither does the Lord. We are just standing on the ground and I would also like for you to bring your attention to the other show coming near of the coming kingdom because the Bible clearly says those who do not know the Lord will go to a place called hell and I'm not condemning anyone and we're not condemning anyone. That's the Lord's job. So please, please, please call on the Lord while there's still time so you can join us in heaven. And like my debts, I would also like to I'd also like to say that you can see me or Dad or any of us for any prayer requests, or we can pray for you. Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew. Well said. Some really exciting news first. Through Jordan Sweezer's team, both at 425 East Cherry and before that at 320 East Fulton, they have been used by the Lord to save 150 precious babies. 100 die there every week, 425 East Cherry, or are killed by them. through the murder pill that they could take home without prescription, without a doctor's permission. But 150 babies have been saved. Yesterday, August 24, was the third year anniversary of a tornado that swept through Belmont and Rockford. It caused the wife They could not come to her aid, his aid, because of the trees that were down by the tornado. She tried to call the helicopter, EMT helicopter. They said, we cannot come to your husband because we cannot fly in these conditions. The Lord was saying, enough is enough. That man alone murdered 50,000. I say it again, 50,000 children at 320 East Fulton. His wife said he died a violent death. Well, he did violence to 50,000 babies. My last comments are for you, Commissioner Kilgore. You also made reference to us at the last meeting we were at that we hated sodomites, the biblical name for homosexuals. We don't hate you. We don't hate sodomites. I minister to them all over the world. I love sodomites, just as I love anyone else. I don't agree with your lifestyle. You probably don't agree with mine. I'll ask for a few extra seconds because of that. We love you, Commissioner Kilgore. I want you to make that clear, okay? And I'd still like to meet privately with you, as you once requested. just to get to know you better. 320 East Fulton or 425 East Cherry. Let's close that down just as 320 has been closed down.

Thank you.

My name is Charlie Snedeker. One of the stupidest arguments I've heard regarding flock, if you're doing nothing wrong, what do you have to hide? Well, flock cameras don't just track criminals. They log the daily movements of every law-abiding citizen, and this is a violation of our privacy, our freedoms, and our constitutional rights. The Fourth Amendment was created to stop the government from spying on us. Probable cause, a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity must be demonstrated before conducting a search or surveillance. A flak camera is a surveillance tool. It automatically reads your license plate, records your exact time and location, stores that information, and makes it searchable. Multiply that by thousands of cameras, and you no longer have isolated security cameras. You have the infrastructure to build a detailed record of where vehicles travel. The problem is that they aren't simply photographing your car. The problem is that a massive, interconnected surveillance system can identify you, your car, timestamp it, store it, search it, and cross-reference it, and then reconstruct your movements of that day. You don't have to be suspected of a crime. You don't have to be under investigation. Your movements are being collected simply because you drive down a public road, a road you most likely helped pay for. Furthermore, Flock is already expanding beyond plate readers into things such as audio sensors, video feeds, and police drones. If cataloging every car's movement 24-7 isn't enough for you to draw the line, what is the line? Where is the line? What's next, facial recognition software? Continuous movement profiling? When does public safety stop being the justification, and at what point do you finally say you've gone too far? end fly camera surveillance in Grand Rapids, ban all ALPR cameras, abolish ICE, and make sanctuary policies a reality in Grand Rapids and Kent County. Thank you.

Hello again, commissioners, Mr. Mayor. My name's Eric from the Second Ward. There's a couple things I wanted to talk about. My brain is a little scattered because of who just followed two times before. Holy God, okay. Like, you guys are all wonderful people. Like, thanks for doing what you're doing. Sorry, you have to hear stuff like that. I don't, whatever. So getting this back on track. So there's just a couple of things I just wanted to talk about real quick when it comes to flock safety. You know, I'm not an expert. Unfortunately, this is one of the issues I just haven't paid a lot of attention to. So I was watching. on my way home, the 1230 meeting, which I would love if that would be a little more accessible or potentially done a second time. That's just kind of my personal feedback through there. But there was a lot of questions I thought that were answered. I have to sit on them. I appreciate it was acknowledged as a very, like the very first step of a larger conversation. So the quick things I wanted to touch on. Number one, I was watching something, you know, trying to educate myself, you know, earlier today, and I thought something really stuck out is kind of the way that the flock cameras give as a community feel, right? Like the feeling of knowing that they are there. I think it was really potent, the person that said that those caught by the cameras are basically treated like a criminal before any crime is committed because the collection methods and the way that the data is being collected is the same as if a crime were to be committed, like it's all still being collected. It's just how it's used is what determines the criminal use. And that just for me, like really, That is just a really weird feeling in the community to know that you're still being tracked. This data collection is still building, even if you haven't done anything wrong. It's all still in the same concept. And again, it's in the eye of the beholder and who's accessing it. I appreciate GRPD's transparency. I'm hoping for more. as time goes on. The second thing I wanted to talk about is that data specifically. So the dependence on data. So Flock is a company. And so Flock has a bunch of other things. I didn't even know they had this. But they have a lot of other devices that they use to capture. And it's up to, I think, five. I took a screenshot. I'm sorry. I'm not being very efficient with my time. but they have like the license plate readers they do have normal video cameras themselves they have like mobile security trailers they're called like gunshot detection acoustic center sensors which i do remember those have been wrong many times and then like also drones so they have a lot of stuff so this data while it might be really top of the line, while it might be the best stuff, what it does is just like our cell phones, it builds a dependency on the data. Like it builds a dependency that we are going to receive what flocks data is into our other processes. So it leads to further purchases of different devices and how that data is utilized. And so I think that's something we need to be really aware of is that this is a slippery slope that begins to kind of turn you into, you know, tune into a flock dependent police department or a flock dependent city. And then the last thing, I only have like 20 seconds. So the last thing I would just really wanna touch on is I heard a really disturbing lack of talk about warrants. Like I know that flock is adding the procedure that you have to enter a case number, that's nice, but also like warrants, like where's warrants numbers? Like if the data is being searched, I heard the rep say like, in an example, like an officer searching 10 license plates a week. I mean, that's all stuff that would normally require a warrant. I know it's not looking inside the car or anything like that, but that's still data that we need to do. So I just would like to see the conversation change around making these warrants a very critical part of this. So I hope that made sense. Sorry, I run over time, but thank you all for your time. So thank you.

Hi, my name is Peter. I'm a resident of Grand Rapids. And I'm also here to speak on the usage of flock cameras in our city. And I want to start by saying that everything that these flock cameras say they're going to do is a lie. And they're not going to do that at all. They're going to do the opposite of that, really. I mean, they say that they're going to lower violence rates. If we want to lower violence rates, you clean up your own police department first. You condemn that killer cop, Christopher Schur, for killing Patrick Loyola and the other ones, like Samuel Sterling and Riley Doggett. Flock cameras also say they're going to lower crime rates. We want to lower crime rates. You start giving people more social benefits. People wouldn't have to steal. People wouldn't have to take if they could make enough to live on their own, if they had housing available to them. And you want to prevent crime? You go after the people that are pushing all this AI down our throats. We're talking about the Epstein client list type people. All these people, they're the real criminals. They're white collar, so you won't touch them, of course. And I think, Mr. Kilgore, you mentioned the loneliness epidemic. Maybe we wouldn't have such a loneliness epidemic if everyone wasn't constantly worried about being watched all the time. People are sick of having a camera shoved in their face all the time. I'll tell you that much. I know I am. So down with flock, down with AI and banned data centers. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, commissioners, staff. I'm Steve Bennett, resident of the Third Ward, and I'm just as passionate as all the rest of them, and I know as all the rest of you. Thank you, Commissioner Kilgore, for reading the letter from the ACLU. Seemed like we only had a half a meeting this afternoon, as we had the lovely dog and pony show from our friends at Flock, and the GRPD did a fantastic job of painting a picture of how wonderful this technology has been for solving crimes. The inconsistencies throughout, I notice objective two is to deter crime, and nobody talked about deter crime. I've mentioned that from this lectern before, that this is not a crime deterrent. Everybody's pointing it out. It's a pre-crime. option. So it's just plain and simple. It's your legacy. I've talked with many of you one-on-one about this, that people don't trust you. We appreciate the city services, but when it comes to the big issues, it seems shit just ain't getting done. They don't trust us. And here's your chance for legacy. Do something. Thank you very much.

Good evening. Anna Fulton, second ward. I am here to stand in solidarity with Cosecha and ask you to adopt their sanctuary policies to protect our immigrant neighbors. I'm also speaking up with my community to demand that the city break all contracts with automatic license plate reader companies such as Flock and that the city remove and ban these cameras. The people are against mass surveillance. Please listen to the people. Thank you. I yield the rest of my time.

Hi. Benjamin Canis, second ward. Been a long, long, long time resident of Grand Rapids. I just want to echo the sentiments that all my fellow citizens here have said, all the concerns that they've said about ALPRs and flock cameras. You know, from their racist placement to the problems with privacy, the fact that police can stalk it. We already don't trust GRPD as it is. They're lazy. We all know that cops can solve crimes. They've done it for a long time. They don't need this technology to do it. And I, just as a personal little vibe check, I don't like being surveilled. I don't like the government watching me on my every move. So I'd hope that the council work moves to either institute a moratorium or ban them outright. Thank you.

Hello again, folks. I always love coming up here. I like seeing you folks at all the events I come to.

I don't want to break your flow. Can you give us your name quick?

