Common Council - Regular Meeting
The Common Council approved the minutes and agenda, and received a presentation on the city's performance management system. They also discussed and voted on several committee reports, including a contentious debate about a drone and surveillance camera program, and an appeal regarding an excess dog permit.
About this meeting
- Government Body
- Common Council
- Meeting Type
- Common Council
- Location
- Green Bay, WI
- Meeting Date
- December 16, 2025
Transcript
94 sections
Recording in progress. All right. That's right. Call to order the meeting of the common council for Tuesday, December 16th. Clerk. Yes. All right. Thank you, clerk. Now, please rise for the pledge of allegiance and remain standing for an invitation offered by Alder Morgan. Ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with all. You can sit if you want. I found this one. Thanks to Alder Hutcherson for reminding me that it was my turn. [laughter] I felt that this uh has a little bit to show us the reason for the season. Jesus, you were born in a little town. You grew up under the authority of local leaders and officials who manage the majority of your daily life. We lift up our local leaders today. We pray for our mayors, city councils, county commissioners, police chiefs, judges, and all who serve our local communities. Strengthen them in wisdom and grace for the heavy burdens they carry. May they manage your teams and projects with love. Keep your hearts pure and their eyes turned toward their face as they work in the best interest of the people they are called to serve in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, Alder. And that's just where the calendar fell. We didn't even intentionally uh set things up for you to do the holiday meeting. Uh, next we'll move along to approval of the minutes. Motion to approve by Alder Profit, second by Alder Stevens. Uh, any changes
there? Seeing none, all in favor say I. Post nay. The eyes have its eyes have it and the minutes are approved. Approve of the agenda. Second. Motion to approve made by Alder Presley and seconded by Alder Ritterbush. Any changes there? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it and the agenda is approved. Next report by the mayor. Um you'll see in your packet uh and for the public, our 2026 [clears throat] committee and council schedule has been attached there. Uh so for planning purposes, uh you all might want to take a look at that to see what the meeting schedule looks like uh for 2026. Uh otherwise, just wanted to wish everybody happy holidays and and merry Christmas. Uh special appreciation to Alders EC and Hankfist and Stevens and everyone else who contributed uh to the little festivity that uh we had before the meeting. So appreciate all of that. Um and with that, we'll move along to uh to our meeting. We've got a good agenda and hoping we can move through it rather quickly. Um announcements from our council. Yeah. Alder Johnson Van Heck. Thank you, Mayor. Since it is the season of forgiveness, uh I'll forgive Alder Morgan and his uh apparent bias in terms of uh his bias towards police chiefs and his overlooking of fire chiefs. So uh thank you Chief KN for everything that you guys do as well. [laughter] Thanks Alder Johnson Alder. Thank you mayor. Um yes it and this is it's not in Green Bay but it involves an alder. So this Friday, um, Alder Presley is going to be performing. Is that a good way to Oh, [laughter] at um the what's it called again? Comedy City. Comedy City Pier. So 7 o'clock. All right.
We'll be there. Other announcements. All right. No recognitions and awards. Uh next up we have a a presentation um from Ishu Gupta who is a fellow in the mayor's office here. Um and he has a slide that is about himself but he doesn't want to talk about himself so I will talk about him on his behalf but we we've been really fortunate to be able to have Ishu in our office as as a fellow u brought to us uh with the Bloomberg Harvard city leadership initiative. Um, and so he's been with us now over a year, a year and a few months. Um, and so he's got a two-year stint with us and has been doing some really great work, uh, focused on the the city's data strategy and some of the performance management that he'll he'll talk about tonight. Um, he has 10 plus years of experience in impactful digital transformation for state and local governments. Served as transition team fellow for the mayor of the city of Gainesville, Florida. worked with City of Providence to improve their recycling rates and got an undergrad in electrical engineering and a master's in public policy uh from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard the podium. There we go. It's displayed [snorts] There we are. So, thank you, Mayor Genrich. Um and before I start the presentation, I would like to thank Mir Genrich for the opportunity that I've been [clears throat] given to serve the city of Green Bay and also I extend my gratitude to all the city staff members and the council for this
opportunity to present the work we have been doing over the last one year like more than one year now. [snorts] And like in between the presentation if somebody has a question or wants me to stop or repeat something just please feel free to stop me and ask anything you would like to ask. Um this should take about like 30 to 40 minutes to go through like all the pres all the slides. Um so the idea of performance management is largely about like building alignment with like within departments and building cadence in terms of seeing how we are doing how well we are set up to deliver on the services we promise our citizens. Um and we'll be talking about the foundational work we have done in terms of enabling the performance management in the city of Green Bay and how we reached to the conclusion that this is something which would be important for the for the city and before I get to the performance management I would like to give a little bit of context in terms of why why am I here and why am I doing this. Um so Bloomberg Philanthropies has like a set of initiatives which works with uh in different cap capacities with uh mayors and senior leadership or different cities to enable the challenging tasks they are performing in the in in the municipal uh offices. So Mayor Gendri before I sort of joined the city of Green Bay Mayor Gendri participated in a mayor leadership program. uh it's a year-long program and which works on uh a different aspect and then it leads to uh enabling the city to scope out a challenge which they would like to sort of get solved um and that transitions into a city hall fellowship and I am a city hall fellow it is a two-year fellowship it helps in uh supporting supporting cities in developing and
deepening capabilities to addressing municipal challenges the Another U wing of Bloomberg Philanthropies is City Data Alliance which is a center set up at the government of uh sorry center of government government excellence at Johns Hopkins University. Um they work on executive education programs for city leaders and senior staff. Again we have been working with them for the last almost 12 13 months now. first on setting up the data foundational work and then we got into the second program um based on AI and exploring AI how can we leverage AI in different city services. So in terms of the flow of the presentation today we I will take you through in terms of understanding what performance management system is um what it actually means what foundations had to exist first before we sort of build a performance management system and how it sort of shows up as departmental KPIs and what are the support interaction we are looking for in terms of the next steps. [snorts] So in terms of like the vision of setting this up, this was largely based on Mayor Genrich's participation in the in the program and my first initial few months of conversation with the city department heads, department staffs and also the mayor um mayor's office to understand what the gaps are and what is it that we would like to do to overcome some of the challenges we are seeing and the objectives are very clear in terms of we want to improve service delivery and we want to use data to inform
decision- making. We want to ensure accountability and transparency across the organization. We want to align all the efforts our departments are doing with the with the the focus areas and the priorities of the city and engage the community through feedback and evidence-based dialogue making sure that their feedback is part of our city priorities. So to articulate it, the greenway needs a very simple citywide performance management system that unifies departmental data, improves day-to-day operations, and helps city hall tell a credible story that builds public trust. And performance management is also like a like a commitment to sort of continuous learning. And this is the team which has worked over the last one year um to work on different aspects of this um initiative. Um it started with a team of 10 people and we have later set up a data governance committee which is a committee of 23 stewards. I will take you into the details of data governance committee and what it does uh a little later into the presentation. Um and also want to sort of emphasize here that this is not a IT or a mayor's office initiative. This is something which which needs collaboration which needs listening from every corners of a city hall and this is and listening is is at the core of this to sort of unlock unlock innovation. and we are looking to sort of um learn and improve data services on so um and also it and mayor's office plays like an important role making data accessible reliable and secured but performance belongs to the organization and not to one depart department and this is going to be like the larger key in terms of uh sustaining this effort.
So uh now the question comes like what is what is actually like performance management and uh why it matters. So performance management is a very simple management theory which has been functional in a lot of organization in terms of understanding if they are able to sort of deliver on what they have either promised or they what they want to achieve. At its core, it is about turning goals into measurable outcomes and reviewing them regularly and to act on what we learn from that um review process. Goals, measures, review cadence and action are the core pillars of performance management. We need clearly articulated goals. An example could be something like we want x percentage of the roads to be in a certain condition. So we want it to be sort of specified to that extent. Then measurables are indicators which help us learn in terms of where we are, what we have been doing and where we want to be. [snorts] It helps in sort of preserving what we have been doing good and also letting us letting go of things which are not working for us anymore. Measures are important and they are only important if it is sort of leading to any kind of conversation and behavioral change in the organization. Review cadence is the process which enables vertical and horizontal communication channels and make sure that people are talking and using this these data points and I mean measurables or measures to bring into the um meetings and sort of decide in terms of what would they like to act on. Performance management also um is not an individual or an employee
valuation. It is about systems like how do we evaluate systems? Um through clear clarifying what success looks like, what success means for organization. We want to track progress with a small set of defined indicators or KPIs as we call them. So we want to sort of select a few indicators which would keep or build that individual knowledge into institutional knowledge. create routine conversations about results and drive improvement through actions and it also helps in reporting transparently across the organizational hierarchies including horizontal hierarchies [snorts] to understand this a little better and I think it'll be useful u for people who have the the print out can sort of read in there and excuse my brevity of sort of putting something like this in front of people of Green Bay. Um so this performance management system for an organization is for a team who wants to build a Super Bowl and then how KPIs are kind of built. So think of think of like a general manager of a team who says that he or she wants to make money for the owners. they will largely set like two objectives for themselves. Win a Super Bowl or and fill the home stands to 100%. Now these two are like very different objectives but actually speak to the same goal. The general manager will sort of delegate this further to the the coaching team and the marketing team and these two will become different objectives for these two teams. Winning the Super Bowl means that the team should be functioning and performing really good and the head coach will have that priority.
The the marketing team will focus on making sure that the stands are full. Now the head coach will have their own set of indicators or KPIs. Passing attack amasses 300 plus yards per game. Defense allows fewer than 17 points per game. special teams unit ranks in top three in punt return coverage. So this is further breaking down that one objective into three objectives. Now when the head coach sort of delegates this further to their team, they will distribute that those these three KPIs through to three different teams and then they will have their own set of KPIs. The offensive coach will focus on making sure that the team generates 300 yards per game passing attack. The defensive coach's objective would be give up fewer than 17 points per game. And the special team's coach objective would be to improve top three ranking for punt coverage team. Then they will have their own sort of set of um KPIs. where the data comes in is basically the KPIs of the offensive coach, defensive coach and the special teams coach. Now to achieve 65% completion rate will need a data source where the data is being collected either in every every game and every practice session to make sure that it becomes part of every team meeting in terms of what is it that we are doing well what is it that is not working and what is it that we would like to do uh going forward and then there is a cadence in terms of at what frequency the team meetings would happen at what frequency the head coach would meet the general manager and how these All these KPIs actually speak to the larger objective. [snorts]
The key is to make sure that every role has a clear objective and a clear alignment to the larger objective so that every person can find their place into the larger sort of objectives. And overall this is about setting a vision without any kind of vagueness. When we say that we want to sort of have a passing attack amass of more than 300 yards per uh plus yards per game, it is a very clear objective. It it removes the vagueness. It defines what is good, what is better, what is not better. It helps the organizations to learn without blaming. It helps a continuous process to in within the structure so that people are sort of continuously learning from what they're doing. It also sets up a structure. structure of accountability and it also sets up accountability without fear because it gives very early warnings. It does not um you will sort of learn a lot in advance that what is it that we are set up for. So this is like a very uh simple example of what performance management would look like and this is also a very similar thing it would it it does in any sort of organization including a city. It aligns efforts across departments so that everyone is moving in the same direction. And this is uh an a very 30,000 ft perspective into the operating cycle of u [snorts] of any performance management system that you set the direction you define KPIs you ensure that you have data you have ownership of the data then you review uh there's a cadence to the review perform reviewing the performance and then there's a process of acting improving and then feeding feeding uh feedback put sorry putting those learnings in back into the direction in terms of so that it reflects in terms of what is that we are learning and how we are going to sort of change ourselves.
