City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh.

Good morning. We're going to get started this morning with an invocation led by Oklahoma City Police Department volunteer Pastor Jordan Dawson, and that will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilman Bradley Carter. Please stand as you are able.

Let us pray. Father God, we thank you for the privilege of gathering together today for the opportunity to serve the people of Oklahoma City. We ask for your wisdom and guidance over this meeting. Give our mayor, city council members, city leaders and staff clarity in every decision patience in every discussion, and courage to do what's right. Lord, help us remember that behind every policy, every project, and every decision are people, families, neighborhoods, and futures. May we embrace that our greatest asset as a city is the next generation. May the work done here today honor you, strengthen our community, protect the vulnerable, encourage opportunity, and promote peace and unity throughout our great city. We are grateful for our first responders, public servants, educators, business owners, churches, and citizens who work hard each day to make Oklahoma City such an awesome place to live. God bless this city, bless those who lead it, and bless all those who live in it. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, I call this meeting of the City Council to order. And we have Office of the Mayor, we have a robust Office of the Mayor agenda this morning, and we're gonna take it a little bit out of order. We're gonna start with our annual appointment and recognition of our Youth Council. And Debbie, are they gonna come all up first? Okay, that'd be great. So this is item 3N. And of course, what we always do is we go around the horn, wards one through eight, and then at large positions, and we introduce our youth counselors. So we'll begin with ward one.

Thank you, Mayor. I have Vivian and Colin. Vivian is from Putnam City High School. Colin is from Putnam City North High School. Vivian Herrera is a senior at Putnam City High School. She serves as a senior class president and is a member of the Varsity Palm Squad, where she promotes school spirit and positive sportsmanship. Vivian has been recognized with the Pete's Pillar of Character Award for making others feel welcomed, seen, and valued, along with additional honors for leadership and hard work. Outside of school, she has worked as a lifeguard for the past two years, helping maintain a safe environment for guests and responding to emergencies with calmness and care. Inspired by her late father's example of hard work and kindness, Viviana is passionate about supporting immigrant families and addressing food insecurity for youth in Oklahoma City. Colin is a senior at Putnam City High School. He is a varsity and club swimmer where he has earned multiple all-conference honors. He set school relay records and had helped lead his team to its first ever conference championship. Colin is also a pilot in training, participant through a highly selective Air Force aviation program, where he has completed a solo flight and earned his student pilot license while also volunteering as a certified surf lifesaver and assisting in water rescues. He has been recognized for outstanding academic achievements, including superintendent honor roll and top class rankings. Known for his ambition and drive, Colin overcame a series of medical diagnoses in his childhood and strengthened his resilience and self-advocacy. He is passionate about improving youth safety, walkability, and access to community spaces across Oklahoma City. Would Colin's dad and Viviana's sister stand, please? You two have done an amazing job with these kids. And as I say, almost every year after reading these things, I have no clue what I've done with my life. At the age of 17, 18 years old, they have already done so much and exhibit leadership and I'm excited to see where they go. So thank you so much. Would you please give them a round of applause? When I asked Viviana's sister what she sees in her sister, she said she is very resilient, determined, and has a no-quit attitude. She discovers ways to get things done when no one else can. And for Colin, Colin overcame cancer four years ago, and it has done nothing but drive him to do even more. And his desire after high school now is to become a fighter pilot in the Air Force. So both of you, make me look bad, but here you are as you've been. Thank you so much for what you do. Please welcome them to our Youth Council.

Board 2. Thanks, Mayor. Is this on? OK. I'm going to start with Zyra, who is a senior at Putnam City West High School, where she is actively involved in Yearbook, Patriot Partners, and the wrestling program. And it is here where she served as head wrestling manager, helped oversee media, the equipment, athlete eligibility, and tournament operations. Zyra has earned multiple honors including Manager of the Year, Athletic Letter Awards, and recognition from the National Honor Society. Outside of school, she works at Little Caesars, balancing customer service responsibilities in English as well as in Spanish. Through her experiences, Zyra has developed a strong work ethic and passion for personal growth while advocating for safer roads, improved transportation, and better infrastructure for students across Oklahoma City. Jack is a senior at Cassidy School. He serves as student council representative where he helps plan school-wide events such as pep rallies and activities where he is able to build community and school spirit. Jack is also a member of the varsity basketball team where he has played since freshman year and where his class knows him for his positive leadership and supportive presence as a teammate. He has earned academic recognition through high school honor roll and honor roll distinctions, as well as the presidential, excuse me, Presidential Service Silver Medal Award for completing over 75 hours of volunteer service. Known for his kindness and empathy toward others, Jack is passionate about addressing food insecurity and expanding access to mentorship opportunities for youth in Oklahoma City. Is there any family or friends here for either of these two? Would you mind standing briefly? I'm just going to pull a Councilman Carter. who now is serving as Ward 8 Counsel. That's fine.

That's fine.

That's fine. I've only had an espresso this morning, so whatever happens next is going to be wild. Congratulations on the students you have stewarded into this very role. You should be very proud. And speaking of pride, it's my honor to have the next year alongside you. And I suspect you're going to make me look really good because this is impressive work here. And I can't wait to learn more from both of you. So congratulations.

I'm going to stand because it feels real awkward whenever you're talking about people that are right behind you and I want to honor you guys and your accomplishments and your willingness to serve as youth council leaders for Ward 3. First off, Asta Patel is a senior at Mustang High School. She serves as parliamentarian in National Honor Society, where she helps organize meetings, plan service opportunities, and coordinate events. She is also the media coordinator for HOSA, where she designs promotional content and manages social media to increase student engagement. Outside of school, Asta volunteers year-round at OU Medical Center through the Volunteen Program. She assists patients and staff by delivering mental, oh wait, no. Sorry, got offline there. By providing supplies, helping patients, getting people to the right spot. If you've ever been at OU Medical Center, that is a very valuable help. providing comfort to patients through conversation and activities. She is passionate about strengthening mental health support and addressing food insecurity for young people in Oklahoma City. And she hopes to help create more accessible, supportive resources for students and families in her communities. Welcome to the team, Asta. We're glad to have you. Next up is Diego Ibanez. Diego Ibanez is a senior at Harding Charter Preparatory High School. He serves as head of treasury for student council, is an active member of the National Honor Society, and has played club soccer for over a decade. He previously served as team captain and goalkeeper. He has earned numerous honors, including multiple academic scholarships, honor roll, recognition, and all district soccer honors. Outside of school, he works as a certified US Soccer Federation referee, we could use you down on the far south side just so you know, officiating youth matches and ensuring player safety. Inspired by the legacy of his late older brother, Diego is passionate about leadership, community service, and advocating for increased mental health support and resources for youth experiencing homelessness in Oklahoma City. DAO, we are so excited to have you on the Youth Council for Ward 3. If your parents would please stand up, I'd like to recognize you as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your service to our community and raising the next generation. It doesn't happen by accident. It requires investment, attention, and love. And we appreciate your honoring your children and honoring our community with your service as parents. Thank you so much.

All right, guys, we'll go ahead and start with Brian Hernandez. Brian is a junior at Dove Science Academy and an active member of several school organizations, including Sideline Cheer, Student Council, the Young Woman's Leadership Organization, and National Honor Society. through cheerleading she contributes to team spirit by helping create cheers, mentoring teammates, and supporting team activities, while also building leadership skills through school-based organizations and academic service roles, including serving as a class secretary in her health science courses. She is passionate about building confidence in young people and expanding access to opportunities for students, and she hopes to help create environments where students feel supported, motivated, and empowered to succeed. So Brianna, thank you so much. Oops, sorry, I turned the wrong way. Thank you so much, and congratulations for being a part of the team.

Thank you.

All right, up next is Wesley Shoup. Wesley is a junior at Carl Albert High School. He is involved in youth leadership exchange and serves as a student intern at Grace Place Church and previously participated in the Science Museum Oklahoma Apprentice Program, where he helped organize events and volunteer activities. Wesley has earned recognition as an Oklahoma All-State Mixed Chorus member and was named Science Museum Apprentice of the Month. Known for his bold personality and strong communication skills, Wesley enjoys stepping outside of his comfort zone and taking on new challenges. He is passionate about encouraging open discussion in schools and helping students gain more real-world educational opportunities that align with their future goals. Congratulations to you, Wesley. Could the family that were able to attend with either of these please stand? Excellent. Thank you all so much for all the work you've done. We appreciate you very much.

Congratulations.

All right. Word five.

Every year that I do this, I'm more and more impressed with the candidates that I get to meet and interact with. Last year's were great, and this year's look to be outstanding. So I'd like to introduce you to Brinley Castleberry and Valentin Garcia. Brindley is a junior at Southmore High School and she is involved in varsity softball, leadership, FCA, the National Honor Society, and she also competes in traveling softball and stays active in her church community. Brindley has earned several honors including the Freshman Varsity Award, Freshman 4.0 Plus Award, and the PSAT Rising Star Award. Known for her proactive leadership style, she overcame multiple injuries during softball season through discipline and determination. Brinley is passionate about helping young people develop critical thinking skills and improving financial education opportunities for the youth of Oklahoma City. Valentin is a senior at Westmore High School. He's a varsity soccer player, serves as senior class president, and founded Vowels Talks, a podcast that gives people a platform to share their stories, ideas, and businesses. Valentin is also a two-time DECA state finalist, a Harvard Academy's best delegate recipient, and co-founder of his family's floral business, where he helps lead marketing and customer research. Slacker. Through leadership, athletics, and entrepreneurship, Valentin has developed a passion for connecting with others and making people feel heard and valued. He is especially passionate about improving mental health support and expanding educational resources for immigrant students in Oklahoma City. And I had the pleasure of meeting their parents. Would you guys stand up? And I'm going to echo what Councilman Carter said about way to go. You're raising really good kids, and we wonder what you've done with your life too, Brad. Welcome to the City Council.

Well, I am pleased to introduce Ward 6's two youth counselors for this year, Coral Grimmett and Alan Padilla. Coral is a senior at Heritage Hall. She is a leader in the Heritage Hall Diversity Club, a co-lead builder for the Overcharged Robotics Team, and a standout member of her school's cross-country and track teams. Coral has earned numerous honors, including the State 3A Cross-Country Championship, the President's Volunteer Service Award, and multiple recognitions from academic honor societies. Outside of school, she works at Red Coyote as a fit coach and has also served as an assistant veterinary tech at Sunset Veterinary Clinic. Known for her leadership and ability to connect with others, Coral is passionate about expanding mental health support and increasing access to educational and career opportunities for youth across Oklahoma City. Alan is a junior at Southeast High School and an active member of both academic and extracurricular communities. He participates in the Police Athletic League Mentorship Program as a mentor and is involved in PAL Chess, where he has competed and developed his strategic thinking skills. He is also a trumpet player in the Southeast High School Band and a member of the Southeast Music Honor Society. Outside of school, Alan has earned recognition in chess and athletics, including placing 37th at the 2023 U.S. K-3 Chess Nationals and earning awards such as a three-point medalist at Jenks K-12 and runner-up at the OSCO State Championships. He is passionate about mentoring youth and creating positive opportunities for young people. And he hopes to continue using leadership and service to support others in his school and community. And I understand that Coral's parents are here if they'd like to stand up and be recognized. There they are. Thank you for raising such wonderful children. Alan, I'm gonna force you to make your parents watch this later so that they can hear what wonderful things you're doing. And please join me in welcoming Ward 6 Youth Counselors.

Board 7. Thank you, Mayor. I'm always especially excited to welcome in our new Youth Council members because I am a Youth Council alum myself. So judging by these resumes, I think you all can do a much better job, I'm sure, eventually in serving the ward than me. So I look forward to one of you getting elected too. And I want to start by introducing Lamarie Lattimore. Lamarie is a senior at Millwood High School. She serves as vice president of the DECA State Executive Council, is a Metro Tech student ambassador, and is an active member of the Multicultural Club. Lamarie has been recognized with consistent honor roll distinctions, induction into the National Honor Society, and multiple academic and leadership awards, including recognition through DECA and school-wide achievements. Known for her strong ambition and leadership mindset, she successfully overcame initial nerves and self-doubt to earn a statewide DECA leadership position in her first year of involvement. Lamarie is passionate about increasing youth community involvement and expanding equitable academic opportunities for students across Oklahoma City. And then our next person is Dominique Fair, and Dominique is a senior at John Marshall High School. He is involved in student council, book club, and esports, where he continues to grow as a leader and teammate. Dominique is known for being a fast learner and for helping others feel welcomed and included, especially students who may be shy or struggling to connect. Through leadership experiences, he has worked to overcome his own fear of speaking up in group settings and has developed stronger communication and leadership skills. Dominique is passionate about improving mental health resources and expanding positive after-school opportunities for youth in Oklahoma City. And I understand that Lamarie's parents are here, so would they please stand? Thank you so much for all that you've done to just support our community and to raise Lemari and look forward to working with all of you this year. So thank you and please join me in congratulating our new Ward 7.

Now Ward 8 Councilman Stonecipher is out today. So as you may have observed, Councilman Carter has moved to the other end and is filling in. So you are recognized.

I apologize for the dramatic entrance. But I have the distinct honor in being able to welcome the Ward 8 Youth Council members as well. So we start with Anima, shoot, I told you I wasn't gonna mess that up, I'm sorry. Anima Haque. She is from Edmond Santa Fe High School. Anima is a junior and is an accomplished student leader involved in DECA, FCCLA, and the Humanitarian Scholars Program. As a director of communications for the Humanitarian Scholars, she helps promote the organization's mission and expand its impact while supporting educational opportunities for elementary students. She has earned numerous competitive honors, including DECA state finalist recognition, multiple top three finishes in DECA and FCCLA competitions, and acceptance into the National Honor Society. Anima is particularly interested in addressing homelessness and substance abuse among youth in Oklahoma City and hopes to help connect young people and families with the resources and support they need to thrive. Next is Thomas Gillenwater. Thomas is at Cassidy School. He's a junior and is actively involved in athletics, music, and community service. A member of the Cassidy swim team, Thomas has earned multiple medals at the OSSAA 5A state swim championships, including individual and relay honors, while also receiving recognition for his achievements in band competitions. Thomas volunteers with Hearts and Hunger. He helps prepare and distribute meals to individuals experiencing homelessness in the Oklahoma City metro and works as a ranch hand at Lazy G Ranch, where he assists with cattle operations, construction projects, and agriculture work. He is passionate about addressing youth mental health challenges and homelessness in Oklahoma City and hopes to use leadership and service to help create stronger support systems for the young people in our community. I'll echo everything you've already heard from all of us about how proud of the youth we are. I think we can all say that our next generation is gonna be in good hands. And if Thomas's mom would stand, we'd like to recognize her. Miss Christy, thank you so much for the great work you're doing in your child's life as well. And please welcome board aid council, youth council members to our team. Thank you guys so much.

All right, last but not least, I am thrilled to introduce to you our at-large council members. First up, Aziza Ayodele is a junior at Edmond Memorial High School. She is actively involved in health science leadership and community service through her roles as a, do we say H-O-S-A or HOSA? HOSA, all right. As a HOSA chapter officer and HOSA state officer intern, where she helps coordinate service opportunities, organize fundraisers, and manage public relations for statewide leadership events. Aziza also serves on the Edmond Mobile Meals Teen Board. After being diagnosed with severe scoliosis and undergoing spinal fusion surgery, Aziza demonstrated remarkable resilience by relearning how to walk and eventually returning to competitive track. She believes two of the most pressing issues facing young people in Oklahoma City are the lack of civic engagement and the growing mental health crisis among youth. We're also joined by Silesh Swamijure. He is a junior at Class and School of Advanced Studies. He is deeply involved in civic engagement and youth leadership through the Oklahoma YMCA Youth and Government Program, where he has served as the Barton Speaker of the House and Guardian Pro Tempore, leading committee sessions, reviewing legislation, and facilitating mock legislative proceedings. He is also a youth mentor with the North-South Young Changemakers Program. Silesh has earned the Mock Trial Attorney Champion and Best Bill presentation through the Oklahoma YMCA Youth and Government Program. He believes chronic absenteeism and teen vaping are two major issues affecting the youth in Oklahoma City. And if Aziza's and Silesh's parents and family would stand, Please, I know you're in here, I met you earlier. Hey, everybody, yes, yes. Let's hear it for the families and for our two new at-large youth counselors. Now, this is actually an item on the agenda, so let's be sure to pass it. The appointments of all of these great folks you just met. Item three in, let's get a motion and a second. No, yeah, sure. All right, we have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Board 1 is yes.