Oh, yeah. So I'm Romar Randy Morales, resident of the First Ward. And I believe you folks think of me as a familiar face, how often I say hello to you. You've heard from many of our community members and our neighbors about the various data encryption and vulnerabilities within these flat camera infrastructure. One of the points of discussion that I wanted to shift towards is what type of precedent this sets up for us. The infrastructure that we build today utilizing these cameras can be used with different administrations and for future technology to grandfather within the current framework that we're allowing. I think it is a constitutional focus that we need to keep our eyes on to make sure that we don't come down that slippery slope and building a surveillance state around us. The salespeople from Flock were able to describe to us the amount of self-auditing and the ability for oversight that we could have on their current infrastructure, but These people are trying to sell us a product. They are having their foot in the door to sell us further products. If we look at some of the other police departments and communities that utilize these technologies. I believe I saw on the news just the other day that a woman that went through away from her state to move to another state temporarily to get an abortion was on her way back arrested. Now, this is not a different company. This is not a different technology. Just because we're told that you say that, you'll never do that. I don't feel like my money should be going to a company that provides a platform for such a service to other communities, to other police departments. And if we let that be built here, you folks may not be here in a future city commission. Other people will be there, and they may be the ones that say, yes, we want a surveillance state. We want to make sure our citizens are doing what we want them to do, to do what we tell them to do. That is one of the fears that I am thinking of when I'm worried about a future America. Because that is, to me, one of the most un-American things to do, is to build a future where our citizens cannot be free. And this is one of the steps to prevent that. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Stephanie Vogt. I am a new resident of the First Ward, and I am here to discuss the flock cameras and my opposition to them and other similar surveillance technology. Personally, I have a unique perspective. My father was a wealth manager, regional manager for Morgan Stanley and handled finances for Amway Corporate, the DeVos families, Van Andel families, the Prince families, and was heavily involved in the GOP and Heritage Foundation, CNP think tanks. With that perspective, it is my duty to speak out and condemn the GRPD for working with ICE. Personally, I understand that ICE and DHS are currently violating our first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendment rights. The first amendment right Many activists, protesters, whistleblowers, we are seeing suppression. I have gone through 10 TikTok accounts. I have experienced surveillance. I have experienced people surveil me as I am a victim of the greater, broader Epstein blackmail trafficking network as many people within these power families put their own children into it. I have had individuals come up to me, have obviously been hacked into my information. And the depths of which people have been able to hack extends back to my teenage years. I am 40. Specifically, the Fourth Amendment warrantless arrests. Also, the flock systems, I believe, are a violation of the Fourth Amendment because they are stitching together continuous location data. And this is extremely pervasive. And it connects. And not only that, this is the point that people are missing in how this ties into the economy and national security. When they have all this data and all of our movements, We don't have predictive markets anymore. If you have money and the access to flock in these technologies, you know what's going to happen next. That's the whole point of prediction. Why are people making so much money on Kelshi? Why are people making so much money on these apps? They are hacked into our data, I guarantee it. On top of that, Fifth Amendment rights, denial of due process and deportation proceedings. Sixth Amendment rights, denial of right to counsel. Eighth Amendment right, detention conditions and cruel and unusual treatment. On top of that, violation of the U.S. Code, Chapter 18, subsection 241, conspiracy against rights, makes it illegal for more than two or more people to conspire to injure, threaten, or intimidate anyone in the free exercise of their constitutional rights. It protects against unlawful abduction, which is what occurs when you are arrested without warrant. You know what it calls for a punishment? Death. When you violate that, you can be punished with death. So stop being Pinkertons for the billionaire class and stand up.

Hello, my name is Vinnie. I'm a resident of Grand Rapids, and I have a poem for you. I love the city. This place has been my home, but I feel like an animal ready to be hunted. Every day I pray that I do not become prey. Why should my brothers, sisters, and siblings be afraid? Why do those who share my skin tone, those darker and lighter, have a target on them? For whose safety? Not ours. I have a mouth and I must scream, for once I cannot stand here idly without saying, the only flocks that I want in this city are pigeons. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Martha Cooper, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I didn't write everything down, but I've got a few things to say to you, David. I've seen a few things that you've said. One time when you mocked the immigrants, that was particularly distasteful to me. It will not protect people that earn and live and make an improvement in our city. The other thing I saw you say and hear you say was that you had to protect the ICE agents because they were people too. And there are people in our city with masks on, guns, and they take people, they steal people with no due process and put them in concentration camps in our country. Our country is under the, it's absolute fascism and it's not getting better, it's getting worse. And then flock comes along and it's going to track people all kinds of people, especially the ones who are not in charge in the fascist state that we belong to anymore. I have seen that we don't have the First Amendment, we can't protest in this town without going to jail for a felony, and yet we are supposed to believe that you all are gonna do the right thing when it comes to flock, and you aren't even in charge of it. Today, I only got a little piece of what you said at the mic about the flock during the flock thing. And you were talking about, but we'll have to decide who gets that information. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't want you, David, deciding that when you haven't made any forward motion when it comes to all the people that come up here and ask you to protect immigrant rights. All right? So I just, there's no way we can trust you. We've got a cop that's a cop killer walking around free, and then we're going to have a new police chief, and he's got to build trust? How in the hell are we going to have any trust that you all are going to do the right thing with a flock camera? I mean, really? I don't have a PhD, but I can see where this is going. And one thing I cannot, I'm gonna run out of 12 seconds. I know who's really in charge of this town and it's not you and it's not the rest of you either. It's the oligarchs and they got all of our housing money.

Hello, my name is Phyllis. I'm from the First Ward. I'll keep my comment short. First thing I'd like to say, I stand in solidarity with Cosecha and Rapid Response. I urge you to adopt the sanctuary city policies outlined by Cosecha. Everyone deserves to feel safe in Grand Rapids. Everyone deserves to feel safe in the city that they call home. You see all these lovely people that have come out to talk about flock tonight. That's not going to stop. You're going to hear about this at every single meeting until our contract is canceled and until our cameras are gone. It's wildly unpopular with citizens. Every single person I've ever talked to about flock cameras are horrified. They don't understand why they weren't informed, why they weren't why they aren't well documented where they are, what happens to the data, how the data is collected, how it's organized, who gets to see it, how it's searched. And the stories that we hear about what's happening with the data horrifies them even more with the stalking and the arresting by ICE and the tracking of people. I urge the city to reevaluate our contract with FLOC, to cancel our contract with FLOC, and not just adopt FLOC 2. So don't just go to the next one. We want to build trust in our community. We want to not be videotaped and photographed all the time. Yeah, and that's all I have to say. I will see you at the next meeting. Thank you.

Hello, study leaders. My name is Gabriel Puebla. I'm actually in the process of moving out of Grand Rapids. It's not necessarily because I want to, but it's because I had to. So I figured I'd come and speak at least once at one of these commission meetings specifically about flock. I very adamantly oppose flock being anywhere near human beings, period. I don't necessarily understand why we feel like it's necessary. As a disciple of Christ, I don't necessarily understand why we feel like it's okay to rob people of the ability to have integrity, which is doing the right thing when nobody is looking. If someone's always watching, then you never have the ability to practice integrity. especially when we hear things about people having cameras pointed in their homes. That was news to me. I don't think it's going to help us. I think it's going to hurt us more in the long term. I've seen several in Wyoming, the area that I'm moving into, and I plan to be very vocal about that amongst my local government there. But I would urge Grand Rapids as a city to cancel their contract with Flock. I don't understand anything about why anybody thought it was a good idea, period. It doesn't make me feel safer. It makes me feel watched. It makes me feel like You just want to know exactly what I'm doing, not necessarily protect me. And I'm not saying that's what the city of Grand Rapids intended, but I'm telling you that's how it makes me feel, and I know it makes a lot of other people feel that way. So I would just urge you to cancel that contract and, like the person before me said, not just jump to the next company. Mass surveillance as a whole is not the answer to the problems that we have. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Alex Strath. I'm a resident of Ward 2. Everyone else before me has had excellent comments about the widely reported security vulnerabilities and misuse of ALPR cameras. What I want to talk about is their constitutionality. At this afternoon's 1230 public safety meeting, both the representatives at FLOC and the police department representatives highlighted how constitutionality was one of their highest priorities. If a police officer was out in the field collecting this kind of information on one person, they would need a warrant to do that. But since Flock is a private company collecting this data on everyone, it's okay for the police to just go out and buy access to it instead. What the representatives of Flock didn't mention is that Case law has been going slowly but surely against it for the past 40 years. The flock representative said that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. That was the case law in the 70s, but for the past 40 years, that has been moving towards the aggregation of data qualifying as a search under the Fourth Amendment. In the case Chartree v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that requesting geofence data on who was at a public location for one hour was considered a search under the Fourth Amendment. In Connecticut v. Jason McCarthy, it was ruled that four cameras on a bridge is not a search, but, quote, with enough cameras in enough locations, the historic location data from an ALPR system would invade a reasonable expectation of privacy for the constitutional purposes. I drive past four flock cameras on my one-mile commute to work. I consider that an invasion of my privacy and an invasion of the privacy of every citizen of this country. What is a reasonable expectation of privacy? In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court wrote, the majority of this court has already recognized through concurrences in Jones that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements. Prior to the digital age, law enforcement might have pursued a suspect for a brief stretch, but doing so for any extended period of time was difficult and costly and therefore rarely undertaken. For that reason, society's expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not, and indeed in the main simply could not, secretly monitor and catalog every single movement of an individual's car for a very long period. What the Supreme Court described as violating society's reasonable expectation of privacy is exactly what the Flock Network does. Do the right thing, get ahead of the curve, don't renew the contract in January of 2028 when it's next up, or better yet, cancel it ahead of time.

Bye. Bye. I'm a little short. Hi, my name is Emmett Maniscalco. I've lived in Grand Rapids my whole life. I stand in solidarity of making Grand Rapids a sanctuary city. I don't really have anything more eloquent to say than has already been said tonight, but I'm also here to speak against Flock and any other surveillance cameras of a similar type. I haven't really had time to put together anything more detailed than my own experience, but these cameras don't make people feel safer. As somebody said previously, they make us feel watched. They violate our constitutional rights every moment that they're filming, and they are the building blocks for a fascist surveillance police state. Not to mention all the problems with the racial violence that they are creating, so maybe we get rid of those.