[snorts] These are the pillars to sort of sustain um this effort making sure that there's a alignment across the organizational hierarchy things are time bound and [clears throat] measurable which drives results. So we should be sort of continuously driving results improving processes. Processes is like an integral part of it. How the data flows within the organiz organization is very important to learn that we need visibility into processes and once that process is visible then people can really sort of contribute to the conversations from gaps perspective in terms of highlighting what is it that is exactly not working. So process visibility is another very important part of it. um continuity in improvement so that people are kind of seeing how it is helping them improving in their daily work, overall operations, resident services and also giving them space to experiment and innovate. It also needs continuous investment in staff through training and development, building communication channels and operational excellence. This is it and data and tech are integral part of setting up this performance management system and we need continuous investment in IT modernization data sharing practices digital services and tech pilots. So when I'm saying data what it means in greenway. So over the last one year we have u uh set up a data inventory in terms of building a database of data what exists in city of green bay and so far we have been able to identify 500 databases across departments and just try to just see that 40% of these databases are updated on a daily basis and this is the volume of data we are talking about. 60% of these data sets have more than 10,000 records. 15% of them have around 100,000 records
and 25% of them have between 10 10,000 to uh 100,000 records. So this is the kind of volume we are talking about and but uh and data governance is needed because as we can see only 79 out of 500 databases can currently be accessed by other systems. So we need to sort of make sure that these data sets are talking to each other so that we can learn from like a more holistic perspective. Now what that what this work would look like in green way. So what you see in green has already been done. I will be going into the details of uh each one of this. uh the yellow is something which is work in progress and the last three which are in red are going to be something which uh we would come to in the next one to two years. [snorts] So the first step to setting up the um performance management is to city vision and priority uh which is basically like focus areas. We decide on to like four or five focus areas which is the leadership's priority. Then we set up the data governance so that we know like where the data exists. data inventory is um is needed in terms of what systems do we have, who owns that data and I will also take you into the like the data inventory we have set up and also making sure that the data we are using is trustworthy so that we can rely on it we can make sure that when we are saying that we have evidence we actually have it. [snorts] Data quality and in integration is again like the the the next step after data inventory. We review and audit almost every database which is going to feed into the system so that to make sure that the data we are going to use is standardized. A very simple example would be that for example when we collect name in any application or in any form or in any database. If one database collects first name first and second name second and the next database
collects second name first and first name second then these two will have problem in integration. So we want to make sure that data standards and data quality are in place so that these data sets can integrate better. [snorts] The next is to make sure that we have data visualization to make sure that each focus area has the set of KPIs and how to use that KPIs to make sure that we are learning holistically and we are able to communicate the full picture. So the dashboards and performance reports become the visualization of it where the where the which becomes eventually part of the meetings. Um so these dashboards will eventually I mean I'll also take you through like one of the dashboards we have set up. um of our uh police department. Uh then the next is decisions and actions. Then how what is it that we are learning in those um performance review routines or meetings and then monitoring and evaluation. So the the the first six steps are a very continuous thing. For some priorities this would look like on a quarterly basis. For some it would look like for a monthly basis. And these are like the smaller loops that you will come to the dashboard, see something and then go back to saying that okay this is what we need to sort of work on [snorts] uh or we need more data so we need to sort of add more sources to the data inventory or review the data quality. The monitoring evaluation and feedback is the is something which we come to about in like a three-ear thing in a three-year cycle which then feeds back to the the city's strategic priorities or the city vision for the future. So this is uh a continuous loop but all these loops work at a different frequency in a in a different cycle. Why it matters to the city council essentially because it helps decide clearly. It helps in building and strengthening accountability and
transparency and it also helps in building evidence especially when choices are tough and trade-offs are real. So because data helps in seeing things more objectively it creates u a picture which is more collectively understood and aligned and brings alignment. So to sort of summarize it, I would say that steward stewardship of taxpayer dollars how we are spending are we like what what's the value that we are generating out of the money we are spending. It helps us articulate that more effectively. Better service delivery and resident experience we are able to engage with residents with much more uh confidence. Uh it helps in moving from we think we are doing well to defining that well and saying that we have the evidence. It uh helps in building accountability without blame. It shares it creates a shared sense of ownership. It it replaces surprise problems with early warnings and it helps in strategic decision making. What we have done so far in the last forif 14 months. Um we have largely focused on these four pillars strategy and governance enterprise data visibility standards sharing and risk management applied use cases and early value. Data strategy connect Greenway is our three-hour data strategy plan. We have set up a data governance committee which has met about 21 times this year. We have been meeting uh on a bi-weekly basis. We have set up a data inventory now which is visible to uh everyone in the city hall. Um we have set up a data management we have like a draft of data management standards and data sharing guidelines. We have also reviewed bulk waste pickup pract uh and fleet management in the city hall to sort of see the the kind of value that uh data can generate for the city. We have also um
participated with city data alliance in terms of exploring the early use cases of AI in the city and also figured out like the kind of data foundations we would need if we want to leverage AI and city operations. [snorts] We have generated uh generative AI use guidelines uh which is currently under review. Connect Green Bay is a three-year strategic plan which focuses on data quality, community engagement and datadriven culture. Um we launched this uh in February of 2025 and this has been the strategy document which has largely um guided us in terms of what we should be doing next. And these are all the initiatives we have taken and a lot of work under uh these categories is done. Data governance committee we set it up in January 2025. It is a nominated team of data stewards across departments. We have 23 data stewards across the organizations. Now um the purpose purpose of the meeting is to basically meet bi-weekly. We do workshops, we do trainings, we also meet for understanding and building a collective leadership around data. [snorts] All the key tasks have been completed under the guidance of this committee and the key committee is responsible for uh all decision making. This should also be seen as like and treated as like a long-term infrastructure so that the keeps the city keeps improving regardless of turnover. Um this is the structure that makes progress durable and will sort of keep making sure that individual knowledge becomes in institutional knowledge. Data inventory is data on data. which is basically data based of the city data. Um I will just take you through this second.
Sorry. Okay. [snorts] So this is the data inventory. It is integrated into the city's uh Microsoft teams. And so if you like go to any department, let's say if you go to community and economic development so you just take a few seconds. Yeah. So on the left what you see is all the database all the databases which the city which this department has and then if we click on any database we will get to know who the data steward is what what system stores this data what's the data source the description in terms of what information does this data uh base has the data owner like the primary person who understands this data and who manages this data This is the contact address of the person. If there is any company like for example, if there is any database which is not owned by the city but owned by a a contractor or a vendor, then what who is the contact person so that we can reach out to and figure out um to get like raw data for us? If the data is sensitive or not, if the city owns data, if the data is used in decision- making of the department, um how important is this data on the for the daily processes? Are there access controls? Can other systems access access this data? Can the data be permanently deleted? Can the data be made public? collection start date, frequency, frequency of data quality check, data storage location, server and then uh how
many records and information does it have. [snorts] So this is largely this is like a 30 variable data set on each database of the city and this is this is not flashy but this is like the backbone of the the performance management system because this is where like every system would come and we will get to know in terms of what the data looks like. The next thing which uh I like to show is the the dashboard and this is like a very simple example of what we have set up for the or the police department has set up for uh the city. We we will sort of make it public um sometime very soon. So this is a crime clearance data for the for the city of Green Bay and this is na you can navigate this by district. For example, if you like collect uh if you sorry click on district A and you can zoom in sorry and then you can also see if what kind of so we have categorize aggravated assault, autotheft, burglary, robbery and theft from auto. So you can [clears throat] check all of this data on a very regular basis and this is just like one example. So the the [snorts] idea is to set up the open data hub which will have data resource center, data learning center and city of greenway website. All of this would sort of come into one location [snorts] and just sort of avoid confusion this is these are not like real locations these are approximate locations this will not sort of yeah I I could see that conversation happening that's that's the first question which comes to mind um
so you'll have to unplug And [clears throat] [snorts] Okay. Yeah. Any questions so far? Yeah. 500 databases like you've listed in here 500 databases. Yeah. And looks like you inventoried them all. Yeah. Did you Are all of them valid? Yeah. Are we using them all? Yeah. I mean it's part of the city processes. These are the databases which are current which we which we use. Wow. That's scary. And there might be more. [laughter] So I mean my sort of um conversations with the data stewards tell me that we are somewhere about 80%. There and this is never this will never be 100%. And 80% is a very good stage to be in. So these are the data source platform I just showed you and then we have worked on zeroing down on the focus areas. And if you like look at city operations, this is largely like core services and budget programs. And then focus areas are like complex
long-term initiatives requiring significant staff capacity and cross- departmental coordination and collaboration. And we have been able to uh zero down on five of these focus areas and then so which are organizational excellence, fiscal responsibility, um balance and equitable community development, modern community centered public safety, 21st century infrastructure and amenities, intentional employee recruitment and engagement. So these are the five focus areas the city has decided that um are the long-term initiatives um for building those these KPIs and the performance indicators we have engaged with the 23 data stores and all the departments um to build KPIs using this these focus areas in in focus um and we have been able to come up with about 200 the of these KPIs uh AC distributed across these five focus areas has. And this is again like when we say that this has happened, this is about 55 56 meetings distributed with different departments of um our team and also more than about sorry not more than but 22 meetings of uh data governance committee which has largely executed this uh whole initiative. Um, now we'll go to departmental KPIs and I think Joe will take over. Yeah, thanks Ishu. Um, he said we have 200 KPIs. Uh, we're going to go over two tonight, just two. So, bear with us. So, with community economic development, uh, they have three overall objectives. Uh, business retention and creation program, improved service delivery, and housing. So, all of those objectives have their own KPIs, and we're going to walk through the KPI for affordable housing. want to go to the next slide.
So this what departments did to build out their own KPIs. You can see there's the main objective which in this case is to create and preserve affordable housing across certain area median income levels. There's a KPI name. There's the KPI description and then there's the data source which we have 500 of them and the data source is helpful to know where the where it's housed and how to track it and then also how to report out the data. Then we have the measurement frequency. Uh these will be for annual um measurement. So for affordable housing, we have what we're tracking is the dollar amount that's invested by the city, the total housing units permitted, and then from there, we're breaking down to the total units based on the area median income, and then we're also tracking the preservation of affordable units. So that's essentially what we've done for each KPI is break them down to what we're tracking. Um, so I gave that example for affordable housing and director Juen's going to give an example of public works and if you guys have any questions about that process, please let us know. Next is uh Valerie. Yes. So for DPW, we have a number of different uh key priorities that we identified. Uh we group them by different areas such as you know fleet management, parking, um sanitation. Uh for example, we're tracking fleet age and use uh for improved efficiency and reliability, tracking uh various KPIs for parking services to improve effectiveness of services, and a number of other ones. And I'm going to drill down on the KPI that we have for roadway condition. So, um for roadway condition, we're tracking a number of different things. um percent of roadway miles rated fair or better condition based on our paser ratings. So that's a scale of 10. Um everything above five would be fair condition. And we're up we update that data every two years. And then uh the other data that we track is number of
miles reconstructed, the number of miles mil and paved, number of miles resurfaced, uh total miles and total roadway segments as well as our um budget for all of that. And that just um gets at, you know, how much roadway we're improving and, you know, how that compares to our total roadway system. And as you can see like so when we like build these performance management systems we make sure that we have a data source listed in there. This data source will be the same data source which we have in data inventory and then from that data inventory we can actually track down in terms of where the data is where the data is stored. We can see if that can be accessed or not. if it needs sort of any special API to be built to access the data and what it needs to um close this loop and then data visualization will help us in terms of bringing all of this information together to inform in terms of how we are doing when it comes to the roadway condition in the city of Green Bay. [snorts] Um I know I've discussed a lot just to summarize all of that. Um this is largely what [snorts] uh the gaps which we identified to come up with the leadership vision I presented. The siloed data plus unclear outcomes. The data is currently siloed. Nobody knew that we will have 500 databases or more. Um absence of communication or lack of communication. We have uh lack of horizontal and vertical communication channels. tight budgets and rising expectations um which is like very common for the three governments. Uh service demands and resident expectations are continuously increasing and we need something like like this so that we are continuously learning and uh investing back in from those learnings into the how we serve our citizens. Workforce strain um impacts service levels. And then interventions what we have done
over the last one year is basically we have built an alignment through data governance and a performance management framework. We have set up a data governance committee which is a cross departmental platform [snorts] for people to have conversations on data around data and building uh data governance for the city. Uh measure we have started to put a performance management which basically means we are measuring what is what matters to us. We are building capacity and cadence. We are continuously investing through trainings and workshops to make sure that we are building cap cap capabilities and cadence of our workforce where [snorts] we want to be. We want to make sure that we have a sharper focus in terms of what is it that we are achieving. We want to have a greater capacity to deliver to our citizens and residents. Um we want to make sure that we are learning fast enough and we are correcting u quickly and we want to build a culture of strategy, curiosity and innovation. And that is going to be like largely phase two and three over the next two years. He asks uh since Alders are like the most familiar face of the city government and they have a very strong public communication. We would really like and value if they can help us in terms of what is it that the people would like to sort of see in this performance management. What is it that they value? Um we want to create a consistent feedback loop into performance reviews. uh we want to make sure that uh we are continuously talking about what we are building and we want to formalize and encourage a simple recurring mechanisms to review as KPI builds [snorts] up and the when and we are seeing the trends. Um we want to set expectations for transparent plain language reporting so that we know and we are communicating our story to the citizens and residents of Green Bay honestly and transparently. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks so much for the the presentation issue. You know, I always feel a little bit guilty carving out a good deal of time for presentations like this at our city council meeting, but I think it's really important um for our alders to get an understanding of what's
been going on sort of beneath the surface and what will continue to emerge um a little bit more publicly as we continue to move down the line, especially once, you know, more dashboards are are ready and available to our public. And as Ishi was saying at the tail end of the conversation, I mean, our our alders um are the ones that are our elected officials that are best integrated into our neighborhoods and they're the ones that are hearing questions and concerns and complaints on an everyday basis. And so I think you all have a greater understanding of maybe what people are looking for um as far as, you know, information being shared with our residents. So, thanks to to Ishu and to Joe and Dave and the entire data governance um committee, everybody that's played a a role in in pulling all this information together and who's committed to to seeing the this multi-year effort through. Um so, with that, any any questions from alders? Yeah, Alder Presley. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Really fantastic. That that was exciting for me. Um but uh so if we if we do have things that people tell us that they want tracked or they want visualizations for um who do we go to with that? Do we go to you like anyone like Joe me or anyone like any any department should be fine. Yeah on a regular basis. Yeah roads. It's always roads but there are more. Well, and I mean that's a just to you're joking but also serious like we've got our paser ratings that are up on the on the website going back I don't know how many years several years several cycles it's done every every other year. Um I know this year's rating is just still finishing up or maybe was just finalized within the last few days. Um you know we have a pre-existing like data hub where GIS maps are located and um so that's always a really good resource but uh yeah I would point people to the the website and the maps there. Yeah, Alder Johnson, thank you uh issue for the presentation. Really, uh appreciate your commitment
and time investment here in the city. Um and much like Alder Presley, I too am kind of a data nerd. So, this whole thing excites me. Um, you know, one of the things I was curious about those when you talk about the KPIs, if we're I guess what type of guidance or security is there in terms of establishing KPIs that show progress and advancement and I'm going to give you an example. Um, I think roads are are a great place to start and I think the example that director Jensen had provided in here where, you know, the objective is to have every road graded at this level or higher. That to me shows advancement and a commitment to um where you want to be versus something that I've often times seen in the public works annual report which is we fill 20,000 potholes a year. It's it's a metric but it's actually not a metric I like. I'd rather have that number be smaller because it reflects we have higher quality roads. Right. So just kind of uh curious if you guys have had that kind of discussion around the metrics that truly are meaningful that require you know us to monitor and show progress towards that objective. So that has been like the largely the focus in terms of like really going to the the the weeds of it in terms of saying that we want to know anything and everything about like for example we when we are saying roadway condition we want to understand like the potholes being repaired like in every mile. So we want to make this data granular in terms so that it is not something which is just a metric which tells the story in terms of what is it that we are doing that this will not repeat or this will repeat. Uh so yeah I mean that has been like largely the focus. Joe and I have had like multiple conversations individually with all the departments making sure that we understand the whole process and what it means when we say that um we want to improve roadway conditions in Green Bay. So like and once we have the baselines of each of these data sets sorry of each of these
KPIs and I think we'll be able to sort of answer your question with much more clarity because then we will know where we are uh that that is actually the next step and then we will also set up the goal based on in terms of what the trends have been saying so far and um so yeah I would like to say that we we are on the track. Cool. Yeah. Any other questions? Any other question? All right, thanks again for the presentation. Really appreciate it. Uh, next we have appointments, some reappointments. Motion to approve the reappoints made by Alder Profett and seconded by Alder Stevens. Any discussion? Uh, seeing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. And those reappointments are made. Uh, we have a number of items on committee of the whole. No, I'm going to take these individually. Motion to approve made by Alder Ritter Bush and seconded by Alder Profett. Any to be taken individually? Alder profit? I number five to be handled separately. Any others? Hearing none others. All in favor of approving the remainder of that report will signify by saying I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. The report has been approved. the exception of item five on that alder profit. Um, this item comes before us for um, we don't need to go down that road. Um, but we have it on L5, M1, and X6. Um, so I know there's been a lot of work. I want to thank um, the McDonald Companies and GP for meeting with me a few times since our last meeting as well, but the amount of staff time that has gone into this has been tremendous. So, I would just love if staff could kind of paint a picture of not necessarily why it's on here three times, but just where we're at and where we need to go and what all those items are going to do for us tonight.