I can't see it, but Board 7 is yes. Yes.

All right, you are all confirmed. Let's hear it for our Youth Council.

Thank you.

Lauren, you've been very patient. We'd love to have you up here now, though. Please, you probably thought, oh, I'm the first item. This'll be great. I'll be out by 8.45.

Back to school.

Well, hopefully you were as inspired as we were. All right. So this is item 3A. And Lauren is our teacher of the month. And we'd like to learn a little bit more about you. And so I would ask the clerk to read this resolution.

Whereas Lauren Peck Weissenfels has been named Teacher of the Month for August 2026 by the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation and Rotary Club of Oklahoma City. And whereas Lauren was an Oklahoma City Public Schools District Teacher of the Year finalist in 2026. Whereas Lauren serves as the drama teacher at class in School of Advanced Studies, where she has created an academically rigorous theater program. Whereas Lauren creates a safe classroom culture through routines that encourage open communication, quality feedback, and relationship development. Whereas Lauren is a solution-oriented leader, who approaches obstacles with a creative and collaborative mindset. And whereas Lauren has played an active role in statewide advocacy efforts for arts education as a board member of Oklahoma Thespians. And whereas Lauren believes the power of partnership is the key to success. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the mayor and council of the city of Oklahoma City that they do hereby recognize and commend Lauren Peck Weissenfels on her selection as August 2026 Teacher of the Month by the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation and Rotary Club of Oklahoma City.

Thank you. All right. Well, this is a resolution. So let's see if we can get a motion and a second for its passage. We've got a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. I wish to vote aye.

Passes unanimously. All right. Well, yes, let's hear it, Lauren.

We would love to hear a few words from you. Obviously, being the drama teacher, I'm sure you could take all day. But we are trying to keep this tight. So if you could just give us a tight five. The floor is yours.

Fantastic. First off, thank you so much for this incredible honor. self-proclaimed theater nerd from southeast Oklahoma, so hearing nice words about me is strange and new, but I am honored to represent Oklahoma City Public Schools today and to be here on the same day that Silas is also being recognized as fantastic. Go Comets. We are a fantastic school district with so many wonderful teachers and to be among the top nine and now to be a teacher of the month is one of the most humbling and moving things that I've ever experienced. So thank you so much.

Well, thank you. Let's hear it for Lauren. All right. Now if Alexander, Kevin, and Greg could join me up here. Well, these gentlemen are our safety stars. And to learn a little bit more about that and them, I would ask the clerk to read this resolution.

Whereas Greg McCuddy, Kevin Smith, and Alexander Overstreet are electricians for the City of Oklahoma City in the Water Quality Division of the Utilities Department. And whereas Greg, Kevin, and Alexander are responsible for maintaining the City's water treatment facilities and equipment, ensuring our water assets are always safe and operable. And whereas on January 21st, 2026, a temporary employee at the Draper Water Treatment Plant collapsed, falling face forward and became unresponsive. And whereas Greg, Kevin, and Alexander immediately recognized the seriousness of the situation and took rapid, decisive action that demonstrated exceptional commitment to workplace safety utilizing the skills learned through their provided CPR and first aid trainings. And whereas the response of these three exceptional individuals embodies the highest standards of safety, preparedness, and public service expected of city employees. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the mayor and council of the city of Oklahoma City that they do hereby extend their sincere gratitude to these three individuals, Greg McCuddy, Kevin Smith, Alexander Overstreet, and recognize them as safety stars among city staff.

Thank you. Well, this is also a resolution, so we'd love to see if we can get a motion and a second to recognize these outstanding city employees. We've got a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. I wish to vote aye. passes unanimously. Now, I understand you are a designated spokesperson, Greg. So, yeah. So, well, first of all, in addition to the vote and the resolution, just we're so grateful for the service that all three of you provide every day. But obviously, this specific incident was very noteworthy and reflects the The work we do here as well to instill safety and make sure that all of our employees get home at the end of the day. So thank you for contributing to that. Greg, the floor is yours.

First of all, I'd like to thank the council for this honor. Thank everybody. I want to thank my upper management and for the direct upper management. They allow us to have all these safety trainings and they prepare us for this stuff. And it's every year, all the time. And for the last, you know, the last thing I want to thank is these two guys right here on my team. I couldn't do anything or we couldn't do anything without the team being the team that we are. And I count on my guys all the time. And so to have them there, and I just hope I had a little part with what they did and want to thank the city for everything they do and all the safety that they teach us. Thank you.

Well, thank you. Let's hear it for Greg, Kevin, and Alexander.

Thank you.

all right now that was items a and b and we did item in items c through m are appointments to various boards and commissions as you can see i'm continuing to get caught up and we'll probably have a few more on september 1st but today we could take a motion to pass them as a group again items 3c through 3m We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes unanimously. All right, that concludes Office of the Mayor. We're now at items from Council, and there are none today, which brings us to Item 5, City Manager Reports.

The only thing we have today is Claims and Payroll, and that can be found on OKC.gov.

All right, Item 6 are Journal and Council Proceedings. We have Items A and B we can take with one motion. We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes unanimously. Item seven, request for uncontested continuances. So items 11A and 11B and 11G will all be deferred as indicated here. Is there anything else, Mr. City Manager?

Yes, we have a few items today starting on page 13. Item 11C is PUD 2131 that will be deferred to the 15th of September. Then continuing on page 15, Item 11L1, dilapidated structures. All these items will be stricken from the agenda. Item E3117, Northwest 24th Street, to re-notify. Then on page 15, item 11M1, unsecured structures. Item G8616, Northwest 31st Street, the owner secured. I'm sorry, 91st Street. And then item 11N1, On abandoned buildings page 15 item D 3117 Northwest 24th Street to re notify and then on page 16 we have one additional that is item 11 P it will strike that item from the agenda as well. That's all the items that I have.

All right, that will be the order then. Item 8, a revocable permits and events. Item 8A is a revocable permit with Hope is Alive Ministries for the Run of Hope on August 29th. And we have Amy LaRue and Christy Tyler here to talk about that.

Hello, I'm Christy Tyler, Director of Events for Hope is Alive Ministries, and this is Amy LaRue, Director of Family Support Groups with, like I said, Hope is Alive Ministries at 144-00 Bogart Parkway, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 731-34. And we're doing our 5K with our one-mile Memorial Mile on August 29th at Willer-Ferrisville District from eight to probably, our run will start about eight o'clock and then our 5K will start at 8.30. And so we will be doing that until about noon and then we will close it up and break everything down.

All right, awards four and six. Feel free to jump in.

I'm happy to move for approval.

The motion in a second, cast your votes. Passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, now we'll recess the council and we convene as the Oklahoma City Municipal Facilities Authority. We have items A through E on that docket. There are no scheduled presentations, but we have a resident who signed up to speak on item B, Steve Hunt.

So it was actually OC PPA, so I'm gonna speak on that and not this.

Okay, then we can take these items A through E with one motion. We have a motion and a second, cast your votes. Passes unanimously. We'll adjourn OCMFA and convene as Oklahoma City Public Property Authority. And we have a resident who signed up to speak on item B, Steve Hunt.

All right, thanks. Steve Hunt, 6300 Westwood Drive. I love reading, but I hate reading up here, but I'm going to do it because this is very nuanced. Yesterday, I called David Gorgonis, Level Up LLC vice president who signed this amendment. He confirmed all of my worst fears. I then spoke with Sue Hollenbeck, the city's special projects manager, a chamber product placed inside city government who previously worked at the hotel motel tax funded CVB. She told me that this item fills a need and Level Up just does the work. What that means is Level Up LLC comes to Oklahoma City, attaches infrastructure to a pole that subleases antenna space on equipment to wireless carriers at rates monumentally above what they pay the city. The carrier passes every dollar of that cost to single mothers, teachers, laborers, call center employees, people who have absolutely no seat at the table. So what I want to say about this, Level Up Assets won LLC as a Georgia company that identified an opportunity in a vulnerable municipality's public infrastructure made possible by vulnerable municipal leadership with no capacity to recognize what they were giving away here. approached chamber product city staff with no competitive process and secured what might be a 50-year lease, a 50-year lease, they sublease antenna space to wireless carriers and pay the city a measly $18,000 a year. Then that rent goes straight into the ballpark capital improvement fund. into capital improvements, and hear me on this, appreciate an asset controlled by Silver Lake Capital, an $88 billion private equity firm that owns OKC Comets, through Diamond Baseball Holdings, a private equity roll-up that has acquired 50 minor league baseball teams since 2021. This amendment is the third time this deal has come before this body. Each time David Grigone has signed the petition in Granite County, Georgia, Weeks before this body voted, the outcome is always decided before the deliberation begins. The June memo said the lease was originally adopted June 3rd. Today said it was adopted June 17th. Those are different dates, not Scribner heirs. It's a moving fact. And I don't know what it means, but this body should find out before it votes. And then I go on. So so basically what this is is a little over a year ago, there's a LLC in Georgia that goes all over the country and identifies municipal infrastructures where they can outsource the building of cellular infrastructure, where they identify what might be dead zones. And we're going has told me that this is for the Olympics coming. So the short of it is this LLC who doesn't do any of the work is going to be paying us $18,000 and making about $200,000 off of it. My problem with this is that if you go to the city page, the Innovation District total budget was $76.7 million. And with that $76.7 million, we couldn't find someone in the city to do the very mundane clerical work that level of llc is doing and this is a five-year contract with nine renewals that's 50 years and at the city time okay so i hope you all will consider that because it's very embarrassing that we're giving a georgia company our uh our infrastructure and you know somebody here could do it so all right now we can take the items on the ppa docket a through d uh with one motion

We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. passes unanimously. Now we'll adjourn OCPPA and reconvene as the council where we are on item nine, the consent docket. There's a presentation on item B. There are also presentations on items AP and AQ. Is there anything else that a council member wishes to pull out for a separate vote, comment, question?

Mayor. I am to understand if I'm hearing you correctly. Item B will have a presentation, but I would like to just go ahead and pull that out for a separate vote, if you would not mind. And then, item B-L, I would also like to pull out for a separate vote. Did you say B-L? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Anything else? All right then, we'll take it in order and we'll start with the presentation on item B and then we'll hear from residents who've signed up to speak on that item.

Thank you, Mayor. Chief Ron Basie will give us a presentation on this contract. You know that we had it on last week and had to continue that so we could make sure we had it incorporated. And I'll let Chief walk us through some of the changes that have been made and adjustments to this contract.