Good evening. My name is Jacinda Swanson, Ward 3. I taught U.S. democracy and democratic theory for more than 20 years at Western. Equity and democracy and the civil liberties and rights necessary to ensure real, actual democracy are amongst my deepest values. Several cities in Michigan have already canceled their flock contracts. Lansing, Sumter Township, Claussen, Ferndale, Westland, Milford, and Menominee. Grand Rapids needs to join this growing list of cities responding to their residents' concerns about mass surveillance in a time of increasingly anti-democratic, repressive, xenophobic, and fascist policies from the Trump administration and Supreme Court. I was extremely disturbed to learn that a representative from the ACLU had asked to speak during the Public Safety Committee meeting earlier today about the ACLU's concerns about government surveillance, but was denied the opportunity despite representatives from FLOC being allowed to speak. Since the ACLU rep wasn't allowed to speak about civil liberty concerns, I'd like to read a couple of portions from the ACLU's report on Flock's, quote, nationwide mass surveillance system. Flock's, quote, surveillance technology records and tracks every car that comes into view, and then an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers. This personal information is then uploaded into a national database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search, with few regulations or oversight on how they use what they find. Quote, just think about how much someone could learn about your life if cameras constantly tracked where you drove. They could find out which doctors you visit, what houses of faith you worship at, who you visit or drive around with, even what political meetings or protests you attend. And we've already seen how mass surveillance tools can be weaponized and abused by law enforcement. ICE and CPB have repeatedly used Flock to go after immigrants without warrants. Kansas police used them to pursue a man who wrote a critical op-ed about the department. A mother and her children were held at gunpoint because ALPR cameras wrongly flagged their car as stolen." Unquote. With tech bros and billionaires buying our government representatives and AI technology completely unregulated and increasingly out of control, mass surveillance is a terrifying threat to any hopes for equity and democratic self-government by regular people. Instead of Grand Rapids spending money on flock or other mass surveillance, it should use that money to actually make residents safer, for example, by providing housing, food, medical, mental health, transportation, child care, and utility assistance.

My name is Megan Reed and I'm a lifelong resident of the Grand Rapids area. Like many who have commented before me and the thousands more of your constituents that feel this way, I am vehemently opposed to and disturbed by the continued installation and use of flock surveillance systems to stalk our communities. It's not hard to see past the thinly veiled claim that this is simply a license plate reading system meant to deter crime and keep us safe. This is flock becoming the conduit through which our civil liberties and right to privacy are quietly stripped from us. One quick look at a map of flock camera locations, like others have mentioned, throughout the Grand Rapids area, it's blatantly obvious that like other law enforcement tools past, this too is the targeted profiling of black and brown folks disguised as crime deterrent. The following are statistics from one of the most robust data sets collected to date by the Electronic Frontier Foundation regarding ALPRs. Less than 1% of cars scanned are connected to any crime or wrongdoing, but one in 10 license plates that Flock reads are scanned incorrectly. So not only are they collecting much more data than what's relevant, but the data they do collect is unreliable when it comes to the purpose Flock is claiming it's being used for. When more than 99% of license plates scanned aren't relevant to crime prevention and won't help deter anything, this becomes an indicator of a much bigger problem, our personal data being collected and distributed en masse. All of your daily movements, your children's, your friends', family members', and neighbors' daily movements are being recorded, tracked, stored, and shared to who knows how many other agencies and unidentified entities around the country. Where we choose to worship, which playgrounds our children frequent the most, which medical providers we visit, which businesses we patronize, every step of our daily lives on record without a warrant and without permission. This is not only deeply unconstitutional, it's unsafe from a data sharing risk standpoint and a personal safety standpoint. There are already over 50 documented cases of individuals in law enforcement misusing Flock as their personal surveillance system to stalk, harass, and track exes, romantic interests, family members, and past abuse victims. The list of misuse continues, though. Documented cases of tracking women who choose to access reproductive health care, false arrests stemming from misread license plates, and stalking constituents who choose to exercise their constitutionally protected right to protest, just to name a few. As of June 2024, only a few hundred flock cameras existed in the entire country. Jump ahead only two years later, and there are currently over 135,000 flock cameras installed today, with that number growing rapidly. With each new flock camera and microphone installed, the instances of misuse and abuse will continue to skyrocket right alongside them. If the commissioners wish to strive for a better Grand Rapids, truly have the safety of their constituents at the forefront of their decisions, cancel any contracts with flock, dismantle the equipment, and divert the funds to proven methods of community safety assurance like social programs, education, and better infrastructure. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Andy Johns. I am a constituent from the Second Ward. I'm a member of many Grand Rapids communities and I am deeply concerned about mine and my fellow Grand Rapids citizens' privacy, taxpayer-funded resources, and safety. Flock camera recording in public isn't the problem. at least not the whole problem, turning entire cities into searchable databases of people's daily lives is. And that's exactly the kind of broad, suspicionless monitoring the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect people from. In a recent Supreme Court ruling, the United States versus Chetri, the court ruled that A similar technology that was constructed like flock cameras is violating our Fourth Amendment rights. If a geofence provided by Google about a citizen's whereabouts is unconstitutional, then I believe flock camera mosaics of an individual's habits, locations, and movements are a violation of the Fourth Amendment as well. As of right now, according to dfloc.com, there are approximately 200 ALPR cameras in and around the greater Grand Rapids area, with 92% of these cameras being from the company Flock. A yearly subscription for a Flock camera costs approximately $2,500, meaning that roughly a half million dollars per year is being spent just to have these cameras. That is a half million dollars and rising of taxpayer money per year that is being used to violate our privacy. According to the Washington Post, as of August 3rd, 50 police officers have been charged with or accused of misusing flock and similar camera systems to stalk women. 26 of those cases concluded that officers had used this technology to spy on wives, girlfriends, former partners, and their exes' new partners or women they sought to approach. This is a despicable behavior, a clear violation of the victim's privacy, and something I am sure that no one here in Grand Rapids wants to be subjected to. You are representatives of us, Grand Rapids citizens, and should not be beholden to corporate interests, especially in matters of our safety. Thus, I urge you as representatives of us, your citizens to join the other 135 American communities, including many here in Michigan, that have reevaluated their use of flock and similar systems and decided to remove these blatant visions of our privacy and safety. And off script here, I think you can tell just by one glance at me, I don't like to blend in and I am tired of feeling like I am being watched and having to hide within my own city. Currently, I still have the privilege of being able to use dfloc.com to avoid these ALPRs and find routes to get around them, but many people in other communities do not have that ability, do not have that privilege. Thank you for your time, and I'll leave you this as a reminder, surveillance is never safety. Thank you.

Hi there, good evening. My name is Jessica Bree and I work in, play in, and universe willing would soon live in the city of Grand Rapids proper. Having moved to the area from out of state early last year, I want to say I really appreciate the culture cultivated here in this room and city to where I feel comfortable to express my opinion. In my opinion, well, it's more of a plea. If you're really not going to terminate this contract, I urge you to please engage independent security professionals in the industry to stop and take a real look and magnifying glass to flock, as well as any other vendor under the greater ALPR or surveillance umbrella. It is not the miracle security technology that the salespeople at these vendors or law enforcement authorities make it out to be. For context, I do work in cybersecurity. Not the cutting edge hacker archetype, mind you, but a lesser known, more paper pushing side known as risk and compliance. While I do not consider myself an expert by any means, I do want to express that all of those security certifications that Flock kept attesting to during its presentation earlier are not certifications that a vendor is secure and should not be taken at face value. For example, one mentioned often was the SOC2 or S-O-C-2. That doesn't mean you're best practice. That just means you wrote a list of what you do at your organization, which may not be best practice, and paid a company tens of thousands of dollars to audit you and say, yep, that's what they do. And some listed items there, as well as the HEC VAT, et cetera, are just questionnaires and not verified by an independent third party. And the worst part, we the public can't review these actual security documents unless we are a customer of Flock. How can we even verify ourselves and know for sure what they're saying they do? I appreciate the comments said in the earlier meeting regarding the OPA's initiative for a public-facing dashboard. Please consider removing the grandfathering protections Flock and all related vendors have in publicizing all data regarding GRPD inquiries so that the next time we read you the statistics on Flock when we're at the podium, there are numbers so everyone can see how great it is in our neighborhood. Additionally, please consider adding contractual requirements to how long our data can be held. The earlier discussion had comments talking down other city and state data requirements, but requiring all ALPR and surveillance vendors to comply with the requirements recommended by privacy industry experts or similar organizations such as the ALCU or Electronic Frontier Foundation would provide some small relief that at the local level, Grand Rapids is trying to do its part to protect its constituents' rights. I look forward to eagerly following the development of this issue here in the city. There are a lot of things that I can say the city and state have done right in my short residence here. Please do not make this list shorter than what it really could be. Thank you.