Great. Director Reneerwig. All right, I'll I'll give it a shot. Here we go. So, this zoning originally came before the council in January of this year. Council actually approved the plan commission recommendation, which was to reszone this entire parcel downtown. That went through the first reading. And then March 4th, we had the public hearing. Council held this item March 4th. They held it on the 18th. They held it on the 15th of April. Um, and at that point, I believe Scout Development Green Bay um went into a planning um option with GP on this project and had plans for the site um and wanted to work with us on it. So on July 15th, we did a memorandum of understanding with Scout Development, which is McDonald Properties, um to kind of work on this together to come up with a compromise to figure out a way we could resone this parcel and um kind of meet the the needs of of all parties involved. So since that time, um I know McDonald Properties has been working on a number of projects um in that area. We actually met I think December 2nd this came back again and council held it because McDonald properties came and said hey give me a little bit more time come back at the 16th. We met between those two days and actually I think we've come up with a solution um and something that might be acceptable at this point which would be um and the map was in your packet but um so the parcel is one one big parcel right now. So the southern portion, southern half would be zoned downtown. There would be a 150 ft buffer line of of light industrial on top of that and then to the north it would remain general industrial. Uh this agenda item number five is specific and it's at the committee of the whole because we haven't discussed this buffer area in this regard. So this agenda item is specific to the 150 ft
buffer area that we would like to get approved. The the second reading involves the downtown section, the southern portion. Um and then the third item at the end is the first reading which we would love to see a first and final on that buffer zone which would complete this reszoning then to downtown 150 light industrial general industrial to the north and and Mr. McDonald is here as well if there are comments um and he would like to speak if he would like to speak. Um yeah, Alder Prophet, you still have the floor. Yeah. Do you want to speak at all? I would Yeah. Okay. Um I would just add to I think um initially there's hesitation towards leaving any of that partial general industrial for a multitude of reasons. Um I know that McDonald Companies and GP are still working through the potential for a PUD as well to just get more specifics on this site. But I think dispelling of this action that we've seen um is the right move tonight and that allows them a little more time without having to continue to give them a turnaround time to come back with more answers for us. Um this allows them the opportunity to work through that PUD to flush out a little more. So I'm comfortable with this. He you seem good. Don't need to add you don't want to add property right everything is still under GP. Um my understanding is that's been extended um till June I believe of next year. Yeah. So there's there's still time and there's still work to be done on this site, but it's a massive site. So rightfully so, it would take some time, but um appreciate GP McDonald companies and and staff really just it's a complicated site and we have something in front of us that I'm excited for. Is that a motion? Uh motion to approve. To approve made by Alder Profett, um second by Alder Dele. Discussion on that. Seeing none, all in favor say I.
Oppos? Nay. You guys have it. And that item has been approved. Ordinances. Second reading for adoption. Motion to suspend the rules and take up these items with one roll call vote. Name by Alder Profett. Second by Alder Presley. All in favor will say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. The rules are suspended. Motion [clears throat] to adopt. Made by Alder Presley. Second by Alder Dele. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will use the board. You may vote. All right, those are approved unanimously. Report of the redevelopment authority. Motion to approve by Alder Hankfist. Second by Alder Galvin. Discussion here. Seeing none, all in favor say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. That report has been approved. Improvement and services committee. Motion to approve by Alder Dele and seconded by Alder Ritterbush. Items here to be handled separately. Hearing none. All in favor say I. Oppos. Nay. The eyes have it. That report has been approved. Protection and policy committee. Motion to approvement by Alder Stevens. Seconded by Alder Profett. Items here to be handled separately. One. Any others? Hearing none others. All in favor of approving the remainder of that report signify by saying I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. Actually, we don't have a recommendation on five. Is that right? [laughter] Okay, cool. Yeah. It defaults to separate division.
It defaults to what exists today. Yeah. So I think we need to handle one and five separately. Um hearing none others. All in favor of the remainder of the report will signify by saying I oppose. Nay. The eyes have it. The report has been approved with the exceptions of items one and five. On one motion to open the floor made by Alder Profett, second by Alder Dele. All in favor say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. Floor is open and this is to deny an appeal by Raven Wim regarding the denial of her over the limit permit. It was held over from the 122 meeting. So if anyone would like to speak, just approach the podium, state your name and address and we provide for three minutes. Uh Kale Lena 2221 Leisure Court. Um dear Green Bay city council members, I know I spoke at length at the last meeting, but I promised to try to keep this one a little shorter. I'm here today because these dogs mean the world to Raven. As I shared last time, when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, the first thing she said was her dog permit. Breaks [clears throat] my heart to have to tell her that I can't just get that for her. I can only say I'll do my best to make it happen. At the last meeting, you approved Raven's mom. To put it into perspective, even though she does not live in the same building, she lives across the parking lot. From Raven's front door to her mom's front door, it's only about 200 steps. Raven and I rarely walk the dogs around the apartment building. We always take them over and around the pond by her mom or take them to a dog park. Often Mia, the smallest one, is already done going to the bathroom before we even get there. So on the really cold days like we had on this past weekend, we had Raven's mom watch Mia until the other dogs were done. Raven does not raise these dogs alone. Just like with children, it's a joint effort. I'm there every single night helping. If Raven and I need to go and be gone for a few hours, we text her mom to go and check on them. Her mom helps
take them out even when I'm not there. People pass by these dogs in the hallway. Uh the dogs may sniff, but there's never any aggression, just tail wagging and begging for attention. Now, there are some problem dogs, and I'm aware of that. The dogs that are aggressive and have lunged at me through me and Raven through uh a glass door, off leash dogs, owners who aren't picking up, but all these dogs aren't asked to leave. A dog that gets pulled between cars when anyone walks outside because he can't be trusted is not being asked to be given up. But when it comes to Raven's calm, well- behaved dogs, the ones that people could spook without a reaction, we're being asked to give them up. Raven has followed all the rules. She submitted her ESA paperwork to the apartment complex. She got the dogs approved before moving in. And she applied for the permit right away when she found out she needed to. She ensures they're quiet through the throughout the day. and she even often asked me to check the camera throughout the day to make sure they're being good. Every time I check that camera, they're either asleep on the bed or nesting in the pillows or in the blankets. Raven and I have Raven has done everything right. She's not asking for anything she doesn't deserve. She didn't just go out and get more dogs. These are dogs she took in when her dad died. Mia was her dad's and when her brother needed more money because he was now living alone without his dad, Raven took in Tea as well. Now, I know Raven is probably going to get upset with me for mentioning this, but I think it's important. Neix is 13. The average lifespan for a German Shepherd is 9 years to 13 years. Mickey, a larger lab mix, typically lives to around 13 as well, and he is 12. TA is six with an average lifespan of 10 to 12 years. And Mia is six with Chihuahua typically living 14 to 16 years. These aren't untrained puppies. These are older and middle-aged dogs that have already been settled in their lives, routines, and love they receive from Raven. Their
lives are precious, and the time they have left is limited. We don't tell grandparents in senior living communities, "Sorry, it's time to go back to foster care." These dogs deserve their final years to be filled with the love they've come to know. Raven deserves the peace of mind knowing that it's coming from her. So, I ask everyone, please look at the facts. Raven followed the rules. The apartment complex has no issues with the dogs and consider how well behaved they they are and their age and bond they share with Raven and each other. Please allow Raven to cherish the the remaining time she has with these dogs. And lastly, please help me grant the Christmas wish for Raven and that's so that she can keep her dogs. Thank you. Your testimony, sir. Any questions? Y all together. Thank you for your uh testimony, sir. the the other dogs um that you're referring to in the building. Um are there four of them? There's not four of them. No. So, it's just one dog, one apartment that you're So, there's multiple different dogs that are issues there. It's not just one specific dog. Okay. And but those specific dogs you that are having issues, right? Are they a single dog in an apartment? Are they multiple dogs in an apartment? I believe they're single dogs in an apartment. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thanks, sir. Anyone else? Raven Molen, 300 Bond Trade Department 118. Hello, Green Bay City Council. I know I spoke two weeks ago about ago at the last meeting, but I'm here again because I want to clearly restate what I feel is most important. First, I did not go out and simply get more dogs. These dogs came into my care when my father passed away and my brother was unable to
take care of them. They have been with me for their entire lives and I stepped up to keep them together during a very, very, very difficult time for my family. I have not received a single complaint from the apartment complex or the humane officer. I have followed every rule to the letter. I did not try to hide my dogs or wait until someone discovered them. The apartment complex was aware that I had four dogs and they told me it was okay. When I learned that I needed to register them, I did so immediately and then I applied for the permit. My application was denied by the humane officer, not because of anything my dogs have done, but solely because of a number and because of unrelated issues involving other dogs in the apartment complex. I would also like to clarify some confusion. The officer stated that the apartment only allows two dogs, which is true, but the complex also allows emotional support animals. Just like my mother, who was approved at the last meeting, I have two ESAs, and I have their paperwork with me if any of you want to see it. This means that from the apartment complex's perspective, I am in compliance and only have two dogs. There is no issues between my dogs and the apartment management, while I do have four dogs, it is rare that I am caring for all of them alone. I help my mom with her dogs and she helps with mine. My boyfriend's with me every day, every night after work and assist with their care, too. Yes, there are times such as early mornings for work. I occa occasionally during the week when I take all four out by myself. On average, I handle all four dogs alone about five times a week. The rest have never had an issue handling them. They are well behaved and manageable. I understand there may be a concern because they are larger dogs, but I have demonstrated that I am capable of caring for them safely. I know I only have two to three minutes, so I'll finish with this. I do not plan to live here forever. My goal is to move when my lease is over. The officer mentioned that the property is poorly managed, but respectfully, I don't understand how that relates to my
dogs. I ask that you look at my situation and my dogs individually, not as unrelated issues within the complex. We are halfway through the lease with no complaints, no calls, and no problems. My dogs are fully cared for, up to date, and clearly well loved. If I didn't love them, I wouldn't be standing here for the third time fighting to keep the dogs that have been a part of my life and my family for so long. I understand there are concerns, but my dogs have shown through their behavior that they are not an issue. If the goal is to reduce calls, removing my dogs will not solve the underlying problem. Addressing dogs that have actually caused issues will. Thank you for your time and consideration. I ask one more time that you take into account their age, their health, and their proven behavior. Behavior that has resulted in no complaint calls. Please allow me to keep my dogs. Please allow me to continue giving them the love and stability they have always known, especially as they reach their later years of lives. Thank you. Thanks for testimony. Any questions? Yeah, Alder Stevens. All right. Thank you for coming this evening. So, you stated you had two dogs registered. I have a question for you. So, fair housing laws regarding apartment complexes are a little different. So, when you said you had them registered, did you talk to your doctor or psychiatrist to have them submit a letter in reference to having the tools? I do have a letter and I do have their certificates. I could um if you need to see that or if you want to see that, I can pull that up. Um I don't think I have the letter in this packet, but I could always pull it up on my phone. Okay. But you did go through those proper steps with your psychiatrist or your docs. Yes, I did. That's all I need to know. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Thanks again. Anyone else on this item? Motion to close the floor made by Alder Profett. Second by Alder. All in favor, we'll say I. Opposed? Nay. You guys have it. The
floor is closed. Alder. Okay. Um I think uh Officer Mavis is here and I I know we were waiting to hear from her. So I guess that's what I would um want to know. what um from her perspective, why she recommended denial. Thank you. Thanks, Alder. All right, she officer Mavis, thanks for joining us. Absolutely. Uh good evening. My name is Officer Mavis. I'm a nationally certified humane officer. I've been employed with the city of Green Bay for the last 18 years. Um since 2016, I've been in the capacity of a sworn humane officer. Um, I conduct both animal control and uh law enforcement related tasks uh which also uh encompass the excess dog permit application in the city of Green Bay. They limit the number of animals uh someone can pos each family dwelling unit can possess. It's two dogs and three cats. Um and part of that process is that if you choose to have more animals, you must first apply for the variance before obtaining those animals. Uh oftentimes uh people are not aware of our city ordinances. Um and my goal is to get them into compliance with applying for the varants um obtaining licenses and rabies vaccinations. Rabies vaccines and licenses are required by state law and city ordinance. And uh I over the last couple years I have been in contact with um the Broadway lofts and the fort at the railard. Uh we've had many many issues, animal issues, um aggressive dogs, uh uncontrolled dogs, uh people not picking up their animals waste, over the limit of dogs, trying to get people to rabies vaccinate and license their pets. Um oftentimes it's fallen on deaf ears with management. I have gone in each calendar year with our community police officer uh left documents on how to get reduced vaccination services uh for low-income
residents. Licensing applications advise that if any occupants have more than two dogs or three cats, they must apply for a variance. Um and the goal here is to mitigate the nuisance related issues that we have um at uh that apartment complex. And it's it's great. I know there was uh um made mention of aggressive dogs. Every animal complaint um we take enforcement action on through education, written warnings. Um if mediation attempts fail, it is enforcement action. Um there is an aggressive dog that is on the premises that is on notice of aggression. Um and I advised if there are any incidences after that time, I will unfortunately seek a destruction order. So they are aware of that. Um, Miss Wine had filed for an excess dog permit um, the end of August. I um, processed that permit in September. At that time, um, someone signed off on the variance who was employed at the facility. They did not have the right to apply um, for that variance or approve it, I should say. Um, and then I was told it's two dogs per unit by management. Um, they've had several managers uh, turn over with management uh, over the last year. Um, and when uh I denied the permit just due to the number of animals in a small rental property shared with multiple people where there's multiple animals, the likelihood of a nuisance being created is great. Um, and so I have to look at that and make the recommendation to either approve or deny the permit. U based on that, I denied the permit um because the first time we also did not get the signature and they were exceeding the number of dogs per unit. Um, that permit was refiled again in October. Uh it went to council. I explained the situation. Um state law defines an an emotional support animal. And I'm I'm happy to explain. Uh an emotional support animal needs an animal that provides emotional support, well-being, comfort, and companionship for an individual, but that is not trained to
perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability. Um what I often see in the field are folks that end up getting um multiple animals. They deem them as emotional support animals which are separate than service animals. Um it is deemed as emotional support animal not multiple animals. Um and we we do have issues with this um having animals be controlled and and that sort of stuff. Uh when the variance was filed with this particular case, um city council had approved Wen's mother to keep two emotional support animals and uh uh two additional animals on a property that is adjacent to the apartment. It's kind of like a condo style. Um there's a little bit more room there. I also denied the mother just because the city limit is two dogs and just coming in with an additional two more dogs. That's that's a lot of animals for a property, let alone a rental property where we have pretty pretty um big animal related issue um management issues and um it it is an issue just to get compliance with this sort of stuff. Um I am empathetic of their situation. I understand that animals are are part of their family. Um, I also tried to explain that as an animal owner, you have to understand our animal ordinances just like you obtain a vehicle, you need to know the the uh rules of the road and that sort of stuff. Um, these are state laws. Um, there are city ordinances that are in play. It's important to know uh what our ordinances are pertaining to animals and pet ownership and to ensure you know there there aren't issues. Thank you for the testimony and all the work. Alder. Thank you, mayor. So, I know part of the process is you send letters to people that live around that particular home. Obviously, it's an apartment, but Right.