As she sets up, I want to take a moment to thank the council for what you do each and every day. I also want to acknowledge the youth council that was here today. No matter what the topic I'm here to discuss, it's always great to see the youth of Oklahoma City taking those steps forward. That's our future. And it's really encouraging to start the day off seeing them step into the light and take advantage of these opportunities. And we want future generations of youth in our community to know that opportunities like this exist. and we want them to step into the space and gain that experience. So I'm here to speak on behalf of the renewal of the contract for Flock ALPR. And I'll start by saying, you know, it's understandable the concern some of our residents have about our usage of flock ALPR cameras. As members of the Oklahoma City Police Department, we're also members of this community. We don't only work here, but we live here as well. So we share any concerns anyone has about privacy rights. But at the exact same time, we want to live in a city that is safe. And we want to live in a city that holds people accountable for victimizing our residents. You know, we're entrusted to make split-second decisions to protect lives and stop violence. We have a duty to use all our tools ethically and responsibly. That aligns with building trust in our community, which is the cornerstone of our community partnerships and how we get things done. We're not in this alone. We're in this together. We're committed to... increasing our safeguards, utilizing safeguards, evaluating constantly any use of technology. So the real question is, are the right guardrails and protections in place as we look at this technology? It must be used appropriately and for its intended purposes. This conversation doesn't just impact those of you sitting on a horseshoe, it impacts victims and families of victims. It helps our investigators to prevent further harm and hold people accountable. But before I get into all that, let's just talk about we're here to talk about today we're going to talk about the flight flock lesson license plate readers how they work the safeguards in place and why their continued use matters for public safety as i speak to you today and as everyone who comes behind me speaks today i want us all to realize we're not just talking to you we're talking to every member of this community who's ever been a victim of crime and their families and the impact that's had So let's talk about flock cameras and data and what it is. We've used ALPR technology since 2014. Our officers have already had the ability to run plates. ALPR just increases the speed and accuracy. Flock identifies stolen vehicles and plates, missing or endangered persons, and vehicles tied to crime. Indeed, you've heard before that we are contracted for 90 cameras, and indeed we have 90 cameras that cover a 620 plus square mile radius. Oklahoma City is unique in that manner. We have a lot of ground to cover. We have a lot of residents. This is a very large city. You've seen heat maps that show this proliferation of flock cameras and it's been said that cameras continue to be installed. I will stand here and tell you today that all 90 of our cameras are installed and we're not currently installing anymore. What you have seen or may have seen are the more than 100 flock cameras that are privately owned in this community. businesses, neighborhood associations, and other entities believe this is a tool that helps keep them safe and hold people accountable. And so there are at least or more than 100 other cameras. So the public has more flock cameras than we do is what I'm saying. Data is a four-letter word, but it seems to have a big meaning to people. And I want to break this down. I watched a television program the other night, and a car goes by, and in 30 seconds, they know everything about this person's life. They know that they broke up with their girlfriend, they quit their job, they bought a gun. That's make-believe. That's make-believe. Let's talk about what the data is. Our cameras are installed to capture a still image on a public road at a distance. It's the rear of the vehicle, and we see the plate numbers, the letters, and the state. We get a make of the vehicle, the color of the vehicle, or body style. Alerts on the vehicles are entered into NCIC hot list of stolen vehicles, missing or endangered persons, and vehicles tied to crime, and we may get those alerts. The vehicles may be entered into a temporary hot list when there is reasonable suspicion, there's an ongoing investigation. This is often a temporary measure until we can enter the vehicles in NCIC. And all an alert does is it generates an investigative lead. I would dare tell you that anyone in this room that's walked in here with probably the most trackable electronic device, a cell phone, could stand at any intersection and take the same picture, and it captures only what the naked eye could see. It has metadata that gives you the same timestamp and location. So let's talk about what the ALPR cameras don't capture. No video or audio. No continuous tracking. FLOG does sell cameras capable of recording video, but we do not contract for those. We only use ALPR design for vehicle identification. It doesn't identify the driver, the occupants, or the registered owner. In order to get that information, we would have to access another database. It doesn't give us the speed or any traffic violations. and there's no personal or biometric information, meaning there's no facial recognition or anything else that identifies anybody. Some of the safeguards and limits the camera show, only a vehicle in a specific place and time. It cannot reveal personal activities or sensitive destinations. Investigations can use aggregated data to generate leads. These are used for criminal investigations, including missing or endangered persons. Any additional information can be accessed only through other systems documented and legitimate. What you see before you is actually the entry portal to conduct a search and we wanted you to see the information that has to be entered. So when we talk about privacy and accountability, how do we ensure this? Every search must be justified and users must affirm law enforcement purposes at login As you can see, they have to enter an offense type required, whether it's robbery, example, kidnapping, stolen vehicle, et cetera. A valid reason is required, and they have to ensure that every query is tied to a legitimate investigative work. Manual verification of ALPR captures occur to prevent misreads. So just because we get the alert, the officer is still charged with the responsibility of manually verifying that information. And all searches are logged and reviewable at any time. Some of the built-in privacy and security safeguards. Only authorized users with role-based permissions can use it. Access is narrow, monitored, and tied to individual responsibility. No identified data breaches to date involving our use of flock data has occurred. Our data is locally controlled per our contract. FLOC cannot sell or share our data without our permission. We decide if, when, and with whom data is shared. No outside agency has automatic access, and this will be discussed later in the presentation. There are audit tools to identify proper or improper use, and we're transitioning to an automatic seven-day deletion cycle. Images are only retained longer if they have evidentiary value. So FLOC has announced upgrades to strengthen privacy, accountability and security. Our department is voluntarily transitioning from 30 day to seven day data retention. Let me be clear, with FLOC's new update, we had the option to honor the contract as is and keep a 30 day retention. we are opting to go to a seven day retention. This aligns with best practices and reduces data held without limiting investigations. We will use the new evidence mode for cases needing data beyond seven days. This allows for secure retention of specific records only when appropriate. FLOC also introduced offense-based filtering for data sharing. We already use that. We block any searches for immigration-related searches or reproductive rights searches. We also use the audit assist to flag abnormal search patterns for review. Abnomalies trigger investigation and appropriate correction if necessary and locks down the user's account until it's been, excuse me, been reviewed. These updates reinforce public safety, privacy, and transparency, and maintains the necessary investigative capabilities at the same time. We're no stranger to people questioning technology. People have a fear of anything technical, and we understand that, and privacy rights are a really big deal. I stood here before when we renewed our Accurant and our LexisNexis contracts and people were uncomfortable. So we did the exact same thing this time that we did with those and we had an addendum to the agreement added to the FLOC contract. We're listening to our community and we support the ongoing commitment to balancing public safety, privacy, and transparency while maintaining the investigative tools to our officers. We've implemented a new policy addendum and updated internal safeguards. The amendment adds really strong protections preventing federal agencies from accessing OKC's data collected through flock systems. Section 4.4 restricts data disclosure strictly to the agency and clarifies that only court-ordered processes constitute legal requirements. FLOC must notify the city of any federal subpoena or demand and disclose only the minimum amount required, and the amendment's terms override any conflicting parts of the original agreement. Ultimately, this agreement enhances transparency, protects resident privacy, preserves local authority over police and data, ensures the city maintains sole decision-making power over how its information is accessed or shared. It is a critical step in safeguarding trust between the city's technology partners and the community. So, A document was presented to me after a town hall that listed several recommended guardrails. And on the left side of this, you will see those guardrails that were proposed. And I'll just go through them one by one and tell you exactly how they align with our usage of ALPR technology. So the first proposed guardrail was permitted use, define what ALPRs can and can't be used for. And as you can see to the right, our protocol is to use exclusively for official law enforcement purposes, purposes documented with each search. All searches are subject to internal audit and inappropriate use is considered misconduct. Number two, data sharing. Restrict to approve partners. Data is only shared with other law enforcement agencies with approval. The Oklahoma City Police Department does not currently participate in the automatic national sharing partnership. And I will talk more about that in a few. Number three, data retention. Reduce default from 30 days to seven days. As I mentioned previously, we've already done that. Expansion controls, council approval required before adding cameras. The annual contract renewal and any expansion of cameras greater than 50,000 both require city council approval. And then there was a sunset recommendation and reauthorization that it has to be reconsidered or reauthorized every three to five years. Well, the vendor contract is actually reviewed and renewed by city council annually. So we either meet or exceed all of these suggested guardrails that were presented to us. So let's talk about something that everyone is focused on and the big question that looms, is it legal? The department has worked closely with the Municipal Counselor's Office to ensure that its uses of ALPR does not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Municipal Counselor's Office have reviewed two recent federal cases in which the courts analyzed two separate challenges to the usage of flock ALPR by two separate police departments in Oklahoma. in the United States versus Acosta in the Northern District and the second case being the United States versus Brown in the Western District. Both cases found that a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a license plate or on a vehicle on a public street. A vehicle's movements on public streets or the exterior characteristics of a vehicle traveling on a public street. The Brown case specifically held that city's usage of flock LPR does not provide an intimate window into a person's life. Both courts held that the usage of flock LPR did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Other courts across the country have consistently upheld ALPR use as a constitutional right when limited to capturing publicly exposed information. Reducing the auto deletion from 30 to seven days further strengthens compliance and together these rulings support the conclusion that ALPRs as currently used are constitutional when capturing vehicle information visible to the public. In fact, it captures what can be seen by the naked eye. So let's talk about the sharing benefits. We're no strangers to violence. We have a memorial right down the street that reminds us of the impact of violence. We have an election day plot in November of 2024 that did not take place where people were going to shoot up polling sites. because of the efforts of law enforcement. I personally know the impact of violence. I know the impact of having a relative with cognitive issues missing and that pain and that fear. See, Oklahoma City is unique. We sit at the nation's crossroads. I-35 and I-40 meet just east of downtown. Those two highways dissect the United States, and it makes us a pipeline for interstate and transnational crime. Vehicles involved in serious crimes come through and leave this city all the time. Why do shared networks matter? We need those leads when suspects leave our city. It supports us locating mis- or endangered persons because they don't just stay within our city limits. It helps us recover stolen vehicles across state lines. It strengthens regional and national public safety. And the same safeguards apply to all searches. Real-world cases. In 2025, we had strong-arm robberies and vehicle burglary sprees on nearly a weekly occasion. Those suspect vehicles were rentals with out-of-state plates crossing multiple states. Nationwide system and 30 days of historical data captures were essential, and the result was almost all of those cases were solved. The impact of losing shared networks, lower clearance rates, hindered fugitive searches, slower interstate coordination, reduced nationwide investigative assist, the family member who won't be found in time. Indeed, the crossroads makes us a target. People see our community as a feeding ground to take advantage of and then run away and hide. Our current sharing controls, we've listened to our community and we've turned off FLOCC's automatic national sharing. Despite all of the things I mentioned, despite how it helps us keep this community safe, we've listened to our community and we've turned off our automatic national sharing. What we will do is we can turn it on for significant incidents on a case-by-case basis It needs two levels of authorization, and then the national search function is immediately turned back off. For sharing our data, we share only with individual authorized agencies, primarily Oklahoma, in Oklahoma, and in the Southwest region. All searches are made by those authorized agencies, made by those agencies are also logged, audited, and reviewed. And in the meantime, we've urged FLOC to continue enhancing their sharing restrictions. People come to Oklahoma City every day to victimize our community, and we need the tools to stop them, and that's why sharing matters. I've been asked, hey, what are some of the significant impacts of utilizing this technology? What are some of the successes? Well, this technology has a real impact on Oklahoma City. These actual cases involve real neighbors, real friends, real family members. As you look at the statistics, those aren't numbers, those are people impacted. And it's real easy to get caught up in or overlook the impact it has to individuals. But the technology has directly prevented violence and solved some very serious crimes. I have several, I'll name three. Earlier this month, a member of our community was riding an electric scooter and was struck and killed by a vehicle that fled the scene. When Evan sent the scene and flocked ALPR, we were able to identify the suspect vehicle, which was located by officers at a nearby hotel, and we were able to hold that person accountable. That matters to that person's family. That matters to anyone who knew and loved that individual. It does. I think most of us are familiar with an individual who went on a killing spree. It started in Moore where he shot two people, killing one, wounding another. Carjacked the neighbor. That person had a heart attack and died subsequently. Then took that car to northwest Oklahoma City, carjacked another couple. Then drove to the northeast side of Oklahoma City, carjacked and killed another innocent man. Flock cameras picked him up just north of I-240. Officers attempted to stop him. If you've seen the footage, he entered the highway and continued to try to carjack other people until he was stopped. This is an individual who would not have stopped. Who knows how many people he would have hurt had he not been located. And I still grieve for those family members who lost members unnecessarily to this random and reckless violence. The third case is something that we're also all familiar with. It was a shooting in Midtown where nine people were shot and a total of 11 were injured. This was a very complicated case, involved a lot of people, a lot of vehicles. And Flock identified suspect vehicles seen prior to the shooting and provided a key lead in an extremely complicated investigation. I'll draw your attention just for a second. I just want to name some of the other stats. 402 aggravated assaults, 259 robberies, 210 missing people, 60 murders, 38 forcible rapes, 34 kidnappings, 16 forcible sodomies, 1,280 stolen vehicles recovered with a value of just under $17 million. We also had an international burglary ring that preyed on our community. And the investigation went longer than 30 days. We lost that flock data. We didn't have it in time. And that case is stalled. And those people are still free to roam and create harm wherever they go. In conclusion, technology is already a part of our lives. Indeed, most of us walked in here with cell phones. Security cameras at businesses, car washes, plate pay on the turnpike has the same LPR technology. Airports utilize this technology, parking lots. LPR is operated in the same public facing space. The designer supports safety and not monitor daily life. Privacy concerns are legitimate, understood, and our responsibility is balancing privacy and public safety. The purposes of ALPR, it's to help locate stolen vehicles, find missing persons and endangered persons, solve violent crimes. It has solved murders. It has solved arsons. It has solved assaults. It has solved kidnappings. These are real people. These aren't numbers. These are real families. When we talk about the 1,280 cars that were recovered, almost $17 million in value, That's not about property. It's more than just a car. I would dare say if any one of us in this room walked outside after this meeting and our car was stolen, our lives would immediately change. That's a real impact. You see, your vehicle is your lifeline. It's your livelihood. It's your stability. It's how you get to work. It's how you care for your family. It's how you grocery shop. It's how you pick up kids. It's how you stay connected to resources and community. is not just a car. Recovering that restores somebody's daily life and not just the dollar amount. We've implemented safeguards and accountability. It's been said that our department doesn't have a policy. We indeed do have an ALPR policy. Our operations manual is online and anyone can look it up. We also have the city's acceptable use policy and sensitive data policies that govern how all city employees managed technology. Not only do we have an ALPR directive, but we've also strengthened it. We've added more guardrails. We've added strict controls, oversight and audits. We've added more search entry requirements, required manual review of data prior to enforcement. There's an internal review and an AI audit feature. Abnormal behavior will automatically suspend a user from further searches. We're committed to use the technology responsibly and our goal is to keep this community safe. Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any more speakers from staff? Okay. All right. Do we want to go ahead and hear from the residents?

Can I make just a couple comments, Mayor? Yeah. And thank you, Chief, for the presentation. I want to sort of frame for those who are listening some of the conversations that have gone on since Council Members Hammond and Cooper and I hosted a forum alongside the ACLU about our deep concern about FLOC's contract with the City of Oklahoma City. when the ACLU came to we had a representative from the ACLU an attorney came and visited with you and I other council members and we visited with the assistant city manager and others and discussed all of our concerns with continuing this contract with flock we want that contract to end and I think you were aware of that from the very beginning that that was our intention and And when we invited that attorney from the ACLU to visit with us, he gave cited reasons why we should end the contract, all of the reasons why Flock has acted improperly throughout this nation and other places that they have had contracts. And then they also outlined a number of things that they recommend that we do if we're going to still have this ALPR technology used in our city. And so I do appreciate the effort that's been made to take those specific suggestions that were made and make modifications. And I appreciate that we've made progress on that. For me personally, it does not change my mind about us continuing this contract with Flock. And I think it should end because of all of the reasons. And so I appreciate the fact that these are difficult conversations. I don't know what the result of the vote will be today, but I'm grateful for the fact that we at least had a good conversation about how we can make changes if that was the way the path that the city decided to go in. I do have just a few questions before we hear from our speakers. And the first one is about, because I'm sure this is going to come up from our neighbors who are going to be speaking, and maybe this question is for you or for Kalia, but I think that part of the question we have is about the accountability for people who may misuse the searches with the fog cameras. So if someone, how does the City of Oklahoma City audit? Can you explain what that process is for auditing the logs? And then what does the city do if you discover some kind of inconsistency within those searches? I think we lost the mic for a minute.

That's okay. Absolutely. We do at least manually every 30 days, we do a manual audit. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jason, but the AI audit runs continuously. It's always auditing for anomalies. It determines that there is some type of anomaly that may trigger or flag inappropriate use, that user is suspended from the system until such time that we're able to look at it. Any possible misuse triggers an investigation at which we use our internal discipline policy to address it based on whatever level of misconduct it is.

So if someone, so if the AI technology does it, is there any type of manual review? Is there like a report that's produced?

A manual review is done every 30 days, but the audit runs continuously.

Gotcha. And so if an officer, so in general, what are the things that happen if someone is suspended? Is that permanent? How does that consequence as a result of misuse of the technology? What happens?

It depends on the circumstances, Councilman. Everything has a level of degree, and so it goes from discipline all the way up to the highest level of discipline, depending on what we discover in our investigation. Okay. Thank you. I know we'll have more later.

Councilman, I have a follow-up question on a specific thing you asked about. Can you define, what defines an anomaly? So either the AI or manual law audit, what would flag, like what does the system define as an anomaly?

So that's a technical question and I will try to give my best answer to that. It could be something that's run multiple times or maybe similar last names or things of that nature that would appear out of the ordinary.

Okay, thank you. I have a few other questions. And can you pull the presentation back up? Because I think, can we go back a few slides? I think to the, let's start at the screen, pardon, the search screen. Yes. I'm curious if there's a reason why, I see that this is from the system itself, I assume. Is there a reason a case number is not required to do a search?

Every incident may not get to that point. Like if we have something that's happening in real time that's really quick, like we said, we could create a hot list which would be temporary until we could get the vehicle in the NCIC. But if you have a missing or endangered child and you're trying to move in really fast time and you're trying to and you have that information, we want to act in the best interest of that person in danger as quickly as possible. And that's just an example of an incident where you might not have time to do that. And if I'm not mistaken, and I want to take a second look at that to be a little more specific with your question, we've added several different entry points. You have to have an offense type. You have to have a reason. And so there's also a disclaimer when you first log in that tells you that this is for official law enforcement purposes.

So everyone will get to speak.

Everyone can fill out a slip and speak. If there are any more interruptions, the people who interrupt will be removed.

Thank you.

Councilwoman.

Thank you. For any user, a case number is not required. Is there an option to where maybe a small number of users could do, in your example of the quick search, where a small number of users could do that without it being required compared to every user being no required case number?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Let me try to answer it this way and let's see if it answers your question. Each search by each individual user is logged. And that search can be identified to a specific user.

Does that answer your question? Somewhat. So I guess my question is, is it possible where you could have some users don't have as much permissions? And I know many software systems you can set up a user where they can't access certain fields or certain things are required for them compared to other people. So I'm just curious if there's ever a case where or does the system allow that so that, because I think my concern is that if anybody can search without a case number, even though it might be tied back to them, these anomalies might not flag that in these cases of quick action, maybe there's a small handful of people at a higher level within the department that can search without a case number to do that quick search, but that broadly officers would need a case number because if it's really tied to an investigative purpose, in my mind there should be a case number detailing that a crime has been committed, a law has been broken and now we're doing an investigation in response to that crime being committed.

Again, I will try to answer what I think your question is, meaning no disrespect. That was a little complicated. And I would say that every employee that's authorized to use it can conduct a search. It's tied to that individual. There are enough prompts that are put in that we can go back. If you look at the location, the time, you can look at the offense type, the reason, and some of the prompts that we've added. you can always go back and track what and why someone did that, because it's tied specifically to them, to a location, and anything else they do, especially later on if it rises to the occasion, would have a case number associated with it.