Hello, Commissioners. I'm Parker. I'm from the Third Ward. I'm here to express my concern that the automatic license plate reading cameras in our city pose a direct risk to our residents. I also stand in solidarity with Cossacha's sanctuary demands. At this point, there are hundreds of documented cases of these cameras being used to stalk women, ranging from a police chief tracking the movements of their ex to a patrol officer finding a stranger to pull them over in an attempt to begin a romantic relationship. These examples are harrowing, not because all or even most officers would behave this way, but because there's nothing to stop the ones who would. These vast camera networks can be accessed across agencies and jurisdictions meaning almost any law enforcement officer can get into this network and use it how they wish. This commission of course works directly with the Grand Rapids Police Department and perhaps some other local departments but has no contact nor reason to have contact with many other agencies around the state and in the surrounding states. Therefore, by allowing these cameras to collect data in our city, they are potentially providing residents location data to any number of bad apples and other departments over which they have no control. The threat is not only from law enforcement. Publicly available information shows how easy it is for a low-level hacker to break into these networks. Without detailing methods in this setting, I'll simply state that the security is minimal and that not much skill at all is required to access the vast amount of data collected by these cameras. This fact scares me more than anything else about the cameras, that a random, unaccountable stranger could get access to my daily location, instantly know where I live, work, shop with minimal effort. Of course, this is true of any person who drives past these automated license plate readers in their day-to-day activities, which I do believe is a majority of Grand Rapids residents. This creates a grave danger, especially for women in our city. To reiterate, anyone with basic hacking ability or the desire to learn those skills may in short order be granted access to the location data of any individual they wish to track down for any purpose they may decide. Whatever crimes may be solved by this technology are vastly outweighed in my eyes by the direct harm they may cause inadvertently. Please consider the safety of Grand Rapids residents, especially women, and end the use of automatic license plate readers in our city. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Alex. I'm a first ward resident and a volunteer with Grand Rapids Rapid Response to ICE. I'm here to speak in support of Costec's six sanctuary policies and abolishing flock cameras. I've been doing movement work for over a decade now. One of the first things I learned in doing this work is that police are not on the side of our movements or marginalized communities. ALPRs are just one more tool enabling the harm they do. You've heard a lot of flock horror stories tonight. Locally, despite the mayor's claims, flock data from Grand Rapids has been used for deportation-related events. We've seen this in FOIA data. that the agencies and the federal government have done searches. But fancy tech aside, GRPD is not only collaborating, but directly coordinating to assist ICE. We've seen GRPD pre-positioned by the ICE field offices multiple times to escort the geotransport van to kidnap our neighbors. GRP officers have often violently pushed community members trying to prevent our neighbors from being kidnapped. out of the way. I've even seen them shove people who are already complying with their orders to get on the sidewalk violently, again, already complying, but apparently the GRPD, according to the mayor, has investigated itself and is within policy. You know, I listened to your response, Mayor Legrand, after the last 2 p.m. meeting I couldn't make, and it's morally inadequate. Asking the GRP to investigate itself, given its track record, it's not a solution. I also want to address your points about the need for safety in enforcing laws, and you're saying that ICE agents are people too. Those ICE agents made a choice. They made a choice to kidnap and harm our neighbors. People's lived identities are not a choice, especially in the imperialist context of why we have the undocumented-documented dichotomy. I get the kind of active opposition we do in rapid response to ICE is not what y'all can do as public officials. But what we're asking is you not to actively assist ICE in its violence. In many cities, police don't respond. They let ICE fend for itself if they're gonna do these atrocities. And I'll point out that none of the resistance to ICE here locally has been violent. But sure, let's be concerned about ICE agent safety. Complicity with ICE just serves rich and powerful interests that want to divide us based on what side of an imaginary line we were born on. We all have a choice here, including you, and it's pretty clear.

Hello, my name is Jane and I'm here as a resident of Grand Rapids to insist that you all end contracts with Flock and ban these cameras from our city. Flock is not here to protect us. Flock is not here for our safety. Flock cameras are a product being sold under the guise of ALPRs and keeping us safe. I don't believe that for a second. Flock cameras are a product being sold by a private corporation that is fine with violating numerous constitutional amendments, allowing their technology to be abused by those who have access to it, and working with racist and fascist organizations such as ICE. If you want to help our community, get Flock out of our city. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Lane. I've been in the city of Grand Rapids basically my whole life. I'm a singer-songwriter, social justice advocate, and a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a parable, and he emphasizes that whatever we do to the least, we do unto him. And if you read Matthew 25 in full, you'll very clearly see that he uplifts caring for the least and vulnerable in other society, not effort supporting actions that will harm them. And who is being treated as the least in our country right now, in our city? By and large, it is my more melanated brothers and sisters and persons of Latino descent like me and mine. And things like flock cameras. You've all been hearing people voice their concerns, well-grounded, research-backed concerns. that these flock cameras are going to be misused and abused because they have been. They will be used and they have been used to target black and brown folk in our communities. You wanna promote safety in our city. These flock cameras aren't gonna do that. support efforts that address the root causes of poverty, things like making housing more affordable for families of all sizes, supporting local small businesses, we heard of one, and local food banks and similar nonprofit orgs. That's what reduces crime and will promote safety, also ensures that women who want to be mothers freely consent to be mothers and persons with children in the here and now. that they can ensure their children won't live a life of suffering and unnecessary hardship. Who keeps our community safe? We keep our community safe, and keeping our community safe means saying no to these flock cameras.

My name's Claire. I live near Leonard and Alpine. There's like four flock cameras over there. It's hard to follow up Lane's very powerful statement with anything but agreement with what she's saying. And besides that, I do not envy the position that any of you guys are in right now. because it seems like a lot of reiteration, a lot of re-education. I don't know if y'all expected this kind of response tonight. I just hope for the best for my community, for my neighbors, and for you and our city. And that's really all, thanks.

Hello, I am Ellen McClain. So I wasn't planning on coming here to talk about surveillance technology, but when I learned that Grand Rapids now has more than 100 of these cameras, I realized that this isn't a theoretical conversation anymore. Excuse me. This is happening in our city. I didn't come here because I believe police shouldn't have tools to investigate crime. I came because I believe there's a line between investigating someone suspected of a crime and creating a system that records the movements of everyone just in case they might become relevant later. When you have enough records connecting vehicles to places and times, you're potentially asking, where has this vehicle been? That's a different question. I don't think ordinary people should have to become comfortable with being searchable simply because they drive across their own city. I can go to work. visit a friend, seek help, seek privacy, or just simply attend a protest. And, sorry, I can do these things without committing a crime and still have my movements become part of a searchable system. That concerns me, not only for myself, but for every resident who deserves to feel safe in their own community. So I want to ask this commission, what prevents a tool designed to find criminals from becoming a tool for searching ordinary people? Public safety and privacy should not have to be enemies. I want our police officers to have the tools they genuinely need, but I also want people who aren't suspected of anything to have the ability to live their lives without being quietly cataloged. I don't want to live in a city where innocence means don't worry, you weren't doing anything wrong. I want to live in a city where innocence means you weren't treated like a suspect in the first place. I want Grand Rapids to be a safe city, but I also want it to be a free city. And I believe we can have both, but only if we put real limits of this technology or on this technology before the technology puts limits on us. Thank you.

Hi, sorry about the voice. Mindy, second word. I have a quote to read. This is a license plate reader. That's all that plot cameras do. They don't check people's hair color or whatever. Could they? I suppose they could. I don't know. I'm not an expert. Anybody know who said that? David up there said that. And yet, we're supposed to trust that you're making these decisions and that you have our best interest at heart. Another quote, I don't want to live in a surveillance state. We all opted into that. I didn't. I don't think anybody here did. Pretty sure none of us opted into that. This keeps getting talked about like it's like a trade-off for convenience. And I guess my question is, convenient for who? It's not convenient for us. Maybe it's convenient for the police. Seems like it. But to that I would say... Logically, then, you're saying they can't do their jobs without this? Interesting. Huh. Not sure how useful they are, then, at that point. Just to appeal to you as human people, I think you are. As this country is being sold to billionaires, right, every day, and we're not even seen as human anymore. We're just like sacks of data. We're just raw data for billionaires to utilize. You have an opportunity to carve out an oasis from that in Grand Rapids. You have an opportunity to say, we're not doing that to our people. We're not doing that to the people who live here. We're going to let them be free. We're going to be an example of how it can be done. You have that opportunity. And since I have a minute left, I'm going to go back to the whole cure violence thing that was way at the beginning of this. I would say, first of all, it's kind of a silly concept. I know the thing is called cure violence, but whatever. I think that if we really want to go a long way to curing violence in this city, we need to get rid of the GRPD. Yes.

sanctuary city policies hello my name is Harry I live in the first ward I'm a small business owner community gardener and first of all I want to come and speak in solidarity with movie Manto cosecha and urge you guys to find a way to adopt these sanctuary city policies, because it really seems like you're not trying. And I also want to speak out against flock cameras in our city, mass surveillance, and I have nothing more eloquent than what's already been said, so I won't say much more, but I will just give an example of how both the flock cameras and GRPD and ICE are collaborating to make a hostile environment in our city. I've recently learned about this term, hostile architecture, or hostile infrastructure. And if you go around downtown, as I bike home tonight, I'll see blue lights under the bridge so people can't inject safely. I'll see red and blue flashing lights on top of GRPD cameras in parks to give the aesthetic that there's a... a GRPD cop car nearby. I'll see fences in the corners of bridges so that people can't live there and they're forced closer to the street, closer to cars, in the sight of flock cameras now, because they can't be in those safe places. Anyways, I've been learning about hostile architecture and as people have been speaking here tonight, these flock cameras are just a blatant example of that. And it's obviously making these people feel unsafe. But what is, What is most concerning is the BIPOC and immigrant communities that are being affected by this technology. I volunteer with Rapid Response to ICE. I respond to one or two calls a week where ICE is abducting our neighbors. Half the time, GRPD is there chomping it up with them, shaking hands. I would say that's assisting ICE. Anyways, I am now supporting a mother of four, not supporting, I am helping give a little bit of support to a mother of four whose husband was abducted and deported to Guatemala in April. She has no income anymore. She has four kids. She's terrified to leave the house because she knows GRPD is collaborating with ICE. She knows she's being watched because when she drives down her street, two blocks down, there's a flock camera waiting for her. Thank you.

Hello. I'm Kathy Siegenthaler, member of the Third Ward. I'm also here supporting Cosette's sanctuary policies. As I've been here before, I'm just so involved in families and kids being safe in their schools and their neighborhoods. And it's just confusing me to come to you and try to understand what we need to do, how we can together make our city really feel safe. It would be, I mean, I really think a statement from Grand Rapids that really supports the sanctuary policies and that supports immigrants and others affected that really comes out and says that would do a lot for our image of who we are. The costly flock cameras are one of the points and one of the big parts of this problem and need to be removed. Okay, so I work with families and students in schools of primarily affected communities. These kids here are fantastic. They love to learn. They love to go to school. Despite, you know, all this danger that's going on in their communities, they are future leaders. yet they're confused, they're really confused. I've noticed just this week as school started, a lot of police officers that are in the schools. And here they are, you know, being very friendly and showing that they're in the safe communities, but they're not, and they know it. When I talk to kids, they're confused. If we could make statements and the police, if we need to have the police officers, they really need to be on the side of the people in the communities, and show and communicate to our kids and to our families that they are helping us be safe because they're listening to what people are doing. We have many people in our community that are coming together to provide the safety, to go to the detention center, to bring parents back to their kids, to their families, and that is safety. I just am remarkable that together with Michigan, a bunch of churches that are coming together, rapid response, everybody who was here, that's safety. But the police officers are presenting a very confusing feeling to all the kids. And the families in the community, they don't want to go to school. Their parents don't want to send them to school often. We're seeing them not go. It's better to be in the school, but they're not doing that. Many of them are being affected with that. They're not going to after-school activities, which would make them more safe, would keep them off their phones, because they can't trust the police are too associated with ICE. They've got to be disassociated with ICE. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Hema and the cops probably know exactly where I live.