Um, so I'm assuming you sent the letters and I was just wondering if you had any negative responses from the neighbors, right? So, letters did not go out in that particular instance because they were not approved. The permit was denied by management. Uh, management at that time, I spoke with a woman named April. She advised that there were there was a complaint um at times uh Raven would watch her family's dogs. So sometimes there would be five dogs at the unit. There was a complaint of a a loose dog complaint. So the permit was denied as it was incomplete. Okay. So have you had any contact with management since um it sounds like two of them were deemed emotional support since then or um or there's new management? it there was an indication that they now have approval from management. I'm just wondering if you had talked recently with the current management to collaborate that. I am told that they have new management as of two weeks ago and I'm not sure they they have literally turned over management um every couple of weeks. Um, we continued to get uh notification from the uh you know what it is is it's a a rental property that I I believe is owned out of Tennessee and they have different uh management and they're held for maybe you know couple weeks to maybe a month and then they turn over um and it's and it's been a struggle as far as law enforcement issues go, animal control issues go um and it's it's hard to get any cooperation over there. Thank you. Alder. Uh, Officer Mavis, do you know how many apartments that are in this building? That I'm not aware of. Could you give me an estimate? I know it's several floors. Um, I want to say maybe that there's eight units on each floor. That's just a guesstimate. Um, it's like 238. 238. All right. And and how many animal calls have you you have an idea how many calls
you're getting there? Um I don't know how many animal calls I have been to over the years there, but um I would say it's it's quite frequently I've had issues of dog attacks. Um issues where um dogs have bitten people, dogs have caused injury to other people, other animals, issues in the elevator, in the hallway. Um I've had animals defecating in the hallway, no one picking it up. um defecating and trespassing on private property um along that area. Um Donald Driver Way um 300 Bond Street um issuing orders, hey, you know, for trespassing, allowing your animal to trespass. And uh a lot of times people don't even call to complain because they don't want to get their neighbor in trouble. Yet this just adds to the chronic issue over there of it's just too many animals saturated for that property size. All right. You you talked about service animals. Um my impression is that anybody can go to a doctor or a psychiatrist. Is that is that how it works? And apply to have a dog designated as a service animal as long as they can say that the dog gives them some comfort in some way. Is that correct? That's correct. Someone could go to an animal shelter and potentially get an aggressive dog or any animal um and claim it's their emotional support animal if it provides comfort. We've been seeing issues with that uh the last couple of years where people uh try to get a letter from a therapist. Um the therapist typically never evaluates the animal, never meets the animal. Um and then in turn they use it just to circumvent the housing concern of no pet lease. And unfortunately that affects uh folks that have certified service animals that are per you know tasked to perform um a service for someone who's got a disability.
All right. And in this case they have four dogs but only two are emotional support and the other are just pets. Correct. And according to management from my conversation back in October, they don't count emotional support animals towards the allotted number. So, according to them, um, a person can have as many emotional support animals in a rental unit as they want. They don't consider them animals. So, if someone wanted to bring in 20 emotional support dogs or cats, they could. Um, and then they could get the two additional animals on top of that as well, and they would be within their rights uh, according to that rental unit. So, the apartment management apartment owners have the right to subvert our ordinance of two animals. No, unfortunately that's where this gets to be an issue. Um, they have to provide them, you know, obviously to have an emotional support animal on the property, but that does not supersede our our city ordinances uh limiting the number of animals. And if what I'm hearing correctly, it sounds like it's been a chaotic management mishmash over there with permission being granted, permission being denied, permission being granted, and then denied. Correct. Yeah. I've tried to educate, like I said, the management and the property owners doing property referrals. Um, I've gone in and, um, I've sent links. I've explained, hey, get me your rent roll so I can send out notification to every tenant that's got an animal on the lease and let's send it out to everyone in the building. A lot of folks uh, have animals. They don't um, you know, say that they have an animal and all of a sudden they move it in later on um, and it gets to be an issue. Can we use the chronic nuisance ordinance against the management and owners of this building? Um, we did have a meeting um I believe it was two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago. They actually got called in for a chronic nuisance abatement meeting. Um, I met with them along with our um community police officers. Um, and the gentleman who came in as a
representative for that meeting um I'm told is no longer employed as of uh like two weeks ago. So, but we had the meeting. Correct. They've been put on notice. Yes. So whether he's employed there or not, we can start taking action and issue ordinance uh violations, right? Yeah. If there's not a good faith effort. Okay. So, uh but getting back to this particular case, your recommendation is no. There's just too many dogs. Period. It has nothing to do with animals behavior. It has nothing to do with uh the requesttor in this particular case. Unfortunately, it's just too many animals for the dwelling unit. That's shared unfortunately um by multiple occupants, the grounds and and everything like that. It's just it's too saturated. All right. And you've been doing this for nine years. Yes. And prior to that, I was an animal control intern uh hired with the city in 2007. All right. And and so when it comes to doing these permits, you've been doing this a lot, correct? And in your opinion, have you been pretty fair and impartial with these things? So you look holistically at everything, right? Not just at that one apartment. You have to look at everything. Yes. When you make these decisions. All right. Thank you. Yeah. If I could just say too, it's easier to grant a permit for like a residential home versus an apartment complex, uh, a property that has more dwelling space, potentially a fenced yard to just kind of help reduce these types of animal related complaints. That's because the compression of animals, they feed off of each other. Is that not correct? It's a concern if there's a safety risk and there's a let's just say a loose dog um you know that's uncontrolled uh causes an attack. We now have an attack involving five dogs. You know, and obviously it's it's it's not an animal's fault at the end of the day.
They're acting based on instinct, but it doesn't help reduce the number of potential safety hazards that would arise from this number of animals on the premises. All right. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Yeah, Alder Hinkfist, thank you very much. Um, just a question on the service animals. So, you can have two dogs, but if they're service animals, you can have two more dogs. No. So, um, it's two. The city of Green Bay limits the number of animals. Um, it's two dogs, three cats. If you want more than that, you have to apply for a variance first before acquiring these animals. And it doesn't matter about being a service animal unless it's a true service animal. That's yeah, that would be that would be a service animal. Um, and that would be under ADA standards an animal that's perform that's tasked to uh u perform a task for someone with a disability. Um, and then if even them require a license and and that sort of stuff. Thank you very much. For sure. Anything else? All right. Thanks again, officer. Thank you. Motions, questions, comments? Motion to grant the appeal. Alder Johnson makes a motion to grant the appeal. Is there a second for that? Second. Second by Alder Ritter Bush. Uh, Alder Johnson. Thank you, Mayor. I, you know, I just kind of want to start out. These are difficult circumstances and I certainly appreciate Officer Mavis and and the work she does. And uh, and I think she's doing exactly what her job requires her to do, and that's give her professional opinion. and um and and usually that's based on certain standards or or rules or laws that that this body has established. I think where the appeal process comes in is I find it to be our responsibility sometimes to navigate the nuance uh that might come with individual situations and that's why we have this appeal process. And I think
the piece where I'm struggling a little bit is that um we currently do not have a law that states uh we limit the number of dogs per property or you know per x number of square feet. Um and I think to a certain extent we might be you know the problem seems to be a few other things a few other animals it management has been talked about. Um and there's nothing about the behavior of these dogs that has been cited that has indicated that they are a problem or that the owner is not properly caring for them. And given the elevated age of the animals, I I think that is part of the nuance that this body reserves the right to to contemplate when we're looking at this. Now, whether or not, you know, the back and forth on the apartment, should they have been granted or not, I I said this at the last meeting. I still firmly believe that's more of a civil matter uh you know between the uh the tenant and the landlord you know but the one thing that I kind of want to point it out is that and the way that I would understand the law is it's two dogs per unit right now and so there's 238 units times two that's how many dogs in theory you could have there now we can sit here and talk about whether or not that the law around that should be different and I think there's a time and a place for that uh but right now I think we're unfortunately treating uh the symptom and not the disease. And unfortunately this this tenant is, you know, becoming the victim of that, not victim is a strong word, is becoming sort of the maybe the the example because of the fact that she had to apply for uh for the appeal. And so my fear is that this really won't change anything in terms of the overall circumstance that exists there. And I think that Alder Galvin was alluding to it with some of his questions about how can we address that and there's a time and a place for that and there's tools and mechanisms. But the reality is that apartment complex right now I just
actually talked to um uh one of the folks over there and they are 80% capacity meaning they have 20% of their units are are vacant. So in theory that's 46 units right if I did my math right? 46 units, which could mean another 92 dogs could come into that. And we're talking about two with elevated age that are well cared for. Um, and anybody who's been, you know, around animals could also understand that when you take a dog who's reached this senior age, uh, and if you have to, uh, really rehome them, that that is a very stressful and challenging circumstance, not only for the animal, but but for the pet owner as well. So, that is why I made the motion to grant the appeal. I think we can have a certain level of discretion at this level while still acknowledging that there's probably a broader um challenge here that we need to address and that's what the abatement proceedings are for. So all any other comments on that? Sure. Go. I respect Alder Johnson's comments. uh they make sense um on a certain level, but at the same time, we have a a professional whose job is to assess these situations as to the level of safety um that is taking place here at this building. Safety, hygiene, uh a number of other factors that affect quality of life. We can say these dogs don't bark. I've got several in my neighborhood that don't bark that I hear every day. Um, and I've been assured that one is under constant uh video observation and recording. And yet I don't know how he's getting around it, but he's he's barking, but he's not barking. So, I mean, we we can hear both sides of this. We can also put the owner of the building under abatement, and once he gets that first ticket for $1,300,
what's he going to do with all his tenants and their dogs? You know, is he going to evict them? Um, you know, there's there's things that go on here and and I think we have to understand that officer Mavis, like I said, has been doing this a long time. She doesn't do this uh denial um without thinking everything through and I I I respect what she does and I think if she feels there's a good enough reason not to do this, then I'm going to support her and I'm going to vote against this. Thank you. Additional comments Hutcherson and then Johnson. Um, this is [clears throat] at least the third or fourth time I've uh seen Raven Molen come up and discuss her situation. I initially voted against the appeal. I'm going to vote for the appeal uh simply because and I want to I want to stress that uh [clears throat] the officer is doing her job well. I mean, she got up and she talked like a professional um and she made the right decisions. I think it's up to us, not up to her to make the approve the appeal. And the way that the um the applicant reveal has acted and discussed and been consistent and she is like a model dog owner. We want dog owners to act the way she acts and treats her uh uh animals. Um, so I think in this instance I'm pulling it out as unique in regard to the four animals and I am going to vote uh to grant the appeal. Thanks Alder. Alder Johnson is good. Anyone else like to speak to it? All right, we've got a motion and a second. All in favor will say I post nay. The eyes appear to have it.
Uh board vote has been requested by Alder Gin. This is to approve the appeal. This is this what says granting the appeal and under the motion? This is to approve the appeal. Motion was to grant the appeal. The item was to deny that passes 7 to five. Um on to item five for consideration with possible action on a draft ordinance relating to the Equal Rights Commission. Motion to approve by Alder Profett. Seconded by Alder Galvin. Discussion on that. Seeing none. All in favor say I. Oppos. Nay. The eyes appear to have it. And that item has been approved. Green Bay Police Department granting operator licenses. Motion to approve made by Alder Profett and seconded by Alder Ritterbush. Any abstensions? Names be handled separately. Hearing none. All in favor say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. The report has been approved. Plan commission approved. Motion to approve. Made by Alder Profett. Seconded by Alder Stevens. Items here to be handled separately. Three. Any others? Hearing none others. All in favor of the remainder of the report will signify by saying I. Nay. The eyes have it. The report has been approved with the exception of item three. Your wishes, Alder Johnson. I was just hoping I know staff's been
working on this. So, if director renew could give us an update. This I think looking at this we um we're looking at a recommendation which is actually the plan commission's recommendation and that is to approve the request for this partial alley closure at 309 West Walnut um with the following conditions. A maintenance and closure agreement should be established with the Department of Public Works, which would include that that alley um having a large enough turn radius to accommodate all of the trucks that would need to be um used along that back um borderline area. An ingress egress easement required over the alley or the drive alley portion connecting to the open portion of the alley which is heading out to Chestnut. And then the alley closure is contingent on a PUD or other planning device being enacted to create a food truck yard and event space. So he doesn't come forward with the PUD then this would be an Ellen Boyd. Thank you director. And I know I did talk with a number of the other impacted business and property owners and uh they had said if the uh if enough easement is granted that would allow that turn radius um that they would be willing to um basically take back their objections. so long as that their delivery trucks can still have that access. So, uh, with those conditions, uh, I would make a recommendation or I would make a motion to approve. All right. Alder Johnson makes a motion to approve with the conditions listed by Director Reneer Wig, second by Alder Dele. Uh, discussion on that. Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Post. Nay. The eyes have it. And that item has been approved. On to finance committee. Motion to approve by Alder Profett, seconded by Alder Stevens. Items here to be handled separately. Five others. Hearing none of others. All in favor of approving the remainder of that report.