Okay, I'll move on then. So my other question is, So if I'm understanding correctly, this system, there's like an image gets captured, the license plate is read by some kind of technology, and that is then compared to, just automatically compared to a series of lists of suspected stolen vehicles or vehicles associated with a missing person, is that correct?

So, vehicles that are NCI, you're talking about the alerts, is that correct?

Sure, yeah, yeah, you're saying there's like an alert that's...

So, if the vehicle is entered NCIC for any reason, stolen vehicle, missing person, whatever the case may be, or if it's part of the hot list, added to a hot list that is created, which is associated to a crime, we may get an alert on that vehicle, yes. But any automatic read by the ALPR system requires manual verification from the officer before they take any enforcement action.

Gotcha. But I guess my question is, how long does it take for the system to compare to those lists and then send you an alert?

That's a good question. I don't know the exact speed of that. It's pretty quickly.

Okay, because I think my... Part of why I'm asking that question is I've heard in other, and I'm gonna forget right now, but it's either Vermont or New Hampshire, and I think a few other states have done something similar, where their data retention period is like a matter of minutes. And their reasoning for that is because they say that comparison takes a very short amount of time. And so there's really no reason if you're just trying to compare to these lists to hold onto that data for longer. So that's part of why I think, you know, I appreciate that we've sort of agreed to flocks pushing, because originally in the memo that was sent to us, we went from the recommendation about from the ACLU about 30 days to seven days. My understanding is we were not going to do that. We were just going to stick with the 30 days. And the reasoning was it takes time to build a case. But if we're really trying to compare the lists where we know there's a missing vehicle or again, some kind of hot list that is a vehicles associated with a crime. It doesn't still doesn't make some sense to me that seven days is even necessary. So I just I wanted to check if that's how our system works as well.

So to clarify for you, when they created this update, they created an evidence mode. So instead of a 30 day deletion per our contract, we can move to a seven-day deletion because they've added this additional feature of evidence mode. So if we have a crime that happens at a specific place and time that we know about, we can move that particular set of cameras to evidence mode until we've had time to look at it and figure out if it has evidentiary value. If it does have evidentiary value, then we can move it to the evidence folder. But it just, it doesn't keep every image for, or data for 30 days entirely randomly. So now if there is a valid reason to hold it for more than that, there's evidence mode for that. And that's why we're able to move to seven days without worrying so much about losing seven days. They've created an avenue for us to be able to retain potentially evidentiary data until we have time to look at it.

Who has access to evidence mode? How is that accessed?

So evidence mode is new, and they are still rolling that out, and we are waiting on the system upgrade, and so when we say we're transitioning, that's why. They announced it last week, and so when that upgrade comes out, I think, And that's something we can talk about. Jason, you want to talk about this? Is this something that we would probably have, anyone would have access to evidence mode if we know in real time, because at 3 o'clock in the morning, not all of our personnel is available. And so if we have a drive-by shooting at this location, this date and time, we might, that would be an incident where someone could move that to evidence mode until investigators have time to take a look and review that and see if it has evidentiary value.

Okay.

Okay, another question I had, you said, so we only have 90 cameras, but as you mentioned, there's a map that shows all these cameras throughout the city, various entities, private, public, you know, other entities, institutions, whatever, have them. Do you, I guess, so my understanding is that through the Real-Time Crime Center we have this technology called Fusis where we can link other, through like an MOU agreement process, we can link private cameras into our system to be able to access and view those feeds. Is that right? Is that how that works?

Yes.

Okay. Is that the case with those private, so like if Lowe's or a neighborhood association has a flock camera set up, can they also tie their, through that FUSIS process or any other software integration process, tie that into our system so that we have access to those images?

Yes, we have access. We can have access to those.

Okay. Do you know who else has access to those systems? Like, say if a neighborhood association put up cameras, how do we know who else they are giving access to? Is there any way for us to confirm that?

We don't operate those cameras, and so we don't have any control of that. So, no, we don't know.

And then in those cases, will our policies of 30 days, seven days, et cetera, apply?

Well, those are privately owned cameras. We don't control their contract with the vendor, so I can't speak to what their retention is.

But we still have access to search those images and see them.

Yes.

Okay. My other question is around the data sharing. In the memo you sent us, or staff sent us, it listed that or stated that 109 agencies are in our sharing, we have sharing agreements with. How does an agency get on that list?

I didn't hear you, I'm sorry.

How does an agency get on that list?

Those are agencies within our region, within Oklahoma, that are within reach. And there are also agencies that are in the Southwest region that we've worked cases with on a regular basis. And so it's just part of just being part of that regional protection. We understand that people who do harm necessarily limit themselves to jurisdictional boundaries so if someone will do something in our city they'll do it in other cities as well so it's just within our region and some of those agencies that we've worked cases with in the past um do those other agencies have to have their own flock contract to be able to access our system I believe so. Yes, they have to have their own fly contract.

Okay. And then, can you make that list available to us to review?

No, ma'am.

Is there a reason why?

Absolutely. As I talked about earlier, we're at the crossroads. We're the pipeline for a lot of transnational crime. Human trafficking is a real thing. Drug trafficking is a real thing. Organized retail theft, burglary rings, theft rings, robbery crews that come through here. We consider that to be law enforcement sensitive data because I wouldn't want to give anyone that's trying to create harm in our city the roadmap of how to avoid detection and how to get around any of the the safeguards we have in place to keep our community safe.

Okay. If one of those other entities, those institutions, searched our data, what's stopping them, I guess, from putting in... I guess my concern is that they can also sort of create a side door to our information that is collected through these cameras. because we don't have disciplinary authority over them, I suppose. What is that process like if those other entities don't have the same auditing or data policies that we have?

That's a great question. So anyone who searches our system is subject to the same auditing as we are. And if we recognize an anomaly, we will address that and we can terminate our sharing capabilities with anyone who violates anything that we think is outside of our safeguards.

Okay, so my other sort of series of questions is around how do you choose locations of where to mount cameras?

Well, I would consider that to be law enforcement sensitive data, but I would also say that we have 621, 620 plus square miles councilwoman to cover with well over 750,000 people in the metro at any given time up to a much larger number. So that's what makes us unique. And so how do we cover such a large area is we have to utilize technology and leverage that as much as we can. So some of those things are based on a number of different things. It could be anything from crime to you name it.

Okay. And then one other point I wanted to make and if you can go forward to the slide that's about the Next slide, I think. One more maybe. Yes, the court rulings. This is something that I had asked a few questions about, about what is our legal opinion about the Fourth Amendment protections. I think it's one of those things where people, and I haven't gotten a chance to look at these specific cases, but my guess is that they both refer to a Supreme Court case from the 80s that was US versus not. that essentially was like a sort of set this standard for saying that people don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy for information that's voluntary on the public, like you mentioned, the outside of a car, vehicles traveling on a roadway. And so I went and looked at that case, because I was just like, I don't know anything about this. What is this? What is the background on this? And one thing I found very interesting is that it does say a person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy and their movements from one place to another. But later, like a page or two later in the opinion, the I guess, Knott's and their lawyers in one of their briefs had expressed that what happens when there is 24 hour surveillance of any citizen possible without judicial knowledge or supervision. And the court actually sort of responded to that and said, if such a dragnet type law enforcement practice as respondent envisioned should eventually occur, there will be time enough to determine whether different constitutional principles may be applicable. I just wanted to point that out that we can say we don't have a right to privacy in public. I would argue that we still have an opportunity to go above and beyond a Supreme Court case from 40 years ago where technology was a very different landscape and the technology that they were talking about in this case where law enforcement put like a tracker in something that was gonna go in somebody's car that was suspected of Breaking the law But that we have this this exists now we do have a dragnet style System through ALP ours through the other video surveillance that we have access to both publicly owned and privately owned that is then fed into our systems and I think we as a body have an opportunity to say that our policy is ahead of the curve on what maybe the legal opinion is, but that there does seem to be some conversation back then that said, you know what, maybe we should revisit this if this type of 24-hour surveillance should occur, and I would argue that it has. One other thing I wanted to mention, and this is where, Amy, can you pull up what I had sent you? I just, you know, I've been, since 2023, since we originally were presented this contract, I've sort of researched ALPRs and kept an eye on them and sort of the conversation nationally for the last few years because, and I'd like to mention that I did ask a lot of these questions when we first, represented this because I had a lot of these concerns and I was unfortunately kind of told like we're figuring it out or we're gonna follow the Fourth Amendment and it just I find it a little frustrating that We sort of made some tiptoes maybe, but it has taken many years of what, as far as I can tell, we didn't have these audit processes. We were sharing data nationally that creates a lot of concerns. And I'd also like to, you know, I'm suspicious and wary of any ALPR technology. and for reasons that I'll state in a little bit. if some of my questions aren't already sort of leading there. But I'd really like to point out a few instances in which Flock in particular has been particularly egregious in their communication to the public and to public bodies. In this case, you can see on the screen in Evanston, Illinois, the city actually had to send a cease and desist because apparently Flock was continuing to install these cameras after they ended the contract. If you can go to the next slide. In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the council rescinded their flock safety contract just a few, like a week or so after they had discovered that this flock representative had lied to them, saying that they didn't have heat mapping available as a function of their technology, and then they later found out that was incorrect, and so they rescinded their contract. On the next slide, Last year, the CEO stated they didn't have any federal contracts, but just a few months later, there was a FOIA request through, I think, yeah, Loveland, Colorado, that showed that as of May, two months prior to the FLOC CEO saying that in public, that they actually did have a pilot program with Customs and Border Patrol, and that they were having access to anybody in the national database. And then on the final slide, this is a, a map in Washington State that an institute from the University of Washington reviewed a bunch of audit logs. Washington, I believe, has a law that they passed in the past few years where you're not able to use local law enforcement resources for immigration enforcement. But because of these side door searches, they found many through these data sharing networks, they found many instances where law enforcement agencies across the country were searching immigration, other similar terms, and that these side doors even locally because of even these data sharing agreements where anyone can walk in, any law enforcement person could walk in and say, hey, can you do this search for me? And if it's maybe not multiple times or doesn't have a similar last name, it's unfortunately not gonna be flagged. Thank you, Amy, I appreciate it. And I think too, You know, the way I understand criminal investigations to happen is that a crime occurs and somebody has reasonable enough suspicion for law enforcement to start an investigation of various kinds, you know, at various levels. What ALPRs do and broader surveillance technologies do is that they make everyone a potential suspect because without having committed a crime, the government is now taking images of where you've been, There has been documented evidence of at least one individual within the Oklahoma City Police Department who used this for private purposes for potentially over a period of five months that was only flagged because of a complaint by a resident. There's just, to me, there are too many The potential benefits do not outweigh the cost, and particularly with Flock, I think they're responding with some of these new updates to some of the public pressure, but it deeply concerns me that this was not much of a concern to them before, and I think that goes back to their product is more, attractive, and this I think goes for any ALPR, their product is more attractive when it has more data for their customers to access. And so it was not useful for them until there was more public pressure to restrict data access for their customers and And they can say all these things about public safety, but at the end of the day, they answer to their shareholders. They do not answer to the public. And it really concerns me that these tech companies have documented history of lying. They have a obvious profit motive that is not in the public's best interest and is not in the interest of really being concerned about our privacy and our constitutional rights. And that's why I'm continuing to not be able to support this contract. But thank you for answering my questions, and I appreciate it.

Can I ask one more question? And that's about the additional. If you wanted to add additional cameras, there's a reference that was in the slides about $50,000 limit. Would you explain what that means? So is that how much each camera costs? Is that?

No. Cameras cost a little bit less than that, but in order to anything over $50,000, which would be somewhere in the area of three to four cameras, anything amounted would amount to probably over $50,000, and that would require council approval, and the contract is renewed every year.

And I would add, too, that anything that we have under contract, if we come back and amend, if we make a change of how we're managing that contract or adding cameras or whatever, we would bring that back to council as an amendment to the contract.

All right, we'll go into, go ahead, Tom. If you don't mind, I'd just like to talk real quickly. Chief Basie, first, thank you so much, you and your staff, for listening to some of these concerns and trying to work through those. I think y'all have done a great job on that, and I really appreciate it. And I mean, we've heard a lot of concerns, and I fully have agreed with a lot of those concerns, but I think for the most part, I mean, it's going to be continual work, but for the most part, a lot of it's been addressed. And then I just wanted to share my story that I have multiple times. I'm someone that had a vehicle stolen. The only reason I got that back was a camera. It wasn't an Oklahoma City camera, but someone located where the tag was or where it went through into a community. Yes, they did. And I was able to get my vehicle back. It wasn't going to be a huge impact for me, but it did make me start thinking about multiple people I knew, right, when something like that happens, what they do in their life. What if you're a single mom with kids and your vehicle gets stolen in the middle of the night? What are you going to do that next morning when you need to go drop your kids off, when you need to get to work, when you can't do those things? And it really made me start thinking about victims of crimes and we've seen a lot of really horrendous crimes where this has been able to have an impact on it. And I do appreciate that for the victims. So again, thank you and all your staff for your hard work. I appreciate it. I understand the concerns, but I also have been one that got to see kind of the actual benefit of something like that taking place. So thank you, Chief.

Do we want to move to citizens now or no? Go ahead.

I was going to ask one question. Councilman Haman mentioned an incident where there have been abuse of the technology, the tool, for five months. Is that before or after you implemented your auditing practices to improve identification?

Both. Um, it was correct me if I'm wrong on this. It was before. Um, and in the auditing picked up, um, something else. And so, um, we've had LPR technology since 2014. Um, we've had Fox since 2022, we have a 1500 employees. We've had incidents with two employees.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

Okay, go ahead.

First, thank you Chief and ACM Fairbrush for hearing a lot of the concerns. I'll have more to say on that later, but I do want to acknowledge in public that there have been amendments as a response to what you've been hearing from some of us on council and from the residents. Amy, would you mind, I do want to share my screen for a couple minutes. It's very important people at home see this too. Okay, great. Hopefully the volume is fine.

Agencies across the country use AI-powered cameras to scan billions of vehicles each month, often without drivers even knowing they're being recorded. Supporters say the technology helps solve crimes. Critics warn its rapid expansion is creating a nationwide surveillance network, raising questions about the balance between public safety and personal privacy. Paul Solman dives into that debate.

A quiet Saturday afternoon last September, Denver resident Chrisanna Elser gets an alert from her doorbell camera. A nearby Columbine Valley police officer has come calling. You know why I'm here?

No. He pulled out a picture of my truck and accused me of stealing a package.

We have cameras everywhere in that town. You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out without us knowing.

Police-operated cameras had recorded her driving near the scene of the crime. Only problem, she had nothing to do with it.

They caught me 20 times driving through the neighborhood that we drive through to go to work every day.

Police had simply matched their video with doorbell footage of the theft, showing the blog, like Elsa.

Well, can I see this video?

If you go to court, you can. If you're going to deny it, I'm not going to extend you any courtesy. If you're going to lie to me, I'm not going to extend you any courtesy.

It was shocking to have somebody come in so strong and rely on the digital evidence.

Small black cameras mounted on utility poles began appearing around the neighborhood in 2024. But so what, says Ailsa?

I took the stance that everybody else takes, that, meh, big deal. It's up there. If I'm not doing anything wrong, then why am I worried about it?

Turns out these cameras extend far beyond Denver. Today, more than 100,000 are installed across all 50 states, according to crowdsourced data from anti-surveillance organizations, the vast majority owned by security tech company Flock Safety.

Let's shape a safer future together.

Thank you. You can go ahead.