Lately, the demand to ban flock and only ALPR system is becoming more and more popular.

Quiero recordar a todos que Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE han estado exigiendo las seis políticas Santuario desde febrero del 2025. Estas políticas incluyen poner fin al intercambio de datos con ICE que toda la información que la ciudad recopila sobre mí.

I would like to remind you all that Movimiento Cosecha and Grand Rapids response to ice have been demanding the six sanctuary policies since February 2025. Those policies include ending data sharing with ice from all the information the city collects about me from when I pay my water bill.

Desde que pago mi factura del agua, recibo una multa de estacionamiento y a través del sistema de vigilancia de FLAC.

Ever since then, when I pay my water bill, I receive a parking ticket or through the flock surveillance system.

COSECHA siempre ha estado preocupada por la seguridad y debido a que nuestro trabajo con trabajadores inmigrantes educamos a los trabajadores sobre las prácticas de seguridad de OSHA.

Cosecha is concerned about safety and because of our work with immigrant workers, we educate workers about OSHA's safety practices.

El primer paso para prevenir un peligro es eliminarlo. Dado a que el departamento de policía admitió que realizó una búsqueda relacionada con inmigración por error,

OSHA safety practices, a first step in preventing a hazard is to eliminate the hazard. Since the police department admitted that an immigration search was done by mistake,

O quizás no fue error. Creemos que la manera de eliminar el peligro creado por FLAC es prohibir su uso y prevenir el daño que puede ocurrir cuando el supuesto error puede llevar a la separación de una familia.

Or maybe it wasn't a mistake. We believe that the way to eliminate The mistake is, or the hazard created by the mistake is to eliminate the hazard created by flock. And the way to do this is to ban its use and prevent the harm that can happen when a mistake can lead to a family being separated.

Por eso, una de nuestras demandas es prohibir el uso de cualquier tipo de sistema ALPR. Estuve presente durante la presentación de FLAC y parece que, además del dinero que se está gastando en este sistema de vigilancia, también se necesita una cantidad significativa de tiempo de personal para mantener y regular ese uso.

And it seems that is why one of our demands is to ban the use of any type of ALPR system. I sat through the FLAC presentation and it seems that beyond the money being spent on this surveillance system, there's also a significant amount of staff time needed to maintain it and regulate its use.

Estos recursos podrían utilizarse en cambio para la atención médica, la educación, vivienda accesible y una verdadera seguridad comunitaria. FLAC representa un exceso de vigilancia y de intercambio de información.

These resources could instead be used for health care, education, affordable housing, and real community safety. FLOC is in overreach of surveillance and data sharing.

Alcalde Legrand. Mayor Legrand, let's meet in public with the community, the community most affected by ICE violence,

in a space we feel safe so that they can share their stories of fear and family separation, things that are happening every day. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and members of the council. My name is Miles in the second ward, and I want to talk to you about why I'm strongly against flock cameras. Just something to point out before I go. You know it's bad when both parties hate them. First, I understand the argument for flock cameras. I understand that law enforcement wants a tool that can be used to solve crimes, find suspects, and potentially make Grand Rapids safer. I'm not here to say that solving crimes or protecting people isn't important. It absolutely is. My concern is how much privacy is lost in the process. There is a difference between a traditional license plate reader and a flock camera. A traditional license plate reader has a straightforward purpose. It reads a license plate. If police have a specific reason to investigate a vehicle, that information can be useful. Thought cameras go much further in what can be collected, stored, searched, and analyzed. They can create a detailed record of where vehicles have been and when they were there. That information is stored in a database that Fox says is deleted within 30 days, but can we really be certain that information is permanently gone and who has access to it while it is being stored? That means ordinary people who have done absolutely nothing wrong can have their movements documented simply because they drove down a public road, and that's an issue. Think about that. This type of information could potentially show where someone goes and where they spend their time and what patterns exist in their daily life. Flock is designed to identify patterns. Maybe none of that seems concerning when you look at one individual camera recording one vehicle, but when you combine that information over weeks, months, or years, you aren't just looking at a license plate anymore. You're building a picture of someone's life. I believe that is a dangerous direction for a free society. Government powers tend to expand when the infrastructure for those powers already exist. A system that is introduced as a tool to solve crimes could eventually lead to broader investigations, longer retention periods, more data sharing, or other uses that the public never originally agreed to. I'm not saying that it will happen, but it creates that possibility. We have to be careful about normalizing surveillance because once we've accepted that the government can continuously collect information about the movements of ordinary people, it becomes much harder to draw the line later. If there is a specific vehicle or suspect related to a crime, investigate that vehicle or person. If there is an emergency, use the tools available to law enforcement. But I don't think we should create a system capable of documenting the movements of ordinary people just in case that information becomes useful someday. Public safety and privacy don't have to be enemies. We can support law enforcement while also demanding reasonable limits on surveillance technology. So I respectfully ask the council to reject flock cameras or at the very least pause their implementation until there is a meaningful public discussion about it. The citizens of GR should have a say in whether they want the city to use this technology and what limits should be placed on it. Once these cameras are installed throughout the city and the infrastructure is established, it will become much harder to stop using them. We should not wait until after our privacy has been taken away to decide that maybe we valued it. Thank you for your time and allowing me to speak. One more thing, justice for sure and Jesus the King.

Hello, my name is Griffin and I am a resident of Comstock Park. The first thing that I wanted to do is I wanted to thank you for your time. I have a feeling these meetings don't normally run this long. I also wanted to thank everyone who is currently in the crowd, everybody who spoke today, and everybody who stood for upwards of an hour to make sure that their voices were heard about flock cameras. I would like to join my voice with the voices that we heard earlier in opposition to these cameras and their continued use. I ask that the city cancel its current FLOC contracts, pending FLOC contracts, or ALPR contracts. I stand in solidarity with Cosecha's six sanctuary policy demands. There was a safety meeting earlier today that many people, myself included, were not able to attend. That being held at 12.30 p.m. on a Tuesday in the middle of the week makes it really hard for working class people to actually make it to one of those meetings. Potentially more alarming, those who were able to attend did not have an opportunity to ask questions or give comment to either the GRPD or the flock representatives that were there. This speaks to a huge frustration in the community. There was no public vote, no conversation, no consent given to have these tools applied in our communities. No local, non-elected oversight. The GRPD and FLOC at best are misinformed and are misinforming the public on the capability of these cameras. At worst, they are lying to obfuscate the information collected. The specific example I'd like to bring up is that the GRPD represented that FLOC cameras in searches are limited. You are not able to, or they are not able to allow for searches of facial recognition. However, even if that were the case, that only applies to how GRPD accesses this information. For Flock to be able to determine what is and is not a license plate, it still needs to capture all of that information, run it through its AI, and it will store that information for, as we spoke of, potentially up to 30 days, but who knows how long it really is. Once something's on the internet, it's out there forever. And this information is stored in a database where we don't know exactly who has access to it at all times. This could be other cities, other municipalities, other states, even at a national level, federal agencies. There are truly any number of other bodies that have access to this information. And regardless of the abundance of misuse that has happened using flock technology, GRPD or not, setting aside the errors that are becoming synonymous with the name flock, this body and the GRPD set an incredibly poor precedent by allowing these tools to invade the privacy of your constituents, your friends, your neighbors, your family and loved ones without their consent. Thank you for your time.