Signify by saying I oppose. Nay. The eyes have it. The report has been approved with the exception of item five. Uh I think that was Johnson or Presley. Galvin wishes on that. to open the floor for interested parties to speak. Alder Galvin makes a motion to open the floor. Second by Alder Profett. All in favor say I. Post nay. The eyes have it. The floor is open. Uh name and address in three minutes. And this is to approve an agreement with Flat Group Inc. for surveillance camera and aerero drone EFR drone program. Does my time start when I start talking? Yes. All right. Cool. [laughter] Uh, my name is David Bedo. I live in 118 South Washington Street, uh, District 8 with Brian Johnson as my alderman. Um, I rise today to oppose the implementation of the drones for the flock safety system. Um, I mean, generally I oppose surveillance cameras in general, but especially this one. I would just like to tell the council that the FTC in November of this year, November 5th, opened up a lawsuit against flock safety systems for their unscrupulous use of data farming and their general uh vulnerability of their cameras. So, I would relook at our deployment of their system. Um, I pull I want to read a quote from their website. In my 25 years, the flock safety system is the single most important technology and policing that has come out. Chief Russ, Trustville Police Department, Alabama. I took the time to look up Trustville, Alabama.
It's a growing suburb of around 26,000 people with a median income or around $120,000. and it's predominantly white and it's predominantly young with a poverty rate is very very low. Now, why they would need [clears throat] a camera system was a mystery to me until I looked up on a map where they are. And they're suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. And Birmingham, Alabama is a very povertystricken area. And so there's a lot of high crime there. So this is a group of people that is extremely affluent and wealthy and paranoid of their neighbors that are in a more vulnerable position than they are. I think it's a bad example. So look towards when trying to follow in uh what type of city Green Bay should be. Now, Green Bay, on the other hand, their medium household income is $70,000. So, we're not quite as affluent. We're getting there, though. My issue with this is the fact that these drones potentially creepy and I would like to keep them out of the hands of the Green Bay Police Department as much as possible. because I think there are their time is better served not flying around drones around the city. But I don't oppose the use of drones from the fire department because of the simple fact of the matter is that the ethos of these two public safety entities are two different things. Last time I checked, the fire department doesn't spend their time searching for
fires in their fire in their fire trucks. They sit at the fire, you know, fire department until they're called on. But police departments are incentivized to be more proactive. And so I would if you are going to adopt this system, I would prevent I would strongly recommend you to keep it out of the hands of the law enforcement arm of the city because I think that's just a recipe for kind of creepy disaster. And there's only one place in the world that has drones flying around constantly, and it's Gaza, a strip of land that is the most surveiled piece of land in the country. Do we really want to be the Midwest Gaza? And then my other concern is simply the fact of the UN I'm sorry, three minutes. One one second, one more statement. My other concern is just the unsecured nature of this system and I would urge caution and care. Thank you. Thanks for testimony. Any questions? All right. Thank you. Anyone else? [clears throat] Uh Jay Gibbs. Uh I actually live in uh Iron Mountain, Michigan, but I am a staff representative for a local labor union which represents over 1,200 workers in Green Bay and the surrounding areas. These are people who commute into the city every day. They work here, shop here, they raise families here, and they depend on the decisions that you all make in this room. Uh so while I may not vote in Green Bay, I am deeply affected by how public dollars are spent and how public safety is defined. I'm here to speak in opposition to the proposed $1.3 million agreement for these block surveillance cameras and a U
police drone program. At its core, this is a question about privacy priorities and the direction that the city would like to move in. Programs like plot cameras and expanded police drone use represent a significant expansion of surveillance in our society. They normalize the idea that people should be tracked, monitored, and collected as data while just existing and moving through any city. Once infrastructure like that is in place, it only expands. The scope of the use expands, data collection expands, and the slow march towards routine monitoring turns into a sprint. This should concern everybody, but especially our working people, immigrants, possible protesters, and anyone who already feels the weight of overpolicing in their daily lives. Public safety is built on trust, stability, and meeting people's basic needs, not surveillance. And that brings me to the cost of this. 1.3 million is not an abstract number. It is a major choice to invest in surveillance technology rather than investing directly into things that can directly reduce crime. This same 1.3 million over 5 years could be put towards expanding affordable housing options in the city because housing instability is one of the greatest predictors of crime and community harm. It could be used to make our public's transportation safer, more reliable, and more accessible for workers who are trying to depend on it to get to their jobs. It could expand our warming shelters and emergency housing resources, especially now in December in northern Wisconsin with months of dangerous cold ahead of us yet. No one should be sleeping outside while the city invests millions in new surveillance technology. These funds could also support partnerships with labor organizations like my own and other community groups to create job training programs, work development pipelines, and community health initiatives.
stable employment, access to health care, and economic security are the greatest tools that any society has in reducing crime in their area. The reality is that the vast majority of crime is born of unmet needs. The lack of housing, the lack of healthcare, and the lack of opportunity. Surveillance doesn't fix any of those problems, but investment in programs that can address them directly do. Green Bay Green Bay [clears throat] has the opportunity to choose a path that protects privacy, limits police overreach, and invests in people rather than monitoring them. I would urge you to vote no on this proposal and redirect these resources towards solutions that actually make this city safer, healthier, and more resilient. I appreciate your time. Any questions? All right. Thank you. Hello, my name is Grace Markwart. I live at 2209 Fox Heights Lane. Um, and I am here to urge you to oppose this ordinance. Um, using drones to surveil the city is an infringement on our privacy rights and our civil liberties. Um, flock groups, they have been under scrutiny ever since they've been founded. Um and even more so in the past year places around the country um that have gone into contracts like the one you guys are considering um there is a lot of legality issues with the technology and business practices of this company. Um it's still considered by experts as a fuzzy gray area on whether or not it violates the Fourth Amendment. Um, and we shouldn't be considering something like this if we don't even know how legal it actually is. And I understand the argument is that our police department is understaffed, but this is absolutely the wrong way to address that issue. Um, we can't be trading our rights to privacy
and civil liberties just for convenience and ease of the police department. Um, to send a drone instead of showing up in person instead. um instead of spending this money on this project, we could better spend it on social services which have been proven to reduce crime rates. Um I come here today on behalf of my neighbors, friends, family, people who just would not feel safe with this project with drones flying over us. Um I'm asking you guys to please oppose this. It doesn't benefit anybody except for the company that would receive the check. Surveillance drones have no place in our city. Your testimony. Any questions? Um hello. Um um my name is Scott Demsky of 441 South Quincy Street, Green Bay. Um I oppose the use of the FL drone program as first responder item. Um there's too much surveillance already and in some other communities their usage has expanded beyond initial usage advertised and drones have been used in war zones and being that some people have sometimes said streets are a war zone um for some communities one could see where this could go armed drones in the future AIdriven drones um Israel has used them in a more aidious program called where's daddy and and when it was conducting it genocide in Gaza with the drone um this where's daddy situation um the drone playing sounds of a baby crying. Um people come out to look for the baby and the drones shoot dead whoever comes out. um one book uh from 2023 um the Palestine Laboratory how Israel sports tech technology of occupation around the world um by Anthony Loenstein um he himself is Jewish if that matters I'm not sure um highlights this type of thing um AI um
even if it's not used initially is a tempty tool for the for those seeking to merely save money and with all things computing only as good as those programming it containing all the biases and of the programmers and developers and historically other things used in an occupied zone have been brought back for policing. um W professor Alfred McCoy wrote an entire book on this concept focusing on his field of study in the Philippines and US history um during the time of um open US empire when it occupied 100 years ago um which there's no honor empire by the way um policeing America's empire the United States the Philippines and the rise of the surveillance state was uh Alf McCoy's book on this um he wrote this book in the wake of the unprovoked first strike war aggression in Iraq and occupation [snorts] um illegal occupation of Iraq. Um worried about what tools and techniques might make it home as such has happened before. Um in today's interconnected um world, tools and techniques don't always stay in one geography as the one seen has noted in his book. Um especially when it comes to the uh legal entity is the corporation that always seeks to increase profits. Um it's worth remembering that the corporation is legally obligated to constantly increase profits. um you know mission creep while they attach weapons in the future um to these drones. Um in any case um there's too much surveillance in our society already and I'm opposed to it. Um [clears throat] have my Christmas sweater um says from the creek to the beach pieces within reach. So merry Christmas um peace and goodwill to everybody. Thank you. Your testimony. Anyone else? Hello, my name is Gloria Degrave. I'm also a commuter. So, I live at 981 Grove Street in Nino, Wisconsin. I lived in Green Bay for the majority of my life. Um, about somewhere around 25 years of my life and
I still work here. So, I commute into the city somewhere between four and six days a week, sometimes seven. And I am here and a part of this community. And I don't have an older, so I'm going to speak for myself, but I um strongly oppose the use of drones for surveillance or for um even what it is currently designed in this particular proposal for, which is, you know, monitoring for accidents and things like that. Um I understand that it can be frustrating when you get a false report and have to send somebody out to go check on something and it turns out it was an iPhone glitch or something. And I can understand that's frustrating, but it is really critical that we maintain a human touch here in Green Bay. Part of what makes Green Bay an amazing and beautiful place that I so hope that I can live in again is because of how much human touch we have here. Um, and when we do things like uh outsource that touch to drones, um, I I think it gets at the core of who Green Bay tries to value themselves to be. Um, and so I oppose it for that reason. I also strongly oppose it because I do believe that if we start with something like traffic monitoring, I believe that it gets bigger and bigger and bigger as time goes on. And I don't want to be surveiled when I'm in this city. I want to feel like I'm at home. I don't want to be in a situation where I feel like I have to watch every single word I say anywhere in this city because what if a drone is overhead? I don't want to worry about that. And I want to be able to be free to organize my community and to um be present where I need to be present to do the job that I have. And I can't do that if I feel like I am constantly under watch and like somebody could be
tracking my motions and where my car is at all times and gathering data on me and using it in whatever ways that they want to use it, whether that's the actual Green Bay Police or if that's the company that services these drones. Um, and you know, we can talk about sure safety agreements and whatever else, but we know that those things get violated. I don't want anybody to even have the information so that they can violate it. I don't believe that we should be doing this and I love this city too much not to say something. So, I'm here tonight anyway. Um, so that's that's what I have to say about it. Thanks. Anyone else? Uh, Pete Borart, 1524 Gatewood Street. Um, I just want to second everything that everybody has said already on this. Um, and I want to speak on a few things in particular. Number one, uh, Flock cameras in particular that we already have here. Um, they don't even have two-actor authentication, folks. I just want to make sure everybody hears that. Now, if you're not familiar with two-factor authentication, that's when you say you sign in and like, "Hey, can you verify you have access to this email, send in the code, that's basic security that every government agency, the police have to use to get into their systems, except for to uh a lot of block cameras out there. Um, there are many documentaries and YouTube videos you can find on this, and they can actually show you how to hack them. They are currently hackable. They are running on Android versions that are outdated and no longer support it. So that's just the flock cameras. I understand we're here about the drones. Um I mean we all grew up watching Robocop, right? Watched it a
few times on myself. Um and here we are voting to see if we want to back it up. I personally think that's dystopian right now and I'm surprised we're sitting here talking about this right now, but here we are. Um, I do understand the cost that we are hoping to reduce in uh sending out units on non-issues. Um, I understand I I work at the zoo and I and the campground host at the uh reforestation camp. So, I work with the Swamco FD a lot and that's one of their biggest calls and I understand that because people leave their phones on top when they're leaving the zoo, get to the highway, boop, it falls off. What if we look into something restricted areas where these calls are very prominent and have drones in those like the Swamo fire station right there. Boom. Right there you can see that where they accelerate off of there. It falls off the back. We know it's probably that. Send a drone. There's lots of other places out there leaving Lombardi going on to 41. So these high access areas where we get a lot of false 911 iPhone reports. Let's maybe limit it down to that if we are going to vote for drones. I hope we don't. I hope that just stops right here. Um, and just another thing, a lot of people know the name Palunteer. Palunteer is also backing the drone company that and Flock as well. So, one could make the leap that all this information, the data gathering from these drones and flock cameras are probably getting fed right into Palunteer systems. And I feel like we most all know if we don't know, um, look into Palunteer and their data. Um, so let's be careful and let's just hope let's just not just just not do this. That's all I got to say about that and have a great night. Any questions? All right. Thank you. Anyone else on this item?
Hello, my name is Dalton Pansky. I'm a commuter from 510 Lincoln Street, Palaski, Wisconsin. I am a nursing student at MWTC. And if this passes, I will feel less safe in the city. I think this sort of surveillance in the city is a complete overreach. As many have mentioned their system it can de collect data and that data is not secure and I don't want that data in the wrong hands and I think it has been shown that this company especially it cannot be trusted with our data. So if this passes I will feel less safe in the city. It is also an ineffective solution to the problems that have been addressed or being trying to be addressed with this system. If we want to have the police not need to go out to false reports of like an accident, having more investment in our infrastructure to keep them safer, to have better designed infrastructure to cause less accidents would be a better solution. If we wanted to have something like this address crime, spending that money to address poverty would be a better solution. this is just an ineffective use of money to try and solve the problems that are caused by not enough investment or not enough addressing of problems within our community. So, this is not the way that the city should be spending the their money and I recommend that they do not pass this motion. Thank you. Anyone else? Motion to close the floor. Motion to close the floor. Motion to close the floor made by Alder Dele. Seconded by Alder Galvin. All in favor say I. Opposed? Nay. The eyes have it. The floor is closed. Um I think motion to approve made by Alder Galvin. Second by Alder Hickfist.