Otherwise, you're just going to see on my screen the villain from Lord of the Rings, Sauron. That's true. And Palantir, which is also another Lord of the Rings dark crystal that can see everything, which is also a company owned by a billionaire right now. It's weird to name your company after a villainous thing from Lord of the Rings, but I digress. And I'm not making any of that up. That is true. Okay, so again, I just want to reiterate to Chief and to ACM Fairbrush that I do appreciate your work. I think we've heard that from several counselors up here. I want to be clear. I have voted against flock 2023 in July, 2024 in July, 2025 in July, because instinctively I had a feeling. I just did. And that was before we now have all the research that we have in front of us now. And some of that research is as follows. While Flock has 120,000 cameras nationwide, we have instances of 50 stalking cases across America where police officers have used this technology to stalk spouses, ex-spouses, ex-girlfriends. That's documented and that's true. In one instance, one officer used this technology 179 times. Additionally, we know that this technology, and I'm really glad that these guardrails are there. I have the worst news for everybody who feels safe about those guardrails. An officer, and by the way, is there any way for me to make my screen? Yes. MIT Technology Review. I think we would trust. I'm more from the humanities, but MIT, right? They have noted that loopholes exist where an officer can put in a bogus case number. And now we are relying on AI technology to catch it and then eventually a manual review. I don't. Furthermore, I teach Boomtown every fall about the history of our city. And there was something you said, Chief, that struck a chord with me about the man who bombed our federal building. Something didn't quite seem right about that linking that act in the capture of McVeigh to automated license plate readers. And what I figured, what I eventually just did a little search on the internet. Does everyone remember how we caught McVeigh? I do. It was good old fashioned police work when they pulled him over on the . They pulled him over on the interstate. They pulled him over on the interstate and why did the police officers do that? Because he did not have a license plate. The very thing this technology supposedly helps us capture people with. Now, that's important to note because it took old-fashioned police work. It did not take a robot from Steven Spielberg's AI or Minority Report or Batman from Dark Knight Rises using essentially warrantless wiretaps to catch Joker, right? There must be a respect for law enforcement when it's done right. But relying on robots and removing that humanity from detective work seems, to quote Lucius from Dark Knight, unethical. So I just have major concerns. And I've seen people online. By the way, I've received around 200 or 300 emails from residents, not just in Ward 2, all across this city. against this proposal, not one, not one in favor of it, not one. I don't know what you all are receiving, my colleagues up here, but I haven't received one. But as someone who teaches English composition and argument, I do like to see what the other side of the argument is, and it is as follows. One, we just heard one from my colleague and friend about getting a vehicle, right? You just saw that woman in the PBS NewsHour. That is an upper middle class white woman, right, who thought this system was going to work for her, only to find out, if I'd played the rest of that segment, the only way she got out of it, friends, the only way she got out of it, this is dystopian AF, she got out of it by having to use her own digital evidence her ring cameras and all of this other surveillance stuff that we have somehow become acclimated to prove her innocence. That's so scary. That's so dark. That is hellscape. And the second argument I hear is, well, we already have cell phones and that tracks us. We have the ability, I would remind everyone, to opt in or out of that tracking with our cell phone, a private company. That's one thing to remember. And number two, that shouldn't make anyone feel better. When I hear middle school and high school and college students speak about social media, AI, and surveillance, they hate it. They're addicted and they hate the addiction. They are worried about I was just in Austin with my best friend's children, and they now have to live through a world where anything they say on Instagram, anything they say on TikTok, anything, if they even go on Facebook, anything is now subject to their bullies in their high school or even some of their friends sharing that. We have created a surveillance state for the last 30 years. We started with the Patriot Act and we've just hyperscale data centered our way to this present moment. And to the council members who have voted for this contract previously, I have great news for you. We don't have to keep doing it. We don't. We can set a new tone. We really can. It's okay to be wrong. I have been wrong before. I used to think that Hellraiser Part 4 was a good movie. It's not. And I have to admit that. And it's embarrassing because I love to be right. I love it. Oh my God, I love it. But I was wrong. Hellraiser in space, not smart. just please consider redoing your vote. Just say no. And just a couple other things on this note. I would additionally add, for people who say that the people who are against this technology are kind of a tell as old as time against progress and new technology. There is a famous essay that English professors and teachers teach, The Phaedrus, and it is about this ancient king where someone presents to him writing for the first time. And when the king receives that, he says, no, I don't want this new technology. It will take away people's memory and that's bad. But later scholars went and looked. He had used this word pharmakon. It's a poison. Writing is a poison. But that word has a double meaning. It can also be a remedy. It can be a good and a bad thing. A technology can be good and bad. Social media can be good and bad, right? So I'm not someone who's just against new technology. I am someone deeply immersed in thousands of years worth of storytelling. And the story in front of us is one that we need to close that chapter. It is so important that we do this. Finally, you mentioned victims earlier, Chief. I have waited and I continue to wait and I would suggest to you there are people in the city who continue to wait for us to implement a violence interruption program. A violence interruption program that is part of 39 recommendations approved by this body What is that? And so everyone who's about to speak in opposition to Flock, I would love to see you back here during budget season to advocate for remedies that do in fact keep our neighborhoods safe. What is violence interruption? What it is, is it's where neighborhoods receive training on how to go knock their neighbor's doors with brochures that are resource guides. Food, clothing, homelessness services, mental health services, the basic needs. Knocking their door, hi, I'm James, you know me, we live down the street from each other. Oh sure, hi, here's a brochure. You don't need any of those services right now, but you never know when you're gonna. A few weeks later, when a drive-by happens, those same trusted individuals are back out there knocking those doors again. Hey, it's James again, do you know if Sally is gonna do a retaliatory moment against Jill? You do? Great, thank you for telling us. And some of these neighborhoods, for historical reasons, distrust law enforcement. And we know that. We can be mad about it, but it's true. And they are more likely to tell their neighbors than they are law enforcement. But then violence interrupters work hand in glove with police. Case in point, Newark, New Jersey, which has experienced a 30-year low in violent crime thanks to the Newark Street Outreach Team doing the precise work that I have just described. They're in front of schools. They are at the emergency room when gun violence happens. A 30-year low in violent crime and a 50-5-0% reduction in homicides in the South Ward, where crime such as homicides is its highest. And we wait. This body waits. I share your concern for solving crimes. I share your concerns, Chief, for reducing violence. I share your empathy and your passion for preventing victims from suffering such victimhood. And we know ways to do it. I do not think Flock gets us there. $270,000 would go a long way in a down payment to a violence interruption program. So.

I just need to make a quick point. I just want to make a quick point. Chief Basie, I'm sorry that you're having to stand up here this whole time while we talk. But I want to give you an update on cell phones. I worked in the cell phone industry for a long time. And it was when location-based services were starting to become brand new. And you can turn off your location data to different things. your location data is always there. Always there, always available, unless you break your phone in half. Other than that, it's always location-based and completely recorded. So just giving you a heads up.

I appreciate that. I think, again, What should alarm us is that fact. That should be an alarming moment. We do not have to accept the world as it is. You're right, and you would know it because you worked in it. But we have the opportunity to intervene, just because that's true in that moment with... And I'm so sorry, Chief. If you need to sit down, you're welcome to. But... We don't have to keep compounding the problem of surveillance. And I don't like what you're describing. I think that's terrible. I guess I really mean hellscape. I think we're in the darkest possible timeline this country has known since, good God, the Civil War, the McCarthy Red Scare. This is not a good moment. And I don't know who feels good right now. But I don't think people feel good about what you just said, which is a truth. I know, but people... Okay, I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you, Chief. Really do appreciate your leadership and the way that you're committed to managing this in a way that would protect the information and making these adjustments to the contract. So thank you.

Thanks, Chief. Okay, so we're now going to hear from residents you've signed up to speak. I'll remind everyone that you have three minutes or less. Please open your remarks with your name and address. We will be pretty militant on the time limits because of how many people have signed up to speak. So you'll get a 30 second warning from the clerk and then I'll cut you off when your time is up. We believe the time should work up there. If not, we'll keep it up here and you'll get that 30 second limit. second warning in either case I will call a name and then I'll also call the one after that so that person can maybe even move down to one of the first couple rows just to keep things moving and that they're ready to be the next speaker and I'm having zero tolerance on outbursts you're out of here if you holler out that's disrespectful to the person that is speaking and everyone gets to speak. That's the beauty of this. So there's no need for an outburst. All you have to do is sign up, and literally anybody can have three minutes. All right, we'll begin with Mari Williams, followed by Tabrina Alexander.

Good morning.

My name is Mari Williams. I've lived in the OKC Metro for my entire life. I currently reside in Ward 5. Good morning, Mayor Holt, City Manager Freeman, and members of the Oklahoma City Council. Today will be the third time I've come here on an early Tuesday to ask you all to end the city's contract with Flock. I've spoken on multiple instances that serve as evidence of Flock being the direct cause of an innocent civilian having their rights be infringed upon. Even though an officer spoke on the accountability of officers... For Flock, how are those 50 cases of cops able to stalk people for months, including in our own city? There's no room for debate. Flock is dangerous. It gives police and third parties the ability to track us at our every move, whether it is intended to be used nefariously or not. The AI. still makes critical errors, causing innocent people, children included, to lay on the concrete with guns drawn at them for the crime of simply having a similar license plate to a stolen vehicle. Flock is a dystopian violation of our rights and inverts the very nature of how police are supposed to operate. Instead of a crime happening first, then police coming up with a list of plausible suspects and placing those suspects under investigation, we are all under investigation 24-7, 365. Then when a crime actually does occur, the police already have a list of pre-investigated suspects. But that's every person in this room. That's every person in this city. We are all constantly suspects under flock. Oklahoma City is letting our rights, especially our Fourth Amendment right, to be fraglantly violated every single day as a matter of regular government policy. Despite what that cop and Flock sales agents have told you, Flock is not a tool for investigating crimes at all. Flock investigates pre-crimes, not crimes, but pre-crimes. There's no way to manually audit the hundreds of thousands of scans and searches that happen every single month. There's no reforming Flock. It cannot exist without abusing our civil liberties. This is not a technology that can be regulated or managed, even including the, quote, safeguards they've implemented as damage control for the American people being outraged by mass surveillance. We demand that OKC permanently terminate its contract with Flock immediately by voting no today to not renew the over $200,000 annual contract. These are not just licensed play readers. They're not just on our roads. They're not just on our roads. They face parks, walking paths. It does collect personal information. It tracks the make and model associated with your car, not just that, but the stickers, the scratches, the bumps. Flock does, in fact, have a database on people and information on those people. This is not just for cars. The OKC PD saying currently they are not sharing data federally and nationally is completely misleading because they have been for years. And according to those safeguards that they were speaking on, they are not even in place yet.

Thank you. You're at time. Sabrina Alexander, followed by Jason Weisinger.

Hi, my name is Tabreen Alexander, 3811 Sierra Vista Way. I just want to say, first of all, apparently I have more confidence in the police than the chief does. I believe that they can do good police work. I'm very thankful for all their hard work that they do every day for us. So I just want to tell the police officers thank you, first of all. But Flock, there's too many concerns to pay $270,000 for this controversial tech. Some real world data has found 71% to 75% misreads and inaccuracy in Flock's reading. Um... Simple character confusion in a life and death police situation could cause citizens undue trauma and even death. Recently, there was a family pulled over and detained at gunpoint with a newborn and toddler in the car because of a misreading of one character and a license plate. What about the rights of this family and all of the innocent Americans being unlawfully targeted because of highly inaccurate artificial, formerly known as artificial intelligence? Until there are proper protections in place with artificial intelligence, which we cannot trust, There are hundreds of thousands of examples like this. Flock is owned by a company, as Ms. Hammond said, it's owned by a company whose sole goal is to gain wealth for its shareholders. It is not to protect the people of the United States, much less of Oklahoma. This is a subject many people on both sides of the aisle unite on. We do not want Flock in our city. We do not want Flock Those, I'll leave with a quote from Ben Franklin, those who can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. It's important that we let the police do their work, but without flock. Please vote no, thank you.

Thank you, Jason Weisinger followed by Tyler Williams.

Hello, my name is Jason Weissinger. I've been a resident here for about a year. My main concern with these flock cameras is the fact that I've just become a newborn father about a week ago, and I'm kind of scared to even take my newborn downtown to even walk around because I don't know where these flock cameras are pointed. It's got to the point that You know, I could be driving down to the grocery store and I get pulled over because I drive a white Silverado, you know. How many white Silverados have been stolen in OKC in the past year? You know, I could get pulled over with both my children in the car and my wife at gunpoint. It's a terrifying thing. And, you know, you look at all these statements that the Flock CEO has put out against, you know, the organization D-Flock. He calls them domestic terrorists. Is that really what these people see the citizens as? They're giving these cameras to police departments, sheriff's departments all over the country, and they see us citizens as domestic terrorists? What do you think they really do with this data? I mean, it takes one software update for them to go from ALPRs to full-on biometric scanners and readers. They're getting put up on light poles. They're getting cemented into the ground. I mean, they're impossible to get away from. You turn a corner, they're there. And as the chief put earlier, you can't even tell us where you're putting them because why? Why? Because of law enforcement safety data? That doesn't make any sense. It sounds like they're targeting communities is what it sounds like. And with that, I'm gonna yield my time and I'm gonna leave it at that. Thank you guys. Tyler Williams followed by Nam Liu.

My name's Tyler Williams. I'm here at the Young American Celebrity. I've recently moved into Stillwater. I'm an OSU student. And I'd like to start by prefacing saying I'm not afraid of technology. I have a passion for robotics. These ALPRs, or Flock Cameras as we've been calling them, they're owned by a private company. And while our boys in blue are amazing and have the heart of the people, They're most concerned for the people. The private company of Flock is not. They only care about their bottom line and their shareholders. The Flock cameras, they're pointed at parking lots and parks and many other areas that aren't even roads. And I'm going to excuse the rest of my time. Thank you.

Thank you. Nam Lu followed by Alan Carson.

so uh i'm nam lu i actually live in the asian district where there's a lot of security um surveillance systems these were these cameras aren't actually uh flock cameras a lot of them are axis cameras um and i saw an axon camera so um ultimately even if this vote were not to go through we're still going to have a lot of mass surveillance there and to be honest i still haven't figured out what this stuff is going towards because I go out almost every single day to distribute food, water to the unhoused population around there, and that has a much greater effect in stopping crime. Most of these people are just desperate. They are literally desperate for food and water, especially in these really hot times, a little bit of electrolytes, and they'll be happy. They won't need to resort to crime, and that's, like, such a simple fix. This over $200,000 contract feels like a massive waste of money. The core model for FLOC enables the third party search by other departments. I know that there is now a bunch of reforms about this, but it took considerable mass engagement for this to even be considered. And these safeguards weren't even put in there when this was first implemented. I'll give an example of some moldy bread. No one wants to eat moldy bread, right? That doesn't make sense. If you want to spray paint it orange so it looks nice, make it look all good and eat it, you're still eating moldy bread. If you try and scrape it off, shear it off, you're still eating moldy bread. We don't need these technologies. What Cooper said about the violence prevention, that would bring so much more order to this very hostile time, especially in a time where there's a bunch of mass federal agents using this technology that city councils approved for. It's just honestly infuriating that this stuff has been pushed back continually. Our voices are not being heard. Like, you know, David Holt's not even looking up right now. Like, that's really infuriating. I've been to city council only three times. I don't think he's really met me in the eyes. So the Asian district had a recent meeting with a bunch of police officers where they kind of admitted to these cameras having a, they said it wasn't a live feature, but they can tap in at any time to see what's going on. That doesn't really instill confidence or safety. I'm concerned about that stuff. Like, why are we doing this? I can only assume that this is only being done for not very good reasons, right? Food insecurity is one of the biggest drivers of crime, right? I'm sure you all can agree on that. Yeah, all thumbs up. It just doesn't really make sense. I am really sad about this stuff. I'm sad about seeing people die on the streets. Honestly, die on the streets due to this heat. There is no shelter. The shelters are full. I'm concerned about where this direction is going. We're at time, thank you. Okay, thank you.

Alan Carson, followed by Josh Alleman.