Hi, my name is Chantel, and I'm a Grand Rapids resident. First of all, like many others in this room, I stand in solidarity with COSAGE's six sanctuary policies, and I'm here to call on commissioners to terminate any and all contracts with automatic license plate reader providers such as Flock. I'd like to point out some inconsistencies about the intent and effect of flaw camera usage and automatic license plate readers as a whole. Firstly, I'd argue that the use of flaw cameras undermines police work and their effectiveness. Given the already ample level of personal data that law enforcement has access to, as well as the use of body cameras, what does this additional tool, if you can call it that, provide to law enforcement that they do not already have access to? Furthermore, as others have pointed out, flaw cameras function on the assumption that anyone can be found guilty until proven innocent, or rather, if they can be bothered to do their due diligence of proving their innocence pre-crime. This is another example. Despite already having the evidence with body cameras of ineffective and improper use of police surveillance tools, that law enforcement has been given undue power to surveil Grand Rapids citizens in general, and its black and brown citizens in particular, and all with the ability to self-audit the use. Anyone who's been involved in a healthcare institution is taught that we're to use the minimum necessary information to conduct an explicit tax. What is this omniscient level of surveillance doing to make police work more effective? When the GRPD hopefully releases reporting of how flawed cameras have not been found to contribute to a significant decrease in crime, this result should not be tolerated and does not lead to better police work or a safer city. If you're concerned with improving the public trust in GRPD, cancel any existing city contracts with Flock Safety or any other company who operates automated license plate readers. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Karen. Thank you for hearing us tonight. I'm here for civic participation, civic engagement. I'm glad to see more of the community is starting to come out and I hope this gets bigger and better each time. I was here for the meeting earlier today. It was mentioned there wasn't a chance to comment or ask questions. We should be allowed to move freely through our community without being surveilled. I firmly believe this. We should be able to move about our community without being surveilled. Flock and mass surveillance in general are big brother. The infrastructure is being built that tyrants can and will abuse. We never consented to being tracked. This tracking, these flat cameras and other surveillance companies that are being pushed on citizens violate our Fourth Amendment. Carpenter versus United States was the benchmark Supreme Court case that ruled this in 2018. Many other cases have been ruled citing that as well. The surveillance state watching our every move and tracking our movements is a search. It's a constant warrantless search. Earlier today, a member of the GRPD spoke on how FLOC is actually less invasive than, and I quote, getting and serving a warrant. He hit the nail on the head. It's much easier for GRPD to avoid the due process and legality of obtaining warrants and simply use tracking databases to surprise and then take into custody their targets. Which on the topic of warrants, why does GRPD also assist ICE when they do not provide judicial warrants for the humans they are targeting? Requiring a judicial warrant would mean ICE stand empty handed as they don't use them. They don't follow due process or human decency for that matter either. ICE needs to be abolished. Most human loving people agree on that. What really worries me is the normalization of these fascist steps. The local oligarchs have been mentioned tonight, and I think most of us know they are the ones who have the most power over the city. We know Big Brother is watching us now all the time. Nothing is private. Some may choose invasive tech like Ring, doorbells, Alexa, or Siri. That's their choice. And to give up their privacy is their choice. We never consented to give up our privacy. It was encouraging to hear some members of the Public Safety Committee at least raise concerns. I'm sure there's fallout when pushing back against GRPD and our local oligarchs. So I'm sure it takes courage to do that. Community members are here and ready to push back. Everyone here is showing courage to speak up. It's inspiring and I hope it only builds. I did hear the request of commissioners after the last meeting for the public to be more proactive and not just reactionary. I do hope and believe this is the beginning of many community members joining together to really affect change. And propose an ordinance banning Flock, Axon, Motorola Solutions, and any future road and civilian surveillance. We want to bring something to you that you can vote on. I stand in solidarity also with Cosecha and the six sanctuary policies. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Leisha Fagan. I live in East Hills. I think that's the second ward. There's so much that's been said so well and so much I have wanted to say. Before I forget, I also am in solidarity with Cosecha and Rapid Response and their demands for this to be a sanctuary city. I was a teacher with Grand Rapids Public Schools, and managing a classroom might resemble managing and being the teacher of a classroom might resemble your jobs as city leaders. And I never found authoritarianism or underhanded tactics to ever be effective in my job. My most beautiful years were when I was able to create community among my students. And we supported each other, and the people who in another classroom might have felt out because they were a little different or whatever, not in my classroom. My students all supported each other. We know from studies what makes for a good community. We know that helping people who are living in poverty is what makes a safer community. That's a fact. We know that. More policing doesn't make a safer community. Nobody mentioned Mamdani yet tonight, so I might as well. You know, look at what Mamdani's doing. He's not out there throwing more armed thugs on the street. In fact, he's not supporting ISIS actions at all. He is creating community. He is putting up grocery stores that people can afford. housing that people can afford. He's taking buildings that aren't being used. By the way, I'd really like to see Grand Rapids do this. Take buildings that aren't being used and turn them into housing that people can afford. So create the city. You don't create a city by policing it into being a wonderful community. That's not how it works. I listened to somebody from the ACLU today. I wasn't at this meeting. I forgot about it and had another meeting. But I want to echo what the person who read their statement said. In case you didn't catch it, any municipality that has a contract with FLOC can access the data from any municipality that has a contract with FLOC. So, in addition to that, in case you don't know, there's lots of... Time? You're kidding. I was just getting started. Let's create an oasis instead of a hostile environment.

My name is Liz. I'm a resident of the second ward. I don't have a whole lot to say that someone before me hasn't already said, and largely came up here because I thought it'd be cool if we pushed into the 10 o'clock hour, but there's someone behind me, so that'll happen. But the community didn't show up to speak for two hours on a variety of issues, but rallying around a single issue for nothing. We appreciate your time, we appreciate your attention. It's late, everyone still seems very engaged, but we plead with you that you hear us and don't let us sell out to people who don't care about us because we know you care about us. Thank you.

Hello all, thanks for still being awake. Appreciate it so much. And my name is Cindy Hicks, and I live on the 1000 block of Sheldon near Highland. And I just wanted to just let everyone know the amount of flock cameras and other cameras I live under I think would cause the average person to go psychotic. I'm not just making that up. There is four of them on Division and Hall, one on every corner. And then the park, Ted Raspberry Baseball Field, that is right next to the Sheldon Apartments. It's a subsidized senior apartments. They had the flat camera in the middle of the parking lot. And there's not even really that many cars that little old seniors drive. And then they moved it out towards Jefferson and Delaware, but it doubled in size. Like, now there's two, and they're not listed on the flock map. They're not listed. There's over 200 in the greater Grand Rapids area, but I just, like, count, like, just in two blocks, there's 10 right there in, like... seven just right like on me and in all my neighbors and i i'm fearful for them and oftentimes um the grpd comes southbound down jefferson and then people um go westbound on highland and then they oops they end up right in front of my house i just open my door and oh my god it's just holy I'm just like, what the hell? Again, like five days in a row. Just two days ago, it was two times in one day. There was a 65-year-old man that the GRPD pulled off his bicycle. And yeah, and then they just took him to jail. And I said, hey, what's going on? And they're like, none of your business. So that's how I get talked to. And then people wonder why I have a little attitude. I get no respect from no officer. They're so awful. and don't deserve any jobs or money. And I see a lot of violence, like it's heavily affected me and more so the people that are subject to it. So I just want to quickly tell you there's been five stops in five days and all of them were very rough and Quickly, I mentioned a kid was brutalized in front of four kids. So four black children lived next door to me. They saw the police pull up. They were excited, and they're like, oh, look, the police. And I said, no. I said, those are bad people, and you don't ever want to be like them. And they just stood there in shock and watched. the GRPD come up to this kid and he didn't even know why he was getting pulled over or nothing. And he had his hands up in the air and he said, He said, why are you doing this to me? And they took his head and shoved it in the car. And they shoved it on the car. They shoved him on the ground. And they looked like they were going to put a bullet in his head. And these children watched this. And I had to scream. And it's on my Facebook. Anybody can go on there. And more than just me videotaped it. And there was a lot of neighbors out in front. And there was 10 officers shielding all of us back. as if we were just, we're just, I'm so glad that kid wasn't dead, okay? Those children were traumatized, and they should never, ever have to watch that. And it was the night before school. And all I asked the officers was, is this going on in your block? Does your kids have to watch this kind of crap before they go to bed, before the first day of school? I screamed to the officers, there's children here. There's children. I screamed it 20 times. But watch the video. Don't just take my word for it. But thank you for letting me speak. Please no more flack.

Hello, Commission.

I'm Luke Nichols from the Second Ward. Thank you for staying up and listening to all our comments, and thank you for all the commenters before. I don't have too much to add to the flock conversation. I had the opportunity to listen to the Safety Commission meeting, and it was heartening to hear that that commission has quite the onus to keep transparency, to keep the public safety in mind. And it was really nice to hear a lot of those policies that would potentially protect us when a lot of this data is being thrown around and being collected by ALPRs. When we're kind of talking about this flock conversation, the data being collected is unfortunately not hosted locally. and therefore our policies only work so far to protect the data that is being collected. When it is collected by a third party source, it is unfortunately kind of up to their policies and their corporate policies, not necessarily regulated by laws at this point in time, and probably is a little bit more concerning with how that is being used. I'd like to kind of echo Commissioner Isasi's point or question during that meeting of how other municipalities that do not necessarily have our policies and protocols are accessing that data as well. I'd also like to laud Commissioner Kilgore for bringing up the ACLU letter and introducing that to the record. I would also like to echo that and and say that we should probably take some time, suspend the contract, and really kind of iron out our policies and procedures, engage the community before implementing this technology that could potentially be very dangerous to its citizens. Thank you for your time.

Hello, my name is Richard, and I live in the third ward of the city. And I originally came to this meeting only to listen and have the experience of like, you know, going to the ninth floor of the city hall and listen to people speak. But as everyone gave their speeches, I increasingly got surprised, almost surprised, and I was having a lot of thoughts there from the back of my seat where I originally expected used to be audience. I noticed tonight not a single person came in here in support of vlog cameras absolutely nobody unless I heard wrong or there was maybe one person because I have very bad attention issues and still absolutely no one is in support of this camera so I'm just kind of giving a summary of what I heard. But I came here with a bit of a neutral perspective. This speech I'm giving is completely improvised. But from a neutral perspective, if someone haven't heard of vlog cameras before, and they heard everything that has been said here, they will be in a position where they feel like they need to get out from their seat and also come forward and become another person who is against floor cameras. And it's also... incomplete support of the idea of taking down the cameras, as many have said, like not renewing the contract, taking them down from the streets, or giving them a moratorium, if that's the correct word. These are some of the things that I heard, because I came here with open ears, and I really tried to think, what if someone came in support of flood cameras? I thought there would be at least three or four people. And I said, I'm going to listen to them. I'm going to listen to them, you know, because I'm already very aligned with the people that are against vlog cameras, you know. But I said, I'm going to listen to them. And I didn't have the chance to listen to a single one. I speak in favor of vlog cameras, and I swear I was ready to listen. You know, and it's insane the things you can hear. They can be misused. They are used for racial profiling. They are used in collaboration with ICE. And they are generally this big, broader tool that is not good for the public at all. And this is the last thing I'm going to say. I'm aware my time has run out. I am someone who is concerned about my safety. under many different things. But for example, I don't have a car. I don't have much money to be spending in Ubers. And I think it's like, yeah, 10 PM right now, past 10 PM. And I have to walk outside at night to catch the bus and go to Silver Line. And in the stop at Burton and Division, Burton Square, one of the Silver Line stops in which I have to go out of to walk like 20 minutes home or 15, there is three floor cameras in lampposts. That's a lot. And I do not feel safe at all with the cameras. I do not feel any sense of safety. That's all. Thank you. Good night.