Um Chief, if you just wanted to kind of explain exactly what we're doing here because I think there's a fair amount of confusion about what the the drones will be deployed for. Yeah, clearly. And I'm not sure I think there may be some representatives of flock online uh who are available to for your questions. Um this is not a piece of of surveillance technology. It's and drones generally just in my experience. Um I do actually have a little bit of experience with surveillance in in pretty serious criminal matters. Um it you wouldn't this would not be a very useful tool for surveillance because it it can't stay in the air long enough. Um the intent behind this is it goes back. Let me start with the history of how we got here with technology because this is paired with a automated license plate reader and some of our council members may have been here when we approved ALPR in the first place. We the originally the discussion was about gunshot detection. There's a lot of objection to that and the council directed us to go back and do an analysis and see if there was other technology that might be more effective at a lower cost. And so we acquired ALPR technology from Flock a few years ago uh that has had a number of very good outcomes for us in terms of public safety. uh it has changed the it's been a gamecher when it comes to u developing suspect information and criminal cases quickly and you know in one case if I remember right we had a shooting where by the time the suspects got home to the Milwaukee area we knew
who they were already and the police were there waiting for them. Um, like any piece of technology that collects information, it can be misused. Either it would really have to be misused by our employees. I'm sure the representatives from Flock can speak to the the security on their end and where the data goes. Um, we would take that pretty seriously and would take major disciplinary action if one of our employees misuse this equipment because it's an ethical issue. Um, so the addition of the drone as first responder is intended to help us with a a long-term problem that we have with staffing levels in the Green Bay Police Department. We need to start looking at efficiency measures to use the limited sworn police resources that we have as efficiently as we can. I've heard for the four years that I've been here from members of our afternoonships and I can see from data that between about 10:00 in the morning and 7 o'clock in the evening on any given day, our officers are going or are so busy answering dispatch calls for service that there isn't time for work that we want to see done like traffic safety work, community engagement, problem solving because they're just going from call to call. But when you look at the kinds of calls that we go on, very often we are dispatched to things that we find out later the problem was gone long before the police got there or it it maybe didn't exist in the first place. So one use of this is to make more efficient use of our time. But the other really important contribution that this gives us is in terms of officer and community safety. When you especially uh in an emergency as a police officer, when you're responding to a situation, your best friend is legitimate information about what's going on. And all of us who've done this work for any length of time
know that you very rarely have that. And the the more serious the emergency, the more often you are faced with incomplete, rapidly evolving, conflicting, or even erroneous information because we're relying on someone on the telephone with dispatch to give us information about what's happening. often we are relying on the person who is on is having the worst day of their life and is probably the least capable of giving us good actionable accurate information in the moment about what the problem is. And so to be able to launch a drone from the roof of a facility and get it to a location within a few minutes and have that asset on scene and being able to see what's happening and give real time information to our responding officers. We don't need to speculate because we know from the examples that we've seen in other cities that that improves outcomes. I've heard of examples and you know our vendors work with folks all over the country on this. I'm sure they could give you examples of situations where the initial information is that somebody's armed with a firearm. So now we have police at one intensity level headed to this call and it turns out there isn't a firearm involved at all. It would be good for us to know that there isn't a weapon involved in a call when one is reported. um very often that's what you find out when you get there or you don't know that a weapon is involved until you get there. If we know that there's a weapon in that situation, we can calibrate our response in a way that [snorts] is is more likely to get the outcome we all want where we resolve that situation where no one gets hurt. Uh, I am certainly, you know, I'll go right on the record and say I'm definitely concerned about the privacy impacts and the privacy interests that are at stake with some of the
surveillance technology that's available. That's why we have enacted policies in the Green Bay Police Department and will continue to have those policies that make sure that there are safeguards in place and ultimately everything that we do is overseen by the criminal court. In order for us to to get a conviction in a criminal case, we have to be able to show that any evidence that we use was obtained legally. And so that's where your ultimate safeguard is and should be in our justice system is with the courts. And the last thing I want to talk about is just the idea that this is a random surveillance tool. That's not what it's for. The only way that this will be launched off the roof of the building is if there is a call for service. Uh we know and one of the things that appealed to me from a privacy standpoint about this system is that the default setting is for the camera to be pointed at the horizon once it takes off because we're really not interested in just random things that we might find on the way to a call. What we're interested in is getting that asset in place so we can get situational awareness in an emergency. uh and and you know ultimately see some benefits in terms of public safety and the safety of our employees. And so happy to to answer any questions that you all have. And I I see that Ryan Merch from Flock Safety is online who can help uh can do a much better job than I can at explaining the technology. Thanks, Chief. Yeah, Chief Todd, anything to to add from fire? Sure. Um, you know, drone as a first responder we see as a valuable tool for us. We've been using drones very effectively to to provide situational awareness to our personnel operating on emergency scenes for for many years now. Um, we've seen that
program expand and evolve. We've also realized tremendous benefits of a drone as a first responder program. We use this very effectively. If you maybe just lean in a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Um, sorry about that. But we've also used drone as a first responder very effectively in our community during large scale events. Um you know we use them to specifically when during the NFL draft we had multiple incidents uh and multiple events going out throughout the city. We use drones very effectively to provide quick overview of of what is actually occurring. We use them to locate and quickly identify a a fire in a tent during the draft footprint and then also um a person that was in the river during uh the downtown concerts. We had were able to quickly get eyes on that situation. So we've seen tremendous benefit of this. Um, again, our use would be um to identify quickly respond to an incident and make sure we're setting appropriate resources and we would see if a car, you know, maybe it's dispatches a car fire or or a structure fire and we see something different. Um, because again, as we're responding, we'd be able to get good situational awareness, just like Chief Davis said, that same concept to be able to get eyes on this and really understand what's going on to make sure our personnel are set up for success. We see this as a safety tool for us. Um, you know, we we understand the privacy concerns and and that is is truly not what we're intending. I mean, our intention is truly to provide situational awareness to our personnel, be able to quickly respond and and make sure we're sending appropriate resources to mitigate whatever emergency we're responding to. Great. Thanks, Chief. Uh, questions from alders and then if if there's an interest, we can go online. Alder profit, I'll first ask both chiefs and then I do have questions for the folks online. Um, I know, thank you, um, to both of you. I believe we have drones, right? Don't quote me, but I think we got to see a pretty cool one from the fire department
at least on our day that we spent with you all last year. Um, how many drones do we currently have between the two departments? And again, we have like two primary response drones that we use. We also have some additional drones that we use for training purposes. Okay. So, two from fire. Is there any within our PD currently? Yes. Okay. Uh all of our drones right now are assigned to our SWAT team. Um we have two kinds. We we have an one that can be used outdoors. Um and then we have much smaller ones that can be sent in to a structure [snorts] which is a lot safer than sending people into it and some of those calls. Okay. Thank you both. But the I would say there there is a very big difference between those and what we're talking about here. Yeah, for sure. I just I I know you mentioned someone mentioned the river incident and I know near my house I live very close to the East River and I saw one get deployed for a different incident. So I I thought we had some in house. I know they're much different uses, but just wanted to clarify that. And in our current drones, we'd still be utilizing too. Again, this is additional uh just initial onseen access and then we would fly more of our drones on scene as as things would develop. Alder Hutcherson, um this proposal is asking for how many drones? I mean, and where would they be stationed? So, this would be for two um one on each side of the river. And there's we haven't completely nailed down the locations yet, but the idea is to place them so that they cover the greatest call volume in the city. If you get outside the freeways kind of on either side of the city, the call volume goes down a lot. So just it would try to cover inside that area.
Okay. Thank you. And there would be an officer assigned to each one who's working during the day with that drone to respond immediately. Right. We would probably have one officer assigned to both. Oh. And fly one at a time. Gotcha. If you use one that then it's got to come back and recharge itself and that takes some time. Um, we right now and one of the reasons why we only wanted to look at two installations for for now is we can't really afford to tie up a whole lot of people with this. Okay, gotcha. Thank you. Other questions? Question for Chief Davis. A couple questions and I appreciate you um answering some questions over email as well. Um but so there's in the packet there's a listed $240,000 of ROI um return on investment. Can you explain what the mechanism is for having a return on this investment? So, this is a flock document and their estimate based on a review that they did, and I'm sure they could speak in more detail to this, um, of our calls for service over the year-long period. Based on the types of calls that these are normally used for, it estimates how many calls for service would be eligible and then how much officer time that could save from the various ways in which this saves us time. So officers could ostensibly be um spending time on other uh calls because of the drone being deployed instead of them. That is the theory that is presented here. Yes. Okay. Um and then are there any activities that are um precluded from
the drone being deployed to them like protected activities? Somebody mentioned protests or religious Yeah. And that's where um we have a practice right now and you know we're we're undergoing a ongoing very largecale revision of all of our policies but our current policy is that for any kind of first amendment protected activity we're not going to record whatever's happening there. These wouldn't be used for that. I if we where we use drones already and for like a demonstration and a lot of our organizers here know that we do this uh is to look for threats to the demonstration frankly on rooftops and in places where it's impractical to get people to. But we have a a rule and and this is something that I brought from my previous experience in that environment that we're not going to record people exercising their first amendment rights. The only time we'll turn the recording on is when there's criminal activity, which has never happened in the times that we've used it. Okay. Um, appreciate that. And then does the flock company, what sort of access would they have to data that is recorded on their devices in our city? They really shouldn't have any um because the data belongs to us under the agreement. So, it's not theirs to look at uh for like video recording. Uh, I can let them speak to that more, but um, you know, I know they do keep some like not what's the word I'm looking for? Anonymized like system performance data, but that probably be they could probably give you more detail about that. Okay, just a couple more questions. I'm not sure. Um, so with retention of the footage, do we have an existing policy for that that
would if we approve these drones now would already be in effect? We do uh we would use the same rules that we use for bodywn and incar camera footage because if you have to preserve footage obviously if it has captured evidence of a crime or if there is uh a use of force that we review all we do supervisory review of all of our uses of force. uh if there is an administrative investigation maybe related to a complaint that comes out of the incident, you would want to save all that which is distinct from our license plate reader data that we have deleted after 30 days. Okay. Um and then okay, I know this has more to do with our uh our placed flock cameras. Um, but let's say a federal agency comes in and they say that they want a list of people going to and from a mosque or something like that. Um, do we have a policy that says no, we're not going to provide that? Are we required to? Do they need a warrant? Like what what existing policy do we have? our and I'd have to go back and refresh my recollection as to specifically what our our license plate reader policy says about that. Um, for something like that, I'm going to have a hard time granting that request. There's a federal law that says that we cannot legally as a city prohibit our employees from like cooperating with say immigration enforcement. Um, before I'm going to let a request like that go out the door though, I want to talk to whoever the head of that agency is and because that would sound like something that would be unconstitutional. I don't want to violate the law, right? Um, okay, last question. Uh, if we if we purchase this, if we approve
this now, what is the timeline from us purchasing to deploying? That's another question I would refer to the folks from Flock. I think they probably be a lot more on point on that. And you're specifically asking about the drone element of it all the pressing. Okay. Okay. The the ALPRs are already deployed and have been for the last three years. [snorts] Okay. Thank you. That is all my questions. I appreciate it. Any other any other questions for either of our chiefs? And then we could go online if Motion open the floor made by Alder Profett and second by Alder EC. All in favor will say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. If you'd like to uh just state your name and address and then begin speaking uh for our online guests, now would be the time. Okay. Um can you hear me? Okay. Yep. Okay. Um my name is Quinn. I uh I live in New London, so 1813 Oshka Street in New London, but I um like one of the other people from here, I go to uh NWTC. So I'm gosh, probably two, three times a week I'm in Green Bay in the area, um on campus, in the surrounding areas. Um, so I know I'm not technically a resident. Um, but I did just want to ask some questions and speak to this. Um, because it is kind of concerning, uh, to me the idea that, you know, um, like I understand what they are proposed to be doing with um, the drones and the license plate readers. However,
um the Flock Group Incorporated um agreement does not benefit Green Bay residents or Wisconsin civilians. In my opinion, um Flock Group, Inc. has been known to be used illegally by law enforcement officers and ICE agents to surveil and target people of color, immigrants, Latinx folks, and non-native English speakers. Uh, these AI powered cameras have been used deliberately to make unlawful arrests based on pre prejudice and detain workingclass members of our communities. Um, there are plenty of articles out there if you just do a simple Google search. Also, um, I wanted to second what people were saying earlier. There is no two-factor authentication on these drones. there is no um like security measures in place. It does run on a old Android system that is no longer you know compatible and receiving updates. Um, beyond just concerning the use of what these would actually be used for besides, you know, what they're supposedly be going to be used for, I'm worried about [snorts] how people might have access to them and um they could be used for surveillance against um people in our communities because of their um lack of security and the fact that, you know, like other people were saying, if you go on YouTube, um there's a popular video cuz I was doing research into this that um says that, you know,
this popular YouTuber hacked a bunch of flock cameras all over the country in 30 seconds. And he didn't release the information on about how to do that, but that information is out there and it's publicly available and it's on YouTube. And I'm just saying, you know, maybe the police wouldn't be using this for nefarious purposes, but there are bad actors out there and to um to use the resources instead of an officer being out there and having a human connection in the field um with the data to be sitting behind a drone and driving a drone. And you know that just seems kind of silly to me. I hate to say it. Appreciate your testimony. 3 minutes have expired. Next up, anyone from Flock? Yes, thank you. Um, so Ryan Mertz, 9808 Madison Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. Uh I just wanted to quickly introduce our uh head of DFR consulting, Fritz Reber, who's been uh involved in these programs really since their inception several years back and he can definitely speak on some of the use cases that we've seen around the country. I think we're up to 80 to 90 deployments in different cities around the country. Fritz, if you don't mind, that would be super helpful. Sure. I'm happy to answer questions. My name is Fritz Reber. I'm director of DFR consulting for Flock Safety. Been with the company for a couple years. My background is actually law enforcement. I'm a retired captain out of the Chu Vista Police Department, uh, where I spearheaded the very first DFR program back in 2018. And so I've been very involved with the the DFR for the last six, seven years. And as Ryan mentioned, um, now we're up to hundreds, several hundred agencies, um, doing DFR. It's
hard to, um, say more than the chief said. They explained the use case, the value, um, exceptionally well. Um, I just know, um, you know, there are many, many lives, many, many people alive today specifically because of DFR and the way the drones were were um, deployed in terms of getting there before ground units, getting intelligence, giving police officers and firefighters and EMS a basically a peak at the future and understanding what they're going into. And, uh, it's a a big safety enhancement as well as a resource management tool. So, don't want to spend too much time reinforcing what they already said, but I'm here to answer questions if needed. Yep. And just to just to add a little color to that if I may, everything that we do at Flock is fully audit, logged, and tracked. So that we have transparency portals on the LPR side. Same with the DFR program. So all citizens can access that, see flight logs, really see everything that we're doing. And then I'm also happy to speak to any of the security claims and some of the misinformation out there around our security standards. So the media that um the YouTube video that has been addressed essentially what happened in that video is there was a flock uh hardware or LPR camera that was a factory setting device. So imagine your iPhone uh coming from the Apple manufacturer where basically zero security software was installed on that device. Um and it we have never been hacked up to this date. Um, so happy to speak to any specific questions on some of those comments that were made as well. All right. Any questions from council for block? Yeah, Alder Profett, I apologize in advance, but I do have a list and I appreciate um it seems like you have quite the team that zoomed in and joined us tonight. So, I do appreciate that because that hopefully after my list I'll have a lot of answers
um cleared up for me. Um so in our packet the DFR impact analysis slide nine um there was a competitor um comparison. Uh could you maybe just walk through for me um um your your two launch locations your two docs for your cost versus where you gathered competitor data from? Sure. Uh we have our subject matter expert uh Andy Ables on the call. Andy, could you chime in on the deployment for Green Bay? Yeah, absolutely. Andy Albles, DFR solutions specialist, 533 East Irish Avenue remotely in Colorado. Um, yeah, so the site location as far as our impact analysis uh goes down to the efficiency of the aircraft that we fly. Um, the the aircraft that we fly flies at a faster rate um and has a longer battery uh capacity. So because of that, on average, the coverage areas is three and a half miles per launch location. uh for our competitors by market standards and and how they present the product, it is a two-mile radius per dock. Um and they require additional docks due to the uh lower performance on battery charging and performance. So they need more docks to cover that same area. So it's typically a 3:1 ratio uh for one of their docs to to uh one of ours. Okay, perfect. That clears that up and kind of naturally leads into my next question. Um, so the time to charge, so I think I had gathered that it was a 50-minute flight time before it needs to charge. How long does it then take to charge at the station? Yeah, it's typically it depends on, you know, it's weather dependent. Obviously, the elements are going to affect it, but typically it's a 40 to 45 minute flight time uh with a 25m minute flight time or excuse me, excuse me, recharge time. Uh, so the ratio is better. with our competitors. Typically, it's a 15 to 20 minute flight time with a 40m minute charge time.