Hi, so how does the counter work? Do you guys get a three, two, one, go, or?

Whenever you wish.

All right. Hi, good morning, and thank you for having me today. My name is Alan. I'm an Oklahoma native, Tulsa my entire life. I'm an electrical engineer student at TCC that studies technology and builds robots for fun. I also build critical and lifesaving circuits and electronics for the military and private entities for a living currently. What do I even say about Flock? Why do we need it when there's already cameras everywhere, CCTV and phones? It's been used for stalking and harassment by police. It uses AI to track your car and driving routes and provides it to business partners. The idea they solve crimes is almost laughable if it wasn't so tragic, like the example of Nancy Guthrie, a kidnapped 84-year-old that has yet to be found by Falk. It's really not worth laughing about, though. There's also fog cameras in neighborhoods and looking into people's houses and private properties, like in Tega Cay, South Carolina, gun ranges, like in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. There's even fog cameras pointed at children's swimming pools. That's in Jacksonville, Florida. If that doesn't give you pause, I'm concerned about you. That's all I got to say on that one, but I'm not done yet. In fact, to talk about the privacy issue, we actually have a town that did remove their fog cameras, Coweta. They had two. In Tulsa, we got 200. My professional opinion is these Flock cameras are a danger to our society and a technology that is not needed or wanted by most. And if you aren't going to listen to me or anyone else in this room, it sounds like you're not listening to the people who hired y'all to represent us. I want four things. Do not renew the Flock contract. Remove the Flock cameras. Do not use another ALPR vendor. And... Use the money that was going to go to Falk and give it to a children's school or something. Families that need it. That's how you really stop crime, you know? But yeah, I might be early, but that's my time for me. I'm good. I got to go to school now.

Bye. Josh Alleman. Josh Alleman followed by Trenton Rippey.

My name is Josh. I'm an IT monitoring and observability engineer for 10 years residing in Ward 8. For those unaware, flock cameras build an active database of all vehicles that pass by based on the license plate and other visible identifiable factors and gives multiple government agencies access to this database. Imagine a private corporation hired investigators to follow every member of this council. to their homes, to their work, to church, to your children's schools. No crime, no probable cause, no warrant. They record everywhere you go and put it in a searchable database that you don't control. Would you consider that a reasonable invasion of your privacy? Would you say, I've committed no crime, so I have nothing to worry about? The Supreme Court recognized the privacy implications of aggregated location tracking and Carpenter v. The United States describing it as capable of creating an all-encompassing record of a person's whereabouts and associations. Seeing a car on a public road is one thing, but systematically recording and searching where that car has been is another. To address the justification of crime reduction, crime has declined nationwide for years, but that does not equate to FLOC causing the decrease. OKCPD's own records show no major decrease in crimes of all types prior to FLOC's initial rollout in 2023 to now. This doesn't cover the thousands of false positives and misreads. Correlation is not causation. Oklahoma City has an additional problem, transparency and accountability. Who controls access to this database? Who's authorized to search it? What independent oversight exists? That's not an unreasonable demand. That's the bare minimum. Abuse of this system already exists. Over 50 police officers have been found using the system to stalk citizens, exes, even children. More than 80 major municipalities have already canceled their FLOC contracts. You cannot make the government smaller by giving it more information about everyone. You don't protect individual liberty by creating infrastructure capable of reconstructing people's movements. I reject the argument. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Privacy is not a reward for innocence. The government does not get to monitor everyone and then demand that innocent people explain why they deserve privacy. That is warrantless mass surveillance of the public, and it raises profound constitutional and civil liberty concerns. So I have two questions that I believe this council owes to its constituents to answer. Where is the rigorous evidence that Flock actually reduces crime? And what expectation of privacy should an innocent citizen have from invasive government surveillance? If you would demand a warrant before the government hired someone to track you, you should demand the same protection for the people you represent. Do not build a surveillance state and call it small government. Thank you.

Trenton Rippey, followed by Justice Chandler.

Thank you, council. My name's Trenton Rippey. I'm from Chickasha, Oklahoma, 2506 South 24th Street. I'm also the activism director for Young Americans for Liberty, and I'm a part of our Oklahoma Patriots Coalition. We're a grassroots movement that puts a big focus on confrontational politics, because despite what some elected officials may say, politics is about confrontation, not compromise. And I believe that continuing to allow flock in our communities throughout all of the state of Oklahoma is compromising our values of privacy. Let me ask you this. If I followed any one of you home, took photos of you, your car, your wife, your kids, made a roadmap of where you go shop and eat, I'd probably be called a pervert, maybe a creep or a freak, or in the legislative language, a stalker. Oklahoma statutes give Stocking some of the characteristics of willfully, maliciously, or repeatedly following or harassing another in a manner that makes them feel frightened, intimidated, or conducts contact just by being within sight of the victim. I think that these flock cameras frighten a lot of people, reasonably so. There were a lot of sob stories given earlier about different times where it's been used to solve crimes. And I do appreciate those examples. I'd like to put forth a couple real quick. One would be Amber Newell, who was not only pulled over once, but twice at gunpoint, could have been a dead body. And then, as we've seen many times with law enforcement, as opposed to private citizens such as myself, they get a slap on the wrist, or the investigation goes long, or they just get put on a paid leave. Meanwhile, people like us, we'd get thrown in jail. We'd get the electric chair, or even worse. So what I'm trying to get at here is flock cameras don't belong here. They're incriminating innocent people. I'll even use myself as an example. Back in March of 2025, I was flagged by the Oklahoma Uninsured Vehicle Enforcement Division program using an ALPR. I was falsely accused of not having insurance. I do use State Farm. I'm not very content with it, but that's the insurance for the flock supporters that may want to know. And then I wanted to address the concern about, you know, phones track our location. Well, there's three words that I would say to that. When it comes to phones, they have to get a warrant.

Thirty seconds remaining. Get a warrant.

For people that may be listening today, you don't have to just shut up and take it. You can hold your government accountable. We're doing a petition to do a statewide bill to ban all forms of ALPR. And we look forward to holding every single one of you who may continue to violate the rights of Oklahoma citizens accountable in your next elections and at the doors of your constituents. Thank you very much and have a fantastic day. Thank you. Justice Chandler, followed by Jesse Daniels.

Howdy. I'm Justice Chandler. I'm with Young Americans for Liberty. I'm the activism coordinator for the state of Oklahoma. I'm coming here to talk to you about the flock issue, just like everybody else, all of your constituents here. Just a few minutes ago, Chief stood here and said that they are auditing. Congratulations, you did an audit on yourself and you realize that you did nothing wrong. Awesome. This right here behind me, your constituency, is the supreme audit. We are not going to stand by and let you audit yourselves. This is your audit. If you decide to... audit yourselves and find no wrongdoing, we will find the wrongdoing and may not be sitting in that chair next session, next cycle. Everything is about the will of your constituency. Your constituency does not feel comfortable with this. It's, quite frankly, a Fourth Amendment violation. And honestly, we're trading our liberty and our privacy personally for safety, for temporary safety, in fact, for something that doesn't even have our great interest in mind. You can see... just the overwhelming support of removing this violation of our privacy. It's a matter of losing trust with your community. And I feel like a lot of trust has been lost since these cameras have gone up. It's terrible to see that People would bring these in, obviously under the guise of, you know, they would, it's a false sense of hope, security, that has taken liberty. And a few of us have realized that that, we just don't have, it doesn't feel right. It feels more like 1984 and not 2026. We're going to you're just going to have to be transparent and the transparency of saying, well, we heard your concerns and we're no longer sharing nationally only except for the cases that we say that it's OK to share nationally. That's that's pathetic. It's a lie. just if you wanna cut something and say you cut it, do it. I'm urging that this contract is no longer put in place. It's a gross misconduct on the state. It's a gross misconduct on the city and the cities that take it. We're doing a petition to remove flock cameras from the state statewide through legislation. And I urge you to sign it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Jesse Daniels, followed by Alisa Standridge.

My name is Jesse Daniels. I'm a Ward 1 resident. I'm obviously here for the flock safety contract renewal. And I'm telling you plainly, these cameras need to be shut down and removed, not paused, not further studied, removed. As we know, Oklahoma City pays for 90 cameras, and the community map already shows 299 cameras across the metro area. If this council does nothing today, the contract renews itself again and again forever on autopilot. Nobody voted for this. No commissioner ran on a platform of blanket license plate surveillance. It was installed without a public mandate, and it's being renewed the same way. Continued deferral to the topic or inaction of its removal is negligence on your civil duties. OKCPD confirmed in writing that no access controls, no audit procedures, no use policies, no discipline standards, no transparency reporting system exists for this. And that's on the department's own memo. An official letter had dated March 10th, 2026 in response to a public records request. A family member of mine is a victim of this system's abuse. An Oklahoma City police officer used flock access to track and stalk his estranged wife during their divorce for personal gain with no case number, no warrant, no connection whatsoever to police duty. That officer faced no repercussions, no discipline, no consequence, nothing. And that is what no access controls looks like in practice. This system already violates Oklahoma's own law and the US Constitution. Every scan this network captures without a warrant is a search under the Fourth Amendment. And a warrantless, suspicionless search of every driver in this city is unreasonable. That's the plain text of the Fourth Amendment. And under Article VI, the Constitution outranks any state statute or city contract. No ordinance and no council vote can make an unconstitutional system lawful. And it isn't just OKCPD holding this data. Every plate, every scan, every trip we take is handed to Flock Safety, a private for-profit company that stores and monetizes our movements. Flock's own devices carry 15 separate vulnerabilities logged in the National Vulnerability Database. This system is not secure and our personal data is not for sale. Remember why this country exists. The Declaration of Independence says the government exists to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Deriving their power from the consent of the governed, a surveillance network nobody voted for is not government by consent. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Lisa Standridge, Lisa Standridge, followed by Jacob King. Good morning.

My name's Alisa, 6208 Northwest 36th Street. This isn't about tech. This is about trust. And the trust that is given to each one of you comes from the governed, us. For months and months, everyone has been telling you, do not renew this. Do not do this in our city. And yet, here we are. And we already know, because we've been here for years, so we already know what the answer's gonna be. There's gonna be two to three no votes, and the rest of you are gonna pass it. Against the constituents' wishes. But I want you to think about February, because it is right around the corner. It's six months away. And several seats are up. And if you think we can mount a get out the flock Movement, think about your next election. Because when you don't represent the people, that's called tyranny. And it's the people's duty at that point to replace you. That's our job, to hold you to account when you don't listen. Hundreds of thousands of people in our city, And yet, you would have us believe that sharing with 109 agencies, ghost agencies, because we're not supposed to know who they are, is good for our city. But the chief cannot even say to Ward 6 that, oh, well, we can restrict the case number blank to, say, three main people or four main people, one on each shift. That's where the trust arose. I fight for missing and murdered indigenous people. Do you know how often they access this information for us? This many times. This many times. There's been experts in this field talk to you today and tell you this is dangerous. And yet we all know that you're gonna vote for it. So I wanna ask, how much are you being paid? And by who? 30 seconds remaining. When are you going to listen to we the people, governed by the people, for the people? That's what we're supposed to be about. And I would like and I would ask this council to vote no and to remember that you are here by our wishes. And we can revoke it any time. Thank you.

Thank you. Jacob Keene. Jacob Keene, followed by Steve Hunt.

Good morning, Council, Mayor David Holt. My name is Jacob Keene. I live at 2009 Northwest 18th Street, and I'm here today to urge you to vote no on the flock. These companies claim that they help to stop crime. I claim that these cameras are a crime. My Fourth Amendment rights were violated long ago. We cannot allow these cameras in our neighborhoods to conduct mass surveillance. We all know that AI makes mistakes. On September 17, 2023, Jason Killinger, a long-haul UPS truck driver, was wrongfully arrested at the Peppermill Casino in Reno, Nevada. Casino security detained him based on a facial recognition alert identifying him as someone who had been issued a six-month trespass ban for sleeping on the premises. This AI system reportedly indicated a 100% match in spite of large physical differences between the two men. Killinger showed the casino several forms of identification to prove his identity, but all these documents, they did match his true identity. The casino security did not believe him and then called the police and he was detained. This is another tool that can and will be exploited to harass law-abiding citizens. The more we remove the human element, the more empathy we remove from our system, the less our good nature will prevail. We cannot make concessions for this technology because once this infrastructure is here, and it is here, these companies will not stop at just license plates. The data is too valuable for them. Blankly adopting this technology could be detrimental to the lives of our citizens. Oklahoma has historically been a testing ground for new government ideas and I do not think that your citizens should be the guinea pig for these corporations. I can see my time, thank you.

Thank you. Steve Hunt followed by Jarrett Freeman.

Steve Hunt, 6300 Westbrook. If the camera operator could get a shot of Holt looking at his Candy Crush saga game when I speak and when the other people speak, I'd appreciate it. Eight years ago, a member of this council met me at Burn Lounge and told me that they'd read extensively on how capitalism exploits everything until it reaches its own internal contradictions and collapses. There's been some discussion of shareholders of Flock, and I want to go ahead and say who they are. Anderson Horowitz, Green Oaks Capital Private Equity, Bedrock Capital Private Equity, Meritech Capital Private Equity, Matrix Partners, Sands Capital, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, other smaller ones are Anorak Ventures, Initialize capital spark capital seven seven six SV angel So when I got my agenda I went on prime gov which is owned now by Vista equity private equity When I went and looked at the Charter to read about how when you all convene as OC PPA it's because you don't have to go by the Charter rules and So that's now hosted on Civic Plus, which is owned by Insight Partners Private Equity. I spoke last week about Unibudgeting, owned by GI Partners Private Equity. They also do the cameras on the school buses, which are basically flock cameras on school buses that drive around. Jo Beth and Kamal, you both voted for that, which I found disturbing. The city pension program is case five capital. And my point is that when the three people on this council who held the civic participation reactionary pizza party, when you vote for these items, these non-flock items that are owned by these private equity firms, this is just the logical progression of this. Because we're running out of things to exploit. And flock cameras are more about these equity firms making their money. And hopefully when this is shut down, another will emerge. 30 seconds remaining. And I want you all to start looking at this from a different perspective. Jo Beth, you shrugged when I mentioned the GI Partners thing. That's all they care about is making money and they're gonna bring in something else if this fails. And I just, I feel like we're in another Penn Square Bank days and we're in big trouble and we gotta think beyond this. So, thank you.

Jared Freeman followed by Jessica Scott.

Good morning, Council. I'm Jarrett Freeman, 6705 Parkwood Lane. First, I want to give credit where it's due. This amendment, it's a start. It blocks Flock from sharing our data with the FBI, ICE, DHS, or any other federal contractor. And it does close an anonymous data between private middlemen loophole. But here's the deal. Whomever wrote this took a step in the right direction and walked right past the whole point. We didn't come to this chamber because we're afraid of federal agencies. We came here because a private company is building a searchable record of where every single one of us drives all the time. They themselves stopped denying that this system is mass surveillance. The answer to can we keep Flock if we add a couple of rules is still no. Because every definition, I'm sorry, every defense of this system is and continues to be the same emotional anecdotes. A missing grandmother or a stolen car recovered. And the closer is always, well, wouldn't you want this system if it were your grandmother or your car? But when a product cannot speak for its own results, when the defense is an appeal to your emotions, that is a concession. That is coercion. It is manipulation. It is not evidence. Police found missing people and recovered stolen cars for decades before Flock existed. Detective work, community leads, witnesses. That's how it was done. That's how it should still be done. If the cameras are why the cases got solved or get solved now, tell me, how was every one of them solved before 2023? The anecdote proves that the cases are solvable. It does not prove that mass surveillance is necessary. OCPD has confirmed in writing that it keeps no records linking Flock to case outcomes. So when the chief presented that slide that showed you all kinds of numbers, there's no way to know if any of them had any connection to Flock whatsoever. They can't even prove that the anecdotes that they tell you are their own stories. The story is the entire defense and it's unverified by their own hand. Here's what the amendment does not touch. According to this contract that has only barely been adjusted, Flock still owns the data under an irrevocable license. The seven day retention gives OKCPD a seven day time window to download their data. It does not delete the intelligence that Flock gathers from the data beforehand. The amendment itself names that derived anonymized data is a separate category that survives altogether. 30 seconds remaining. The remaining guardrails that were presented to us are Flock's own settings. OKCPD did not put those guardrails in place. Flock did under extreme pressure. Section 2.4, which was not amended, still lets Flock change what these cameras do. That's why there's now an audio detector at the corner of Northwest Expressway and Rockwell attached to their camera. If you're not doing audio, why is there a microphone bolted to it? Do not renew this contract, remove every camera and do not replace it with another vendor. Thank you.