Mayor, I just want to point out it is not fair to give some people extra time and be very stringent on others. It makes people feel like they are not equally being

treated so I I hope we can make the rules pretty clear moving forward I hear you on the other hand I would like to let people finish their thoughts and people came down and put a lot of time and effort in here and I do hope that people self police and there are limits but the people who went over I think everyone so far made a good fifth effort to wrap things up as fast as possible. I hear your concern, so let me just reiterate, Kim, if you can keep it as... Keeping your three minutes, that'd be great.

I respect that, but there were other people that had hard cut-offs at three minutes. They didn't get to finish their thought.

If that's true, then I'm sorry to those people. I'm trying to call the strikes and the balls as best I can, and I'm trying to be consistent, but... I'm not perfect so I'm sorry if that frustrates you.

I understand too if we're all a little tired and cranky and I think I'm the last one maybe so we can wrap this up soon hopefully. I remember coming to my first city commission meeting I think it was towards the end of 2024 and looking at all of your faces and thinking I'm really excited to learn who our leadership is. I'm really excited to be a part of this. I'm happy that We have these meetings. for our neighbors and the public to come and express ourselves, so thank you for that and continuing the facilitation of that. We're watching cities around the country, even in Texas of all places, banning data centers, the use of flock cameras, and I really said to you, and I meant it, I remember, I don't expect you to, that I see us being a world-class city, an example for cities all over the country and the world, But we're not making the right decisions to do that and to move forward to be a world-class city that we can all be proud of. Month after month after month, we're begging, pleading, and screaming and fighting to make sure that our immigrant neighbors get the rights that they deserve. The Constitution has been thrown out the window since this current administration. And I want to see us as a city support our neighbors no matter where they come from, no matter the color of their skin, no matter the language they speak, no matter the religion they practice. Did you all pay attention to the primary and see Abdul's point spread against Haley Stevens? If not in Kent County, you need to really make a note of that so that you know what your constituents are thinking and feeling. It's very clear who we're voting for. what we believe in, and Abdul has no problem saying abolish ICE. There's no question in that, and that's who we're supporting as a community, so we need our leadership to step up and support what we're looking for, what we're asking for. Of course, flock cameras being banned, that's so obvious. I love the point that our neighbor just made about the fact that not one person has ever, that I've witnessed, come to any meeting and say, I'm a fan of flock cameras, And I'm a fan of ICE, not once. You see it and read it on our videos that are shared online in our live stream. Half of those people don't live in Grand Rapids and the other half are bots. So I hope you're not taking your direction from them. So if you're not taking your direction from us, please, Mark, David, who are you taking it from? Is it DeVos? Is it Van Andel? Who is it? Because it's not us and it's not the bots online. I did a test case study for Grand Rapids. I've protested everywhere with speakers and megaphones all across the city. The only time I had to go to court was when I was in front of Amway Grand Hotel and DeVos Hall. So you tell me what's going on.

Mark back again. I don't hear all the complaints of these flat cameras. But we all know who's behind all this. The guy that's occupying the house on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He is destroying this country. I mean, let's be for real. He's trying to, he's trying it so bad, and some Republicans are fed up with him. To the point that the farmers are getting pissed off due to the fact that he is importing Argentinian beef, which there's no telling what might be in there trying to poison the people. Or he can run off with his, run off and ho-hop with his little mistress, new mistress that he's now gone. He's now gone. and wants to rename an aircraft carrier after him, the USS Orange Felon. And as for the fly cameras, I get what you're saying. I get what they're saying. The romantic... romantic type of tricks that they're trying to get, that these cops are trying to do, and everything else. And not to mention, and I'll bet this is happening too, the 18 or so black people that has been hung from trees all over the South, and even up North, up in Rothbury. If you want to do something, here's what you need to do. And anything short of knocking these cameras down, that's not gonna happen, but you need to get out and vote. People have spoken, you need to get out and vote. We know that our prize is coming up. This is a good time for individuals to get out there and demand people to get registered and go vote. Because if not, This stuff will continue. Trust me on that one. Sean Grayson, may you rest in hell. Revenge 2026.

My name's Andrew Moore. I live in the second precinct. I would like to address David LeGrant. What was it? Probably half of my life ago, you were a defendant for me. You defended me. You were my attorney. And I'm asking you today to stand up and defend our Constitution, our Fourth Amendment right. Every day I leave my house, I look across the street at a camera pointed at me. And as a child growing up with an alcoholic mother, no father, and very, very little distance to find out where the line of what is right and what is wrong. Now walking in a life of nothing but God and looking at everybody as equal, I see constant division. I feel like I'm being surveilled. Every morning, pull out of my driveway, look across the street at this camera, pointing it directly at my face. I come home, it's pointed directly at my driveway. When the leaves fall this fall, I'm going to have that camera pointed directly into three of my windows of my own home. I'm just, I feel like it's becoming more and more of a constitution, it's infringing on our rights as our constitution. I support the police. I support ICE. I'm not here to defend or say what's right or wrong, but I do know that our constitutions are constitutions we need to stand on. The first all the way to the last. It's very hard to walk life knowing that I've committed crime and then to work through life and build a solid foundation of myself and then see that camera and not think back to my old ways of the crime that I want to commit. I want to go out in the dark and take down that camera that's pointed directly at my face every day. I think to myself, I will not retract, I will not go back into the past and commit a crime or be a bad person or do anything wrong with society, but think is wrong. But honestly, constitutionally, that is not right. Us having it pointed at our face, it following our directions everywhere we go. I've looked up a reflective for our license plate reader so we can be non-reflective. They've removed all reflective license plate reader or anything reflective off of Amazon, off of Ace Hardware, Home Depot. You can't get anything reflective so we can reflect or stop from being reported or followed. So I ask you once again to stand with me, stand with us, listen to us, and know that our rights, our constitutional rights are being violated. It's not a matter of if, but they are. It's happening. And everybody is equal. Jesus is king, God is king, and everybody is treated equally. And I'll also leave one more thing. I would like to say thank you. You are stand up and I look up to you and I have been and I always will preach nothing but good about you because you have changed my life forever, forever. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Jason. I'm a Grand Rapids resident in the second ward. Well, we've all been here for a bit, so I'll try to keep it quick. No one likes flock cameras, you could probably tell that. You're not gonna find a bunch of people clamoring to keep flock cameras. Just some things that I found out while researching this is the locations of flock cameras are really disturbing. If you go to Muskegon Heights, you look at D-Flock, they're all surrounding Muskegon Heights. It just seems like there's a very intentional almost targeting of lower income minority communities. You can see a higher concentration near Wyoming around certain communities. You can just look this up on demographic data. It's not that hard to find. The fact that the Office of... OPA, I forget what it stands for, public accountability, something like that, that they don't have like the authority to overlook the flock cameras because of the grandfathering. Like it's insane. Genuinely, like it's scandalous. Like the way that flock works is fundamentally different from the 2012 ELPR cameras from a different vendor that you had. Like they don't, They don't work in the same way. They can record the type of vehicle you have, bumper stickers, scratches, all this stuff. And then there's a massive database of over 100,000 cameras nationally. So all that information, I said I'd make it quick, sorry. Yeah, if you could be awesome, like a bunch of other communities, take a stand against this, we'd really appreciate it. Politically, it's just the smart thing to do, genuinely. So, thank you.

Thanks. I think that brings us to the end of people who want to speak for public comments, so I will move on to closing comments from my colleagues. Commissioner Knight.

good okay commission you saucy thanks mayor it's late and I'll just say I appreciate the robust discussion today around a variety of things I think as a commission we have responsibility for a number of things as it relates to public safety city services I think today in our public safety me we talked that this was not the end of our conversations I feel I felt very good after having that discussion with you, Mayor and Commissioner Kilgore and City Manager, and I think talking to our colleagues beforehand. So thanks for coming out. I think sometimes we get in this room and we use words that are in the binary of nobody, everybody. There's, you know, I really... my seventh year of this that's not how I you're not gonna convince me of stuff like that I think these these situations are way more nuanced than that and I look forward to future conversations around what are the guardrails that we have in place what are the realities I've heard different numbers mentioned tonight about you know a hundred flock cameras we have 31 And then there was the whole history. So I'll just point to that. And then I'll also just point, we talked a little bit about OPA and some of the reports. This was the presentation that they gave. There are 12 different oversight type reports that are going to be done in this next year. So I really appreciate getting that roadmap city manager about where are the priorities and look forward to those future discussions. Thank you.

Thanks. Commissioner Belichick.

Yes, sir. I agree that this has been a robust day and a robust conversation. And I'm glad you brought up the reports that were going to be had and the conversation that happened at Public Safety. I want to just say thanks again to Manager and to our police and our Office of Oversight and Public Accountability because they are working through those reports. And so I hope, I hope, I hope that people continue to watch because and listen and talk to us and continue to have this conversation because this is not a one and done and I think that we all recognize that up here. I think that having this conversation, having this presentation from Flock today, all of that was very timely and also I think we have to look at it as as a win. It's a win for our community to be able to be publicly having these conversations because I don't remember having them in this way except for maybe the drone conversation. So I think this is good that we're doing this and I would point people to the comments that we've been hearing about how are people in lower economic or black and brown communities being potentially targeted and what are the statistics and how that's all related and I just want to say that today at the community or committee of the whole we had a really fantastic conversation and presentation with some really strong data that combines all these different influences and social policing and all this other stuff. It's from AdjustGR. So I encourage people to go back and really look at that. This is going to become a tool that I think we're going to continue to use in the conversation. There's going to be public data available that we can actually pull these things together. But there was a lot of trends and real analysis that I think can help us in making these decisions. And the long and the short of it is, and I will repeat what I said there, I do think that there is a real indication that the community safety is more than just policing, that it is absolutely the basic needs that we have in our community, and that includes housing and other things. So I would like, I will continue to advocate for that to be part of our conversation, that safety includes where we live, how we live, and the services that we're able to access. And transportation is also a part of that. Mr. Kilgore.