Okay. Um, thank you. And you mentioned weather. Is it able to fly at night? That might be a silly question, but it's on my list. Correct. Yes, it also um has the ability to see and fly at night. Yes. Okay, perfect. Um, the multiffactor authentication was brought up. Um, I I work for an extremely large healthcare organization in which I have to not only do Duo Mobile, but I also have to go to Microsoft Authenticator probably 50 times a day, I swear. Um, so could you maybe speak to the security setup? Um, you had addressed the YouTube video, so it sounds like that was someone who just maybe purchased one and there was no security whatsoever. What what do you put on the packages and is there a multi factor authentication that's set up on the ones that are then sent um if the contract's executed? Yeah, there is a multifactor authentication available and uh we are sock 2 uh type two uh and three certified and CJ certified as well too from a security standpoint. Okay. And then my last question just because it was brought up and um I think uh there's a few state or maybe federal representatives who have um asked for an FTC investigation. Um could you maybe speak to it might be a sensitive subject but um the conversation surrounding the 35 accounts that customers indicated had been hacked and stolen. You had said you haven't been hacked to date. So maybe you could clear that up for me. Ryan, do you want to answer that one? Yeah. So it it's categorically false. We have never been hacked. Um I can get you more detailed information on that specific case. Um, but just to add to the multiffactor that was made default um late last year and I think we're in the 80% range or higher um for all of our law enforcement agencies use multiffactor. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Other questions from council? Yeah, Alder Presley. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um just uh what I
asked the chief as well uh what what access to data um does the flock organization have compared to what the city has. So chief spoke very well um how that's structured. We don't have any access to the footage. Um it's all your data. Um really it's just like simple metrics and performance metrics like you would have on your iPhone. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Yeah, Alder Hutcherson. Okay. [clears throat] It's our uh data, but do you have access to it? If so, we take Go ahead. If there's a videotape or if there's any data on the drones, do you have access that you can access without letting the city know? I'll have to get more detailed answers for you on that. Um, we do not access the the video footage or any data that is specific to the flights or anything like that. Okay. I guess I it's a specific question. Can you though? I mean, can you literally do it? I'm not asking you if you do, but can you? Uh, I'll have to get um someone on our team to to follow up with you on that specific question on how that's Yep. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? All right. Entertain them. Oh, yeah. We can close the floor. Motion to close the floor made by Alder Profett, seconded by Alder Presley. All in favor say I. I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. The floor is closed. Alder Galvin for Chief Davis. Thank you, your honor. Chief Davis. Um, just to clarify this, I call in a call that qualifies for a drone deployment. That drone can be deployed by someone at
the 911 center. No, it would be deployed by one of our employees. And so would it be a specific person like the the drone officer and then that he doesn't fly it there. It literally flies to that address on its own, doesn't it? Essentially, yes. Uh we we would have to train up people to be qualified to operate these and then the drone uses GPS coordinates to get to the location and then from there the operator can take it over if they need to move it or they can move the camera. Sure. But that in order to move the camera the like on its way there the default setting for the camera is the horizon unless the operator changes it for some reason. All right. So then once he's there he can do what he needs to do to help determine what's actually happening at the scene. Yeah. He or she. And when he's done he can hit a button and it goes back to the base automatically. Same thing with the camera up on the horizon. Right. All right. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? We have a motion and a second. Oh, Johnson. Thank you, mayor, and I appreciate the conversation around this topic and I think it really comes from a good place from an abundance of safety and precaution. Uh, however, I do think at the committee level, you know, we really talked about a number of these things as well, and I felt pretty confident afterwards. Generally speaking, I'm not one of those people who favors surveillance and and I certainly agree that in some instances they're being used for surveillance and targeting, but that's because it's intended to be used for that. And I think our police chief here has made it very clear that our policy does not use it for that purpose and that there are protocols in place uh to prohibit it. So, um I think in the case of the city of Green Bay, we learned earlier today 500 databases of information. Um I suspect some of that
is HIPPA and many other forms of data that to me would I personally would be more concerned about that than a piece of surveillance that shows me walking across a sidewalk uh doing lawful things. And I think the reality is the tools uh have evolved. Um, our police department and our fire department have evolved beyond axes and billy clubs and they're using a lot of technology uh that not only keeps our personnel safe, it keeps them more efficient, it allows, I think, more of that human touch and that connection by using technology to eliminate the waste that currently occurs. Um and and I want to make sure that we're coming at this from a a perspective of um you know logic and and really recognizing that um you know while the fear can certainly be appreciated and real I I think some of the things that are worth fearing are not being deployed in this particular situation. It's you know to me it's a little bit like asking a poet to write a poem with a hammer and a chisel. uh when there are tools that have certainly evolved and and do better though certainly parchment and feather pen might be kind of kind of nice but um so at the committee level I would say you know I felt very comfortable in terms of the way it's being used the way it's being deployed drones are used in a variety of industries whether you're talking about photography photos uh you know precision farming mapping uh they're used across the board and of course as our uh fire chief said they've been using it for years and we've never had this conversation before. So, I just want to make sure that we're really focused on the right things, which is not being used for surveillance, it's not being used for monitoring, it's not being used for targeting. There are disciplinary actions in place to address that uh if that were ever to occur. Um, you know, we're we're not Gaza. We're
not, you know, some of these other places where certainly, again, those would be very terrifying things to think about and we're very fortunate that we live in a place where we don't have to contemplate that. I I can't even imagine these things are capable of delivering a pizza, let alone some of the, you know, the things that are really happening in in some of these other countries that are very unfortunate and scary. So, I support it for that reason. The only thing that I had sort of raised a concern around at the committee level was the price because that that is levy supported and but we support tools and resources all the time for our different departments. Um and 1.3 million has been talked about. Want to be clear that we're talking about a much smaller number on an annual basis. That's the total value of the contract over five years. and Chief, correct me if I'm wrong, but we already have contract in place for um the license plate readers. So really what we're talking about here is either an extension of that contract or an upgrade. So what is the the difference I guess what we're what we what we've already deployed which I would refer to as a sunk cost relative to the service that we're adding. So, we would also be renewing the agreement for the automated license plate reader. And I believe the delta between that and adding the drone is $170,000 a year for the entire life of the contract. Okay. So, 170,000 divided by five. 170,000 times five. It's 170,000. So, I thought you were implying first. Okay. So, 170 per year to add the drones. Correct. And so to me that at least again I'm satisfied with really a lot of great questions, a lot of great points from the public. I'm satisfied with the responses to that. I you know I think if there's any really debate from this
body, it should probably focus around if we think that that 170,000 is the wisest use of resources given the demands placed in our department. I personally think it's a good investment given the safety um the the elimination of uh the inefficiency even of of the false calls. Um and and of course I I look at that and say if we're eliminating that, our personnel is freed up to do the other things that a lot of folks have said we should do like the community policing and the soft touches. And that's where I'd really love to see our personnel spending their time rather than in a car driving from, you know, one site to the next where they didn't really need to go. So Morgan and then Hutcherson, in my three and a half years as an alderman, the biggest complaint I've always had is traffic issues. And as the chief said, there just aren't enough officers to handle the calls right now. So, we've got a tool here that may free officers up that can actually do what we used to call selective enforcement, which means that people will see people out working more radar and catching these hot rodders or their dirt bikers doing their wheelies and stuff. So, we're going to answer some of our citizens complaints by simply not putting more salary into more officers. I don't think we could hire two officers for that price, train them, pay their benefits and everything like that. And that wouldn't solve a lot of problems. As far as the safety of our officers in my years, I remember watching officers walk into bank alarms and they got so many there, they didn't they'd carry a walkie-talkie in one hand and a clipboard in the other and not even care. They should have their hand on a gun. There might be a robbery going on.
Well, with these things, we'd be able to see things that you don't know before you get on a call. And as far as the plate readers, everyone in the city I talked to thinks they could get a ticket from that. There's a law in the state of Wisconsin, you cannot issue tickets from plate readers, so you don't have to worry about that. And then you talk about uh the people that are afraid that uh they're going to be surveiled on. We've got proof here. The chief and our staff is going to make sure it's not for safe surveillance of the people. When I ran for sheriff many years, one of my biggest mantras was if you can't do the time, don't commit the crime. So, I think people if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have to worry if they pick up on something while they're actually just trying to protect themselves. That's all I have to say. I'm for it. Thanks, Alder. Alder Hutcherson then Prophet. Uh, thank you. I agree with you, Alder, with the u uh freeing up police officers to uh a lot of drag racing apparently across the city, especially on the east side where we got some straight roads. And um I [clears throat] think this is a way to help address that. Um I have complete faith in our chiefs, the fire chief, police chief, complete and utter faith in those individuals. The one thing I don't have complete faith in is a vendor. And the response I got, could they videotape from those and get the video without contacting us, the city? Um, I would, um, appreciate something more than an offer to get back to me. I would like something in writing addressed to the mayor that would either say they will not do that or they can't do it, but they will only do it under
certain circumstances to prevent the um, occurrence where video is taken inside our city limits and used without our permission. um otherwise 100% behind it. Okay. So, I don't know what vehicle we can use to get that. I don't want to blanket approve this without having that communicate from the vendor. Thank you. Thanks, Alder. Uh Alder Profett then Grant. Um so, I had a miserable event um a half block, not around the corner from my house yesterday in which the police response for hours was gosh, felt like half the department. Um, so I saw it firsthand. I'm like, "Oh, how timely." And I've seen it in the past in which there's an unfortunate incident that requires a lot of staff from PD, from fire. Um, and it's unfortunate, but it happens. Um, I I can't in good faith vote in favor of this tonight solely based on the vendor. Um, I that nonresponse not only once but twice about if they are able to access it um is a no for me. And I know that there are potentially other vendors out there. I know the cost might be more expensive, but are are there some that can drones that can bring along life preservers for the person that fell in the river? Not only the one um by downtown, but there's the East River near my house that um some folks occasionally stumble away from the bar and you know have have um some incidents and and I know because I've seen it. I've seen the drone respond um to my neighborhood. Um so that that's where I'm at with this tonight. I can see the benefit and I can understand again because there was a miserable incident around the block from my house yesterday in which I saw what I mean gosh caution tape. I saw the work that those officers were providing that drones will never replace. They will never replace that work. But it is the company. My no vote tonight is solely on the company. Um could we hold it and get more answers? Perhaps. But I still can't
promise that I wouldn't have concerns. Um, I've had a lot of folks reach out, not just ones in attendance tonight, um, expressing deep concerns just about this company. So, that's my no this evening for this. Thanks, Elder. Uh, Grant and Presley. I just have one more question for Chief Davis that I just thought of. I know we've talked about I have a lot of speeding issues in my area on here on with motorcycles and we've talked about the liability of pursuing a high-speed chase over a traffic violation. We talked about strategies that you wanted to implement, but we could not do it with air surveillance. Is it possible that if an officer is going after a motorcycle and it takes off, could we deploy this drone like because you you've said we try to wait then for them to pull over park or something and then we can citation them. Is this something we could implement for that problem? probably not because it doesn't fly fast enough that I think it's the speed tops out at like 50 miles an hour and you know usually when motorcycles take off from us it's more like a hundred. Okay. All right. I didn't know with it being able to see a wider area that we could Yes, the speed isn't there but we could as long as they stayed in an area that was close that we could see where they went. So, um that was my only question. Thank you. would I just have one, you know, if it helps with the with the question of the vendor's access to footage, I wonder if that would be a violation of our contract. Attorney Culture, do you want to take a look at that for a bit or do you have an answer? Certainly can. We can um I'll just I'll just add that I think the language is in there that clarifies access. But on this question of whether it's possible, we could specifically add a provision in there about that um and take that submit that to block
for their consideration. That's not a problem. We have a very lengthy agreement and a lot of language about um authorized users access um and also um logs that track when the system was accessed. Thank you. U Presley Bengal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I'm I'm conflicted on this because I do see the value. Um I've read articles about this being used where somebody uh reports a carjacking and then the drone comes out there and it's actually just somebody trying to get into their own car and they fly right back and we don't have to worry about dispatching a police officer to deal with that. um and they can go do those soft touches like Elder Johnson said, the the the community policing, the things that they should be doing uh to help the community. Um I absolutely see the value in that. Um I absolutely believe in the chief and the department's intention behind this. My concern is just the policies um the policy both with our agreement with Flock. um are they able to capture um or not to capture but to view the data we have? Um are they able to share that data also within our own uh organization? If some external body wants access to this data, what are the parameters in which we would give access um to either the license plates or the actual footage? Um, and without that, I mean, regardless of where this vote lands, I want to have continued conversations because if we vote this down, we're still going to have flock cameras. Um, and we're still going to have concerns from that and I want to have conversations about our policies and see where we can shore it up to make sure that there's benefit for the police department, but also a sense of security for my neighbors. Um, but I think tonight I'm going to be a no on it for the same reason that uh Alder Profit is
just a little bit of insecurity about the policy right now. Just a point of clarification, given the timing and [clears throat] the the length of the contract that we're under currently with Flock for the ALPR, if this is voted down, the cameras would not be in place as of January 1st. Um, to Galvin then Johnson. Thank you, your honor. would imagine and I think uh attorney uh Lacy already said that we could put something into the contract that would probably um reassure people that that access uh could be denied unless they come to us first. I mean look at people can always get warrants to come in and access that information. I mean we can't say no never ever that's not going to happen. It can happen legally. Um, and I think what we can cover ourselves uh to that situation by looking at the contract and working something out with Flock. Um, on another note, there's a lot that goes on here that we haven't covered. I mean, it's been 11 years since I crawled into a black and white car, but I can tell you that it's absolutely terrifying when you're running through a backyard in the middle of the night chasing a suspect and you catch him and you can't get on the radio or you can't communicate where you're at. And I think about the amount of times that happens day in and day out to officers not only in Green Bay, but throughout Wisconsin and the United States. I think of the number of times that uh we found out later on someone with a gun was watching us and we never knew it. I think that a significant amount of officers are killed every year responding to calls, killed in their squad cars because of traffic crashes, a significant amount of them. And if we can save one officer because we use this system, it's well worth it. And you can't even add up what the savings is then. Um I know for sure I just read in