Jessica Scott followed by Timothy Melton.

Jessica Scott, 3017 Del Mar Road. The main institutional investor leading Flock Safety's funding is Mark Andresen. He was appointed as an official advisor to Trump, and now he has been named to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board June 29th. Now he will be advising the Pentagon on the very sector in which his firm is invested. Where is the surveillance for that? Despite his loyalty to Trump, the Department of Justice is investigating the billionaire for possible antitrust violations. They've been investigating him for nearly a year for concerns about potential conflicts involving board members on competing AI firms. These are the kinds of people you're giving our data to to make us safer? Treating us all like criminals that need to be under investigation for what? So that you can maybe recover a stolen car? I've heard politicians say we shouldn't worry as long as we're doing nothing wrong. One politician said only a criminal could have a problem with Flock. Only a criminal would have a problem with a government surveilling us at the hands of corrupt corporate billionaires. Does he think we are stupid? Do you guys think we're stupid? Are your voters in this chamber criminals? The politicians who say only criminals should worry about flock are the same politicians who say only criminals should be worried about ICE. How is that working out? The government openly admitting that they target people for the work than they drive for their accent for safety, right? Does that also make you feel safer? Just last month, ICE was trying to arrest a US citizen here in Oklahoma City. An Oklahoma City officer had to step in and stop it. He was not a criminal either. And guess what surrounds the ICE processing center off Meridian? Four flock cameras. We don't want safety guardrails put in place for mass surveillance, whatever that means. We do not want flock. Vote no. And if you can't summon the courage to protect your residents today, then at least delay the vote to consider what your voters are saying. You delayed for weeks and weeks. You delayed to consider each other. You could delay once more to consider us. 30 seconds remaining. Or vote no today. Thank you.

Timothy Melton followed by Love S. Johnson. If Timothy's not here, then Love S. Johnson.

Hello, I'm Lewis Jornson. I live at 2257 Northwest 36th Street. There's a few things I want to say. The first would be something that Cooper said, which is I used to think. And as a smart person, that tells me you are really intelligent. The smartest thing I can ever hear another person say is I got new information and I changed my mind. So when I hear someone say, I used to think, I immediately think, this person is very intelligent. We live in a world where that's seen as bad, and I want to encourage you that other smart people don't think that way. When we hear, I used to think, we hear, this person takes new information and changes their mind, and that is something that really, really intelligent people do. And I think you guys are smart enough to change your minds. If I told you that my domestic partner said to me that I'm going to track where you're going and I'm going to take pictures of you and if you're not cheating on me, you don't need to worry about it, right? You would tell me to go over to Palomar because I am being abused. That is what you would tell me if you were my friend and even if you weren't. So the idea that you're just looking at us, it doesn't matter, like, It affects, there's something in science that we call the observer effect, where the observer affects what is being observed. So when I hear this claim, which we don't know if it's true or not, that these cameras prevent crime, what you are saying is the mere act of me being watched is supposed to, by design, it is supposed to change my behavior. I am supposed to behave differently because I know the government is watching. And right now, it's not illegal to go to a gun range or go to a gay bar or do any of these things. But we can't rely that these things are always going to be protected. And it is terrifying that maybe you don't like the church that I go to. Maybe you don't like the friends that I have. Maybe you don't like my type of people gathering. These are all things that can be monitored. and changed, but you want it to change my behavior when you say you want this to prevent crime. And so I'm very concerned. I really implore you to do what smart people do and take new information and change your mind. I really do believe that you are smart enough to used to think something and think something else now. So please, please don't make this worse. The other thing I will say is, you say that it's so devastating when you lose your car, right? you're acknowledging that to participate in this society, I need my car, which means I can't opt out of this surveillance, right? I can't just not drive a car. And even if I don't drive a car, they're still taking pictures of me, right? But when you say it's devastating to lose your car, you're sort of admitting that we have to drive to participate in society. So please, please be smart enough to change your minds. We don't want this. Nobody wants this. It's not making us safer. It's just... It's authoritarianism, and you're asking us to comply in advance. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Carla Finnell, followed by Becky Schaefer. Becky Schaefer. Becky will be followed by Patricia Russell.

Good morning. My name is Becky Schaller and I live at 2400 Northwest 31st Street. I urge you to terminate the city's contract with Flock. I ask that you vote no. Thank you.

Thank you. Patricia Russell followed by Jessica Thompson.

Patricia Russell and Zachary Taylor and I was at ACLU and I listened to all the information on flock it's not good and having an attorney be able to document that was everything to me Some of the things that I'm concerned about is do they really only take pictures of the tag? Because it really looks like all those cameras looking at you, and I've been all around town looking at them, it looks like they're taking your photograph too. Now, please consider that thought. Also, there is a video on YouTube by OKC Police Department, and it's very limited. It's not telling anything about what's really going on with Flock. It's more than trying to... alleviate car theft, kidnappings, all this and that. I actually have a lot more faith in the police department. I am a victim. I am a gunshot victim. And I can tell you, when you call, when someone calls on your problem and you're hurt, It does not get to the ambulance fast enough or the police department. Now this did happen many years ago and I'm very fortunate to be alive to even meet all of you. because just think about it. You know, it took the police department a lot of time and a lot of mistakes. It took the ambulance a lot of time to get me. There is no way that that flock camera is going to catch someone, shoot you, and catch that vehicle. Do you think that most victims are going to know what the car was that the person came out and shot? I mean, come on, think about it. It's just, it's ridiculous. Okay, some of my other issues are civil liberties, and I have to say all the people behind me have said everything that I was thinking while I'm sitting there. So, thank you so much.

Thank you. Jessica Thompson, followed by William Vaughn.

Hello, council. Thank you all. And I want to applaud everyone that took off work today to be here. Thank you for speaking up. I am requesting city council to pause and take a look at the liability that the city is taking on. A few years ago, my husband and I sold a vehicle in Texas. And that owner never transferred the title over. And we got a ticket in the mail for that person. It was on a trailer. It wasn't even drivable. And we received the ticket. So we tried to fight it, but we could not prove that we had signed the title over because he had the title. So it's still an issue. And it's something we can't address because they don't have something in place for that. And so that's what it taught me was that flux technology doesn't account for a license plate. It identifies a vehicle, not the driver. Ownership records lag behind reality more often than we'd like to think, and that gap is at the center of my concern with Flock. The system reads plates, not people. If someone else is behind the wheel of your car, a buyer who hasn't transferred a title, a family member, a mechanic like my husband on a test drive, or a thief, and that reading triggers an alert, the notice goes to the registered owner, not the actual driver. It's how the system is designed to work and it's already generating wrongful stops and is in some cases lawsuits around this country. There is also a track record of the data that's been mentioned. The Washington Post investigation published over 50 police officers nationally accused of misusing license plate readers. 46 of those cases involving Flox Networks specifically. Also, I want to mention, you know, earlier, Chief Basie mentioned that there was one incident that, or excuse me, two incidents that an officer was caught with an Oklahoma City Police Department violating their, you know, their duties. And my concern there is that On the news, there's only one incident. Since then, there's been two now. And that's not been public. And that's a concern that I take with that. This is not a partisan issue. Conservatives who care about limited government Fourth Amendment protections and keeping cities from taking on open-ended legal liability have real concerns to be cautious here. And so do progressives who worry about surveillance overreach and unequal enforcement. Cities and counties across the political map have reached the same conclusion and pulled back. So I understand the department's proposed change is ending participation in the national lookup data sharing. But I would like you to consider two core questions. Who is legally liable when a misread plate or a misidentified driver leads to a wrongful stop, arrest, or lawsuit? And what enforceable mechanism will catch will catch and punish misuse of this data by the people who have access to it. 90 cameras and a quarter million dollar contract. I'd like the council to delay renewal until the city attorney's office has laid out in writing the city's liability exposure and the specific safeguards that will be in place.

William Vaughn followed by Carly Heitland.

My name was called, I stepped out for a humanity break. May I go ahead?

I'm sorry, and who are you?

Carla Fennell.

Yeah, I remember that, yeah, sure. Okay, fine, you go ahead, and then after you will be William Vaughn.

Thank you so much. First of all, I'd like to commend everyone here and also appreciate the council for the research they've done on this issue. And I'm kind of new to it, but I do have some concerns. I just don't support mass AI surveillance. I'm sorry to any victims of crime, but I'm actually confident that our police force can solve these crimes. Not all crimes will be solved, but can solve them without invading our personal privacy and I think ultimately it will be determined that mass surveillance is a violation of our privacy. But and I'm going to tell you how I actually feel although it's a little draconian. We're being asked to trust the police officers judgment when they make exceptions. But we've known for years there's police overreach in Oklahoma and across the nation. In 2016, Crutcher, an unarmed black man, was shot. No one was held accountable. The little helicopter overhead said, oh, that looks like a bad one. On what indication? Just a month ago, I was on the east side conducting a listening session, and people talked about police beatdowns. We have a long way to go before we can trust our entire police force. We have a culture in Oklahoma where we do not confront. And that leads to the lack of accountability. So no, I'm not there. But I also think it's generally unnecessary. And then I'd like to add the flock CEO called activist terrorist. This is who we're gonna partner with. I think there's better uses for our money. And this data can be weaponized against us. Maybe it hasn't happened yet, but we see every day instances where particularly the federal government is weaponizing our government against powerful people who disagree with it.

Thirty seconds remaining.

It could be us. And I don't support anything that would aid in the mass deportation of our immigrant community. And this is a tool that could do that. Thank you.

William Vaughn followed by Carly Heitland. Carly Heitland then followed by MRA Mac.

Thank you. My name is Carly Heitland. I'm a constituent in Ward 2, and I'm here to present the strong and widespread public opposition to renewing the contract with flock safety cameras. So many people here today and several of our council members have discussed the many powerful arguments against these cameras, and I'm here to ensure that you can physically see just how many Oklahoma residents are with us on this issue. It's not just the people in this room today. And I'm sure you can feel the tension, the passion, the emotion in this room. But we've also talked to thousands of Oklahomans. 2,200 Oklahomans have signed this petition asking to not renew flock safety. I mentioned at our last meeting that I've never seen Oklahomans more unified on an issue, and I can confidently say that this vote is not the end of Oklahomans speaking up. You will continue to hear from us demanding our right to privacy and demanding that our data be protected. Oklahomans care about community safety, but we know that flock does not make us safer. I'm sure that you've all also had direct outreach from your constituents, and the 2,200 people who have signed this petition have asked for three main demands. Number one, that OKC does not renew the flock safety contract. Number two, that OKC removes all flock cameras. And number three, that we do not use another ALPR vendor. As you vote, I hope you'll consider how many Oklahomans have engaged on this issue. I hope you look at their names and see your constituents in there. You hear their demands that are loud and clear, and I hope you know that no matter how this vote goes, we will continue to fight to get Flock out of OKC. As residents of Oklahoma City and the people being surveilled by these cameras, we urge you to stand with your constituents and vote not to renew the contract with Flock Safety. Thank you for your time, and you will continue to hear from us.

Thank you. R.A. Mack, followed by Suresh Dutta.

Hi, I'm Amari Mack. I'm from Ward 2. On August 4th, my Car League colleagues and I brought a notably large stack of roughly 1,900 petition signatures to the City Council for your consideration. In just a mere two weeks, that number jumped exponentially to nearly 2,300 Oklahomans who put their name behind removing flock from their city. When I have discussions on my community, I often have trouble getting people to stop and discuss the political issues of the status quo. I'm sure as people who've had similar discussions in their own community that you can relate. People are often too busy, too uninterested, or simply just not informed. Flock is truly the one issue that immediately brings the light to people's eyes, ready for whatever action is needed to draw a line in the sand, to stand for the personal privacy and liberties Oklahoma prides itself in preserving. Every sheet in that stack that we brought today is a person, a constituent, a family member, a co-worker, a friend. an Oklahoman whose voice deserves to be heard on decisions that will fundamentally impact the way they navigate the city they call home. You all may have made a decision today already. Maybe you've had a decision made for the many weeks that this vote has been delayed. When you look at that stack of people who are asking you to preserve their right to privacy, I implore that all of you ask some deep and prospective questions about your choice. We have all seen the way that technology evolves seemingly overnight. So what is Flock's next evolution and how does that next evolution affect your constituents? What does your decision today do to undermine the legal precedent and the presumption of innocence this nation set in place to protect its citizens? The same legal precedent that you implicitly adhere to by sitting in those seats. What is the future of flock in Oklahoma beyond a mere vote or renewed annual contract? Us Oklahomans have spoken. We have mobilized and we will never stop fighting in the pursuit of preserving the pillars that hold this state and this city together. I hope that you can truly take that into consideration. I yield.

Thanks for allowing us to speak today. My name is Suresh Dutta and I'll try to stay inside my time. I never appeared at a city council meeting. I travel around the country quite a bit and I've been a computer programmer myself and I've spent quite a bit of time on security issues in Texas on the border. I'm aware of the potential of surveillance to keep our country safe. I think this is an issue that I wouldn't even know about this if I were not an ex-MAGA guy that watched Tucker Carlson a couple of months ago. Otherwise, I'd have absolutely no idea. I didn't know that city councils could be approached by the likes of Horowitz to make these kinds of deals. I can say this because I am in touch with people in Silicon Valley and the New York crowd. that i come from you know a people indian people who lived in a surveillance state my father came here in 1967 from canada in 1960 but we moved to oklahoma in 1975 and i'm no stranger to crimes here in oklahoma serious ones we've owned properties we've had our own security systems we want to keep our streets safe i want to get along with the city council so Nice to meet you all this morning. I want to get along with the police. We work closely with the police here and where my brother runs a trauma service in San Antonio. We love our law enforcement. We need law enforcement and we need our city council. But I would just simply say, you know, sometimes I listen to the stuff here and I think maybe we ought to be under surveillance, you know, Sometimes I hear all kinds of things in my life and I wonder maybe we all ought to just be watched just to make sure no one is up to no damn good. But of course I don't want to live in a country like that because then we become very much like India under British occupation. where every brother is spying on his brother. The government knows everything about everyone because it has some kind of a King Herod or Pharaoh complex. If we could just know what everyone is thinking and doing at any time, well, there won't be a Moses. We'll get him before he's born. Or there won't be a Jesus Christ. We'll get him. We'll get him. you know, before he's ever born. And so that's what we've been warned against. Thomas Paine warned against it. He said original sin is exactly the thing that we don't want in the hands of government. Winston Churchill said it in his autobiography that our interpretation of Christianity is going to kill england 30 seconds because we think that keeping up appearances and social acceptability is equal to morality and so i'll just finish by saying think about oklahoma as a great john steinbeck stage would will rogers have put up with this i don't think he would and so you have a much larger purpose here at the city council i hope that you haven't made up your minds thank you

Marilee Perriam, followed by Corey Miller.