I just want to thank the public for coming out. I'm hoping that folks can refer to our public safety meeting that is posted on our social media platforms and YouTube as well, where you can find the letter from the ACLU, of which in the Public Safety Committee, I did say that I support and I will continue to support the measures that they raised in that letter. The ACLU, whenever they come to this body, it's very moving for me. It was one of the first times when we had a nuisance ordinance for the city of Grand Rapids when I really felt like, oh, yeah, I'm going to run for office because folks are just not meeting the moment. And that's when we were penalizing our unhoused community members. And I stood with the ACLU then, and I'm standing with them now. So I'm really looking forward to... further conversations and this was really good feedback it is really great when folks take time out of their day to come and talk to us and I'm really thankful for my colleagues who they did say that they everyone up here is committed to really not only listening but then taking action the ACLU talks about one integrating it into our surveillance policy they have some other very simple points just in case folks watch this video these are going to be some of our most viewed videos of the year, so that's why I want to make sure these things are read. They gave four simple points of if we don't cancel the contract, we can do a few things. One, engage in extensive community dialogue. Two, undertake a robust research and vetting process. Three, establish public accountability and transparent auditing and report requirements. And four, enact and enforce strict data storage and sharing restrictions. Another option is to adopt an ordinance to guide the use, oversight, data storage, sharing of ALPRs in a way that better protects the privacy of the community members driving on a roadway while preserving the limited use of technology for public safety purposes. So the ACLU has developed a model ALPR or city ordinance that would They'd be happy to share with us So I'm gonna be working with their regional office to see what that looks like Are we already having that in our there's a lot of comparisons that we need to do and I hear the urgency and community But I always say that we have to be metered and then also We don't want to do things in haste, so it can be lasting, so it can be smart, and really benefit the community. So these are going to have to be conversations that we have, so we're not making it in haste and then have to come right back to the drawing board. So I'm really thankful that my colleagues are looking into this. I sort of have felt for my two years like I'm the guy who's saying I'm against the car. I'm not against the car. I'm for seatbelts and the airbags. Like that's what I've been with the guy of technology, whether it has been these data centers or the use of AI. I have consistently been someone who says we've got to look into this and we also have to have the pulse of our community. So I think that's reflected up here. I think no one was dismissive to the concerns of community because that's who we're here to serve. So thanks again, and also thanks to the GRPD. Chief Trigg is going to be a special guest at my community conversation next month, September 15th from 530 to 730, where we can continue this conversation, do it in a different venue. It'll be at LifeQuest in the third ward, hopefully more accessible to third ward constituents, and another avenue that's not City Hall to talk about some of these issues. And with that, good night.

City Attorney? Yes.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioners, for your work today. I want to thank the staff for their work. I just want to be succinct in my comments. I'm going to finish where I started off this morning. I want to thank the Police Department for bringing forth this briefing and Chief Prigg. And as we said this morning, today was to get informed. And we've certainly been informed by the Police Department, by FLOC, and also by the residents. And what I committed this morning was that we wanted to hear perspectives and then contemplate those and work with our city attorney's office if there are any administrative changes or otherwise, and I'm still committed to doing that, and we need some time to reflect on what we've heard throughout the day and then to come back and follow up. I also want to thank those who have really been part of some amazing events this past weekend. We just had the... return to the river festival that was totally free to the public and a lot of activations along the river corridor and continuing to experience a safe summer. This is the first week back for some, first classes, others next week. So we want to make sure everyone continues to be safe around intersections and following at a safe distance for all the buses that are on school routes. So have a good night.

Thank you. So I want to make a couple of quick points and then talk in some detail about flock. So the first thing is for those of you who referenced the sanctuary policies that people in our community have been asking for in general in West Michigan, I'm glad people are advocating for those policies. I think most of them are sensible. But you can see that on our OPS website, we now have a landing place where we point out, for example, that we don't have 287G agreements, and there are a number of reasons why we couldn't even if we wanted to. So if you want to go look at what the city's stance is relative to some of that conversation, that'd be a great place for you to go, and I recommend that. Second thing is, I was saddened to hear people sort of dismiss the work of Cure Violence. This is actually a very important conversation. This is a national idea that came from a doctor who studied transmissible diseases and said that in a lot of ways, violence is a transmissible problem. And so if we want to deal with this, we should deal with it on a community level. So it is very much an alternative to standard methodologies and ways we look at violence and it's very much a harm reduction system. It's very statistically grounded and I think it has great promise and it's one of the reasons why I'm glad the city's investing in it but I'm also planning on going with our city manager to Chicago, soon I hope, to talk with some of the leadership in what's essentially a national movement to try to reduce harm and reduce violence in the community. So I urge those of you who are interested to go read, the founder has a book out, and if you want to learn more about the Cure Violence Movement, please do take a look at that. As far as, one thing that I was really grateful this weekend, and thank you city manager, I certainly want to thank OPA. We had an expungement fair this weekend, and we had massive, massive demand. I think something like 700 people came out to try to get their records cleaned up. And that's because we've made that much more possible at the state level. But the need for people to get help on that is great. I intend to work on the city manager and others on the commission. I hope we're going to work on trying to get more volunteer lawyers out to meet that demand. That's really important work for people to be able to put their past behind them and be fully, you know, and with dignity reintegrated into society. Please keep an eye on that work and support it as the city continues to do it. I'm very proud that our city is putting time and resources behind that. People drove for hours to come for this, so we're not just helping people in Grand Rapids, we're helping people who just don't get the service in their community. so I really really want to say sincerely thank you all for coming out and discussing flock tonight a lot of really really good positive thoughtful commentary and I really appreciate it this is so much what I hope for from from community comment there wasn't any there wasn't any personal attacks in this, there wasn't any anger. I mean, so much of what we were talking about was just, there's a really foundational question, right? And that is, how much observation surveillance policing do we want in a community? And that's always got to be a valid topic for conversation. But I just want to, and I've been, for a long time, I've been having conversations with the ACLU about this and about possible options here. Commissioner Yasasi pointed out, I don't know, a long time ago, it seems like when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth, that this question of why the flock camera policy isn't subsumed under our actually, I think, very comprehensive and very good surveillance policy. I urge you all to go out and look. We have a 10-page or so pretty comprehensive surveillance policy, and flock did not get included under that surveillance policy. So that's a really good first place to start the conversation. I want to point out to you that Our police chief, our city manager, everybody up here is committed to some basic themes. We want to work towards transparency. We want to work towards accountability. We want to work towards reporting and examining what's out there. Now, we may not make everybody perfectly happy on this and I don't expect in an issue that's got tension that we're going to get immediately to a place where everyone in the city agrees on something. So I want to point out that I respect and really listen to some of the core arguments made by some folks and I want to flag them. So Charlie, who I don't think is here anymore, pointed out that the simple question of heightened, other people emphasize this too, but the question of whether heightened observation becomes a Fourth Amendment question. That's a really valid question to have. In other words, I'm looking out at all of you right now. I don't think that normally we would say in normal human parlance that that's surveillance. But if we're entering into a new territory where you have the ability to track people over time and that data exists and can be used, that is a different and an emergent conversation about what we mean when we talk about the Fourth Amendment. And so my eyeballs on someone are not the same thing as big data. They're not the same thing as AI. It's not the same thing as collectively tracking and harvesting massive amounts of information about citizens. And so that is absolutely an important conversation to have. And so thanks to those of you who did that. Charlie, yours jumped out. Alex, I think you had very good arguments. Claire, I thought your statement was great. Miles, I thought you had a good summary there. And Luke, I appreciate your statement. And I don't mean to I don't mean to exclude anybody else there, but those are some of the folks whose statements really stood out to me. So thank you for the thought you put into this, and thank you for the reasoned raising of concerns. I think that in a democracy, this is what we have to do. We have to talk about these issues, and we have to do our best to get it right. Two things are true. We're almost certainly never going to get anything perfect. And we're certainly not almost almost certainly not going to get complete consensus on any issue. But I really do appreciate this. I think this is a great and the one thing I'll say that others have said, this is a starting point. And the city manager was very clear about that we you can't have a you can't make policy without first talking about what is. And so a lot of our conversation this morning, the two hours of it was what are we currently doing? So that we don't get misinformation and confusion. And Commissioner Usasi pointed out, we got the information. We flat out asked this morning, and we got a very clear answer. There are 31 flock cameras in town. It may be that people are seeing cameras that they think are flawed cameras that aren't. And, you know, we can have that conversation about what those are and what other kinds of things are going on in the community. This is a big conversation that I don't think we're going to tie up in a bow next Tuesday or in two months or properly ever. I don't think you ever stop talking about the interplay between privacy rights and public order. I don't want that conversation to stop. If that conversation stops, something's wrong with our community. So I'm glad you're all engaged. I hope you will keep engaged. I hope we will continue this conversation in thoughtful, specific, actionable ways. And I think that there are some emerging themes here and And there are going to be, I think, good recommendations that come from the community, and I hope wisdom that comes from the folks that you've elected to try to wrestle with this. And somebody earlier on criticized me for not being an expert. Well, there are a million things that I'm not an expert in. There's a million things that everybody up here is not an expert in. We're not elected because we're experts in electricity transmission or deep sea diving or anything. There's so many things in the world. I'm not an AI person. I'm not a tech person. There are some things that all of us have more expertise in and less. But yes, I am not an expert in data surveillance. It's not my background. I don't have a computer science background. I don't have a, you know, I just don't have a tech background. And so in those circumstances, the people you like just have to listen to expertise. And whether it's expertise in the community, whether it's internal expertise, it's both. It's all. And so we can't hear you if you don't speak. And so I really, really want to say thank you for coming and speaking and engaging. But don't think this is not a one and done, right? This is a continuing conversation. Thank you all for continuing the conversation. The last thing I'm going to say is for those of you who wonder about this when you hear condemnations of alcohol from a faith background, Jesus' first miracle was city manager. Thank you all.