the paper Flock was able to help us to apprehend a driver in a hit-and- run accident on Bel Avenue where two people were critically injured. There's two cars chasing each other and one of them smashed into an innocent car going the other way. One took off. Because of flock, we were able to track that person down and place him in custody. Personally, I had a a family member that was at risk called the police department. Within two hours, they were able to find him because of flock. Instead of days, it was two hours and we were able to ascertain, you know, that he was okay and and we could stand down. Um there there's a lot here that we can do with this that hasn't even really been scratched yet. And [snorts] so I'm I'm going to vote in favor of it because I also believe that we will be able to work out an agreement with Flock to make everyone confident that this this data is going to be secure on our end and on their end. Thank you. Thanks, Alder. Alder Johnson. Thank you, Mayor. And I, you know, want to thank Alder Hutchinson for kind of raising this point and Chief, you alluded to it as well, but uh I'm going to maybe formalize it as as an amendment. Um that uh move mo make a motion to offer an amendment that the approval is contingent on law department's review of the contract. uh that the data is secured by us which includes uh the visual of the log and whether an outside party has accessed and that if that is violated it would lead to uh a breach of contract and the ability for us to terminate the contract. So it it's really just to ensure that our legal department can work on the language and the finessing of how that needs to look. But I think it to me it would give us the protection that we're looking for. Um I don't know why Flock would object
to that if they're not using the data. So it seems like a pretty benign amendment, but I think it hopefully it will give us the protection that a lot of folks are really wanting to see. Is there a second for that? Seconded by Alderak. Attorney Cochart, is that workable as stated? I think I got most of that down. Um but absolutely we are working on amendments or changes now and we can incorporate that in the process. Uh comments on the amendment. One more thing. Yeah. Alder Johnson and just about whether the amendment passes but the thing as a whole. So I mean we obviously unfortunately live in an age of a lot of misinformation. And I just I did a quick search on you know flock and some of these claims and actually the the most common search result I got was uh accusations that were proven to be unfounded. So if we have a consistent pattern of behavior that has evidence and is demonstrated with facts uh you know I might approach this differently. Uh but given uh the sensitivity of the subject and I know how much people are passionate about it and oppose it uh I just fear it's even more bright and subject to misinformation. So uh based on recommendation of the chief and what we heard and uh and of course my trust and faith in our attorney to get the right language in there to protect our residents. Uh not only will I support the amendment but I would support the the motion as well. Thanks Alder. Uh any additional comments on the amendment? Seeing none all in favor say I. I oppose. Nay. The eyes have it. The amendment is successful. Entertain a motion. Motion to approve as amended. Motion to approve is amended made by Alder Johnson and seconded by Alder Galvin. Discussion on the amended motion. Seeing none, all in favor will say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. And that item has been approved as amended. Park committee. Motion to approve made by Alder Stevens. Seconded by Alder Dele. items here to be
handled separately. Hearing none. All in favor will say I. Oppos? Nay. You guys have it. That report has been approved. Report of the water utility commission. Motion to approve by Alder Stevens. Second. Seconded by Alder A. Discussion here. Alder Johnson. Thank you, Mayor Brian. You never come to these and you've really sat through this. So, I I just at least want to give you a minute if you want to, you know, comment on this since you've stood strong there. Sure. Sure. Thanks. Thanks for my minute of glory for however long you want. [laughter] But this we're uh entering into an agreement with the village of Palaski to wholesale sell water to them. We currently have four other wholesale communities that we sell water to. the village of Ashwabanon since 2005, village of Hobart since 2010, village of Ricetown since 2015, and now it'll be the village of Plasky starting hopefully by the end of summer of 2026. Uh with that being said, we we will generate roughly a little over $300,000 a year uh by selling water to Palaski. Uh it'll be a forever thing. this agreements for 20 years, but once the agreement's over, then the PSC sets the rates and they will continue to be a customer of ours. So, it's it's a a big win for us. Obviously, it's our fifth community with only more to come. Uh even uh Palaski has signed a a memorandum of understanding with the uh town of Pittsfield to provide them water. So, Pittsfield right now doesn't have a a water system because they're just small and spread out and are on private wells. But as Pittsfield grows, they would become a customer of ours too at some point. So, thank you. And I, you know, I didn't want us to just fly by this without maybe recognizing um the significance of
of this achievement. So, thank you for the work that you and your department do. Of course, the big win for City of Green Bay residents is when you have higher volumes, you stabilize stabilize, you know, our water rates uh and and creates a little less volatility. So, thank you for the hard work on uh on doing that. Yeah, thank you. And you make a very good point, L Johnson, is with our uh four wholesale communities and adding Pittsfield, that'll be about four and a half million gallons of water a day that we sell to to our wholesale customers and the Green Bay customers. Right now, we sell about 14 million gallons. So, hence, that's a big percentage of water sales to our wholesale customers, which stabilizes rates to everybody. That's great. Uh Alder Profit, Dr. Powell, if I could just ask because I think I've asked this in the past and I like the answer. How much capacity do we have to continue to partner with other municipalities in terms of the water supply? Yes, excellent question. Our our capacity is 42 MGD. We have at at our filter plant is our is our bottleneck and right now our max day is 28 million gallons. So, we have an additional 14 million gallons to provide to other communities. Awesome. Thank you. So, shameless plug to other surrounding municipalities. Come get some of the best water from GB Water. Right. And you don't have to answer this, but how much cheaper is our water in comparison to central Brown County? Yes, our rates are $2.98 per thousand gallons to our wholesale customers. All of them. We we have the same rate to every wholesale customer. We don't change the rate to different customers. It stays the same. And I believe right now the Central Brown County Water Authority is somewhere near five dollars per thousand gallons to their members. That is quite a difference. Well, thanks for to you and and the staff for all the work on the agreement. It's a it's a great thing for the water utility. All right. Thank you. Other questions?
Seeing none, we have a motion and a second. All in favor will say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it and that item has been approved. Uhformational. We've got a building report in the packet for November 2025 resolutions. Motion to suspend the rules and take up these items with one roll call vote made by Alder Profett. Seconded by Alder Dele. All in favor will say I. Post nay. The eyes have it. The rules are suspended. Motion do not made by Alder profit. Second by Alder Galvin. Discussion. Seeing none, we'll use the board. All right. So, those resolutions are adopted unanimously. Ordinances first reading. I think there was a request by staff for a first and final on six. One and six. All right. Do we want to? Um, yeah, maybe. Um, suspend the rules on Yeah. Alder Johnson makes a motion to suspend the rules on two through four. Seconded by Alder Presley. All in favor will say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. The rules are suspended. Uh, and Alder Johnson makes a motion to advance on 2 through 4. Seconded by Alder EC. All in favor will say I. Oppos? Nay. The eyes have it. Items two through four have been advanced uh to a second and final reading on to one.
Rules for one and six take up with first. Alder Johnson makes a motion to suspend the rules um to take up one and six at the same time and to advance or to approve with a first and final reading. Point of clarification. Yeah. Alder Johnson for Director Rene. Is it presumed that the amendment that was made on the committee report would carry through to the ordinance uh related to the recommendations that staff was making? Yep. Okay. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Alder Profett. Discussion on one and six. Seeing none, all in favor will say I. Oh, sorry. We have to use the board, right? Because that's Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. All right. Uh, who made the motion? Sorry. Adopt. Motion to adopt made by Alder Profett. Second by Alder Presley on one and six. Any discussion? Now we'll use the board. All right, those are adopted unanimously. On to five. Motion to advance by Elder Presley. Second by Elder Profit. Discussion here. Alder, I just wanted clarification. And it kind of went through fast before. Um, and I know there was a little bit of a disagreement on if it was the two to two that it reverts. It goes through without being We did take it separately after that discussion. Yeah, but I just wanted to clarify on this one. What's that?
Yes, this would be to advance the change made. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Other discussion? Uh yeah. Oh, sorry, Alder Grant. Thank you, mayor. I just I guess I at the committee level, I did ask, you know, what efforts were done to fill the vacancies and the chair did say that that's not the issue that they have people interested. So, I think I'm a little hesitant to reduce the seats when we have people interested in serving in the commission. Um, so I think I'm a little confused as to what the goal is and I don't want to turn people away if we have people interested. So that's my thought on that. Okay. Thanks, Alder Hudson. Okay. The the [clears throat] motion is uh the desire of the committee and staff is to go from nine chairs to seven. um this will bring it in league with most of the commissions that we have. Nine is kind of a high number and for the last four years it's been kind of difficult to have a quorum for the equal rights commission. uh when I was part of the Eucharist commission two years ago uh we had a meeting or two that we didn't hold because there was not a quorum and I think bringing it down to seven which is the same number of plan commission we've had times with the plan commission where we barely held the meeting because we we had a quorum just barely. Okay. So the fact that that nine commissioners are not meeting to meet a quorum isn't isn't something that needs to be drastically looked at. It's just hard to do. So I'm totally in favor of taking
the recommendation of the commission and the uh the people with uh uh who are associated with the commission that want to go from 9 to seven commissioners. I think it makes a ton of sense. that allows them to meet more frequently and get work done. And I think if we want to look at adding to that after we make the change, that would be great. Um, but I think to just let them in this quandry is not the thing to do. I think we should let them go from 9 to seven seats. So I will vote for it. Thank you. Thanks, Alder. Any other comments? Alder Johnson. Just a question for legal. I mean quorum would be is there a a minimum number of people or is quorum simply the majority [clears throat] of folks that are present or is it a majority of the commission members? Yeah, it's the majority of members. So for the equal rights commission right now they need um five to yes five to have a meeting. The for seven it's four. Okay. So five members to conduct a meeting right now. And well certainly I think a lot of the work that this commission has been doing is is focused around obviously a number of the talks that have come here. You know one of the the things for this commission that um in terms of why this was created was to address uh complaints um related to um uh forgive me the the violations around um if if there was a a complaint filed right for a violation around um discrimination. Yeah discrimination. Thank you. And and so from that perspective, that's why I'm more comfortable with the the five in a way, right? Meaning that you'd have to have a minimum of five present, whereas with seven, you only have four present. I just feel more comfortable in those situations having that decision, I guess, diluted a little bit more. So, uh, now that said, I was actually surprised that the alder didn't have voting privileges. So, that piece I
certainly support. Um, and I'm kind of curious if I mean if you give the alder that voting privileges, are they currently calculated in that quorum and are they part of that nine or are they just treated separately? Question for attorney coach. So quorum is just to determine whether a meeting can be held and then in terms of voting it's um the members present. So if you have a quorum which is five and then the majority to pass something for the most part would be three of those five. So it's not all five if that's part of the question that you're asking and I'm not uh positive on the change for the um the alder voting. We have other um commissions that have non- voting alders. So if that's something we'd want to look at um I would say we'd have to do some additional research about whether that changes because it's the case for others. And that's where I think uh I would certainly love to have that discussion around like all commissions if it makes sense or not to have a blanket policy where alders appointed to commissions have a vote regardless of which commission it is. But that's obviously not what's before us today. So and I also not voting for the alder but that could be a state statute thing. I'm not sure exactly. Mhm. Um yes, the uh water commission commissioner appointments and the uh appointment of the mayor is uh in states law in chapter 62 I think. But quote me on that but yeah definitely state law. Thanks Alder profit. No. Oh, Alder Presley. Um, in regards to hearing complaints, that was something that we brought forward um as a potential ordinance change so that we could hear complaints. That was in a large document um that we uh held for more discussion and then this body received in place on file. So, that's not really a consideration here.
Um, this body said, "No, we don't want you to hear complaints." Thanks, Alder Morgan. I voted against this at protection and policy because to me equal rights should represent a a smartest board of people and that's what we have in Green Bay. Remember talking to Alder Ritterbush he was telling me how many uh different languages his company alone has to be able to communicate with and I mean it was 19 something like that and uh 16. So to me, it's just going against what we should be looking for, more representation of the public, which is our Green Bay citizens. And also, we've been told there are people want to be in this board. Alder Presley has someone that he thinks would be good for the board. There's another one that applied. So to me, I I'm still against reducing it. I think we should expand it to include everyone in the city of Green Bay. Thanks, Alder. Um, Alder Grant again. Thank you, mayor. Um, so we're talking about reducing it down to two members, which it was also stated that there's currently two vacancies, so they have seven active members, and there's times they're not meeting quorum. So when you're talking about quorum being a difference of one person but you have two more members who can possibly show up wouldn't it almost make it easier to meet quorum qualifications when you have nine versus seven and you're there's only a one spot difference do you understand what I'm saying like quorum is four and five but you have seven and nine so you have the difference of two extra people the chance of them being available to show up so again I guess I'm just kind of trying to understand the goal um If there's members on there that the schedule's too busy, maybe it's a possibility of stepping down and opening that position with someone who
can commit their time. Um, I will offer an amendment motion to approve um striking the seven, keeping it at nine, but allowing the alder to have voting privileges. Okay. Um, Alder Grant makes a motion to amend. Seconded by Alder Johnson. All in favor of that amendment will signify by saying I. I. Nay. The eyes appear to have it. Entertain a motion. Just one thing, Mayor Johnson. Yep. I I just thank you Alder Presley for uh correcting I had uh my memory was wrong and the mayor kind of verified it. I was under the presumption my memory was that we had a couple of or I think at least one protected class that was not protected under federal law and I thought it was the commission that still heard that. But so I appreci I just want to acknowledge that that correction so that way the rest of council uh heard that as well. So thank you. Right. Um where are we? No not yet. Was there Yeah. So motion to advance as amended made by Alder E. Seconded by Alder Morgan. All in favor will say I. Um board board vote has been requested. You may vote. No. That passes 9 to3. Um motion to adjourn made by Alder Profit, second by Alder Rutter Bush. All in favor say I. post name. You guys have it. We're journed. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Have a great one.
Recording stopped.
This transcript was automatically generated from the official public meeting video and is presented unedited. It reflects remarks made on the public record by elected officials, staff, and public commenters. Transcript accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.