Hello. My name is Marilee Pariam. I live at 1001 Northwest 16th Street. I am the president of the board of First Unitarian Church, which is at 600 Northwest. Did I say I lived on 13th Street? I live on 16th Street. The church is on 13th Street. Nobody wants this. Nobody wants this contract with Block. There is a national outcry against it. Chief Basie concludes that this doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment, but as our city council, you don't just have the obligation to not violate the Fourth Amendment, but to uphold the will of your constituents, and we don't want that. We don't want this. This is not an ethical company to be working with. Numerous examples have been stated about how they have used the information badly and gone around corners. and we can expect that they will continue to do that. I'm grateful that Chief Basie talked with us and said that we turned off our national sharing. That is a step in the right direction. But he also said that we share with just primarily Oklahoma. Well, we know that Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a 287G and they are deputized as ICE officers. So if you're sharing with OHP, you're sharing with ICE. And ICE is terrorizing our community. We know that 109 agencies are in our sharing agreement. He won't tell us which ones they are, but we know that agencies all over Oklahoma have 287 agreements with ICE. I don't want our city to be complicit in the ethnic cleansing that is going on and the mass deportation that is going on. and I hope you don't want it to be either. Back in April of this year, I sat down with Captain Esaw of Oklahoma City Police Department, and he told me that he would not want to be a cop if he were starting out right now because of how technologically connected everything is. He made the comparison to the good old-fashioned policing that's been mentioned here. He told me, and I quote, 30 seconds remaining, we can find a car so fast it's incredible. There's cameras everywhere, and we have access to all of them. Every convenience store in the city, we have access to their cameras. Intersections, cameras everywhere, unquote. The chief says all we can see is we can all see license plates with our own eyes, but we can't do what Captain Esau is describing. This is not the world I want to live in, and apparently it's not the world he wants to live in either. Thank you.

Thank you.

Cory Miller, followed by Cole McAfee.

Good morning. Sorry, I stutter, so if it acts up, I'm sorry. My name's Cory Miller. I live in Ward. not living in the city here i know i don't have a vote or anything like that but i do come here and shop regularly like so many people and some things i heard here today i categorize them as half truths okay um mr stone you mentioned about um cell phones and how they constantly track on the um gps and everything right but you left out we can leave them at home if we don't want to Yep, but I can't leave a flat camera at home, can I? Okay. So we heard the police chief here, I believe he's the police chief, if he wasn't, I'm sorry, refused to share information with the council. When you were asking about the other agencies, I took it as you were just asking for the council, not for all of us. And if the police isn't going to share that information to the council, how can we trust them? Number one way we can improve police relations in the community is having police in the community, not sitting behind screens. This money could go better to help hire more officers and give them better pay. Police chief also mentioned, or well, the slide there mentioned that If it's over $50,000 for more cameras, they have to go through to get approval. I did an internet search while I was sitting back here. Those cameras only cost $300 to $400 to put in. That means they could put in 100 cameras more without telling us. And then if you look on there, it shows that the one account shows that the city only owns 90 cameras so they can double the surveillance without telling us. They mentioned about the number of people that he mentioned about the crime solved. Okay. All that all together, they helped under 1,000 people, found 1,200 cars. And I don't want to take away from that at all. But that's a total of about 2,200 people that helped. There's 720,000 people in the city. So is it worth the possible risk of being misused? Which they already know it's gonna be misused, because they do audits. You don't do audits unless you want to find people that are misusing something to make sure. Well, let me rephrase that. To make sure it's still being used correctly.

And then they got AI watching it. We're at time, sir. Thank you.

And they got AI watching it every day. I think there's a Terminator series against that.

Cole McAfee followed by Cassidy McKnight.

Hello, my name is Cole McAfee and I'm a homeowner and resident ward six and the executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, a nonprofit that serves folks across the state from right here in Oklahoma City. I'm here today to ask you to terminate the contract with Flock and to end the use of automatic license plate readers in Oklahoma City. ALPRs, including Flock, turn constitutional rights on their heads, presuming every resident of Oklahoma City guilty until proven innocent by subjecting us all to regular and invasive surveillance of our day-to-day lives. This technology does not prevent crime, it does not keep us safe, but it is increasingly creating danger for anyone who lives, works, or travels through Oklahoma City. Back in 2019, my job involved increasing transparency around the District Attorney's Council and the Oklahoma District Attorney's Association. When I started attending meetings of the DA's public arm, the district attorneys made it clear they did not welcome me. One of the points of discussion in those early meetings was the launch of the Uninsured Vehicle Enforcement Diversion Program, or UVED. This program launched automatic license plate readers on traveling trailers as well as in fixed locations in collaboration with OG&E. And during the time I was engaging in transparency and accountability efforts, I began to receive UVED notices despite my vehicle being insured. In each of these, which I had to spend several hours of phone tag to resolve, I received a notice with a different photo of me and my car when the automatic license plate reader captured my license plate. I was visible in each of those shots. On my way to work, outside of my doctor's office, on my way to get a haircut, near my home. A terrifying invasion of my privacy and capturing of my life without any wrongdoing on my part. It only stopped when media started a first round of coverage on all of the wrongful letters being sent by UVED. But the anxiety that exists every time I get behind the wheel of my car because of that invasion of privacy still lingers to this day. You may have previously voted for this contract because you did not know better. But now that you know better, I'm asking you to take action and do better. I'm asking you to end the work with flock, to end any future work with automatic license plate readers, and to work immediately to remove those cameras from our city. Our urgent safety is at risk.

30 seconds remaining.

And you have the possibility to change the narrative right now. I hope you will. Thank you.

Thank you. Cassidy McKnight.

Hi, I'm Cassidy McKnight. I reside in Ward 6. I would also like to, I've been in Oklahoma City for 10 years. The only place in the state of Oklahoma that does not have flat cameras at all is actually where I'm from, Altus, Oklahoma. It's a military base town, Air Force. So I hope that some people on the council, I've looked into you all. I know that you respect the military and you respect our forces. I hope that you still listen to me as I speak. Everybody who's spoken already has gone over very intricate details of why this is wrong and why you should vote no. What I'm going to do today is just read to you The Frogs Who Wished for a King. It's an Aesop fable that was written 200 or 250 years after the fall of Rome. I think it's relevant today in a very different context as it was then, but I'll go ahead and read it. the frogs were tired of governing themselves. They had so much freedom that it had spoiled them, and they did nothing but sit around croaking in the bored manner and wishing for a government that could entertain them with pomp and display of royalty, and rule them in a way to make them know they were being ruled. No milk and water government for them, they declared. So they sent a petition to King Jupiter asking for help. Jupiter saw what a simple and foolish creature they were. But to keep them quiet and make them think they had a king, he threw down a huge log, which fell into the water with a great splash. The frogs hid themselves among the reeds and the grasses, thinking the new king to be some fearful giant. But they soon discovered how tame and peaceful the king log was. In a short time, the younger frogs were using him for a diving platform, while the older frogs made him a meeting place where they complained loudly to Jupiter about the government. To teach the frogs a lesson, the ruler of the gods now sent a crane to the king of Frogland. The crane proved to be a very different sort of king from the old log. He gobbled up the poor frogs right and left, and they soon saw what fools they had been. In mournful croaks, they begged Jupiter to take away the cruel tyrant before they should all be destroyed. How now, cried Jupiter, are you not content? You have what you asked for and you have only yourselves to blame for your misfortunes. This sounds like a little bit removed from what we're talking about right now, but the moral of the story is be sure you can better the conditions you are in before you seek change. I know we are trying to fight crime, but what fights crime more than these cameras is spending money to help house people, get them access to food, water, and shelter so they are not committing crimes, whatever we deem as crime at the time because it continues to change. Thank you very much. I concede my time.

That concludes our residents who've signed up to speak. Are there any other comments from Councilor? Do we want to take a motion on this specific item, 9B?

Yes, Mayor.

Was my name not on the list?

No?

I called every name that signed up. Okay, Councilman Cooper?

Thanks, Mayor. So again, I pulled this item out for a separate vote because as I've done since July 23, 24, 25, I intend to once more vote no because This technology, as we've heard from people here today, I did not invite these people, by the way. This was not me going out and organizing a bunch of folk. People feel a way because they feel a way about what we're doing. They're deeply concerned about this approach. It's a hammer to a gnat. This company, Flock, has an $8 billion evaluation. And I do not believe that they have this body's interest at heart, our law enforcement's interest at heart, our neighborhood's interest at heart. I've heard several residents today implore us that with new knowledge, we cast a different vote if we voted previously in a different way. So, I'm hopeful that people will do differently this time with their vote. But if not, then word two, all I can say to you is I am honored to bear witness to this moment. And sometimes that's what we must do. Sometimes that's what we must do. I just don't know how we could approve it after everything we've heard. This company has lied to mayors and councils all across these United States of America. They have lied. That is documented. Why would we trust them with the safety of over 700,000 people? And I hope everyone who leaves here today, including this council, but the residents and people watching at home, that they remember that woman in the PBS NewsHour who was accused of a crime she did not commit, had to endure the mockery of a law enforcement officer who mocked her innocence and had to prove her own innocence through the technology that we've all, not all, I haven't, but too many of us have turned to with ring cameras, et cetera, because so many of us are afraid of crimes that might happen in our neighborhoods because too many levels of government have not invested in the basic needs of their people. And every time, Every time, as the Ward 2 representative, I go into a local news station and I hear people refer to Klassen or Northwest Expressway or Ward 2 as, quote, the ghetto, or I don't go there because of crime, and then I come to this body to implore us to invest in our neighborhoods with the resources like a violence interruption program would do. Like, we've already done with our mental health alternative, which is life-saving, we know that. It just breaks my heart in a million pieces that so many decades have gone by that we let people talk about our residents as if they are criminals based on the neighborhoods and zip codes that they live in, and then we put up cameras to surveil them. And I am sorry to word two that that has been so much of our history. But I also know so much of our history has been investing in each other, The police safety sales tax from 1989 is the result of Ward 2. It is the result of the neighborhood alliance realizing that fire and police did not have the equipment that they needed, that police officers were dying on the streets. the job because they did not have the protective personal equipment that they needed. And Ward 2 residents went out and organized to create a sales tax to put it up to a vote of the people. And that's why we have the police and public safety sales tax. That's why. That's what Ward 2 does. So I will never sit here and listen to people trying to make a claim that these sorts of concerns are anti-law enforcement because they are not. They are about public safety. They're about the preservation of our constitutional rights and our civil liberties. And so as I've done before, I will vote no. I will bear witness to what I think is quite frankly a shameful moment. And I, word two, we got this, we're gonna hold strong, but I just really wanna say I appreciate everyone who came here today. The conversation, as many of you have said today, is nowhere near done. It's nowhere near done. We'll be persistent.

Okay, any other comments?

Franklin Stone? Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your comments there, Councilman.

Appreciate that.

And I got to say, 98% of you that got up here and talked, I appreciated it. I think there were a lot of great points brought up that creates extra turmoil in my head. Personally, I would like to go ahead and move for its approval so that we can get this accomplished. up or down, we'll get it accomplished is what I mean by getting it accomplished. But anyway, thank you all again so much for sharing your input. It's a tough decision, but as you know, mine's kind of from an experience thing, so I'll move for its approval.

Okay, we have a, this is just for item 9B, of course. I know we're trying to load it here. All right, there we go. Got a motion. Waiting on the. Got a second. Cast your votes.

Five.

Passes five to three. All right. Next up. You should be ashamed.

You should be ashamed of yourself. How dare you?

How dare you put a state on our state?

Disgusting. You'll have to.

will have to be removed, obviously, if you cannot compose yourself. But it sounds like we can move on now.

We have item AQ and AP and AQ has a presentation.

Good morning, David Todd, MAPS program manager. If you remember, if you recall that there are several packages of parks projects in here. There's 107 projects that are scheduled to have improvements. This is our first package that we're bringing with final plans to improve these parks. So today we have Darren Scott from Kimley Horn here to take you through these plans briefly.

All right. Good morning, Council. Really excited to talk to you guys about the progress that we've been doing on the neighborhood and community park. So this started probably about three years ago with the master plan that we worked through. And then we are here today to talk about the first phase of the park. So we'll quickly go through some of the the improvements that we're gonna be doing for these first 20 parks. So as we talked about, the first phase has 15 and a half million, roughly. In phase 1A and 1B, 1C is Washington Park, which is included. which will come later, but for these first two, 1A and 1B, it's about 15 and a half million. Part of that money is the 2017 bond money, so there's the four parks that are listed here that are included with that bond money, so about three million of it is bond. So we'll go through 1A parks, and then we'll go through 1B. So there's 19 of them, so we'll move through rather quickly on these. So the budget on 1A is about six and a half million, and then our construction estimate is a little under that at nearly 6.3 million. So we'll go through these these first parks are mainly on the south side around 240 a little bit south of there and a few that are north Draper Park Is the first one we'll look at it is along Lightning Creek a lot of comments about connectivity across the the creek to the neighborhoods and then also looking at some playground improvements there. So really highlighting some of the feedback that we heard from the neighborhoods about that community space with the playground there and then better connectivity to get there. Shillings Park, again, kind of on the south side, southeast 25th. What we did here is we combined the splash pad that was existing with a new playground. Both the splash pad and playground are being replaced. We also looked at completing the sidewalk loop around the park. And then we wanted to complement the middle school that's there, Wheeler Park, or Wheeler Middle School is next door. So highlighting a little bit of an older playground piece there to complement the middle school. The next park is May Park. This was really an underdeveloped or undeveloped piece of land in the park system. So we're adding a brand new playground, a sports court, which will include futsal and basketball, and then really tying into the Hispanic and Latino character of the community with some theming of the playground with strong color flowers and garden themes there. Oliver Park, this one is actually next door to Draper. So we looked at those kind of as a complete kind of park system there. It included a basketball futsal, no actually basketball, pickleball courts, a fitness station because there is that loop trail around that detention pond, and then additional lighting. So there's no playground on this one because the playground is next door in Draper. Shallowbrook Park, this received a new playground, nature themed, shade structure, also some sports improvements with backstops and that kind of thing. And there are some, on all of these, we updated the website, so there's some renderings of the playgrounds and you can kind of see the different theming online, so maps4parks.com. Has all that updated and that'll also go for the public as well. They can see the improvements that will be coming Young's Park This one again is a had a existing small splash pad. We brought those together into playgrounds and splash pad in one area We also connected to the existing pedestrian bridge Crossing there. So again better connect the the neighborhoods together. I And then Zerline, which is the last park in this package, We looked at adding a playground, again, an underdeveloped park, really not a lot out there. Added a playground and futsal court, and then a bridge connection across the creek there. So lots of good connections going on between the neighbors. The second part, or bid package, is 1B. It had a little bit bigger funding source because of the bond money that was in it. Nearly $8.9 million in our construction budget, just slightly under that. All these have alternates, too, included, so if there's any funding left from the bids, we can include some of these alternates. So we'll start Hiley Park. We're doing some playground servicing improvements and then adding a sports court to it. It's located at Northwest 8th Street. L.D. Lacey, kind of on the east side. Again, not a whole lot there. Some trees, a wooded park. We're adding a basketball court there and adding some connections across and some parking along the street because there is no access from parking and a shade shelter. Macklenburg Park It is a well used community center That we had a lot of good impact input from and then also we had some community meetings there as well Working to combine the playground splash pad and then also resurfacing there to tennis courts as well with tennis striping and pickleball Mark Twain, small little park, Northwest First Street, really just needed some surfacing. The playground equipment was good, and then we're replacing a shade shelter there as well. McNabb Park if you're familiar with this one It's where the butterfly garden is Northeast 33rd Street So a nice art piece on the corner there really wanted to highlight that and further enhance that so good connections along Northeast 33rd Street Providing some little nodes of play for some of the smaller and then also use the embankment the the terrain to create some embankment slides and the butterfly theme is Included in the playground as well. So it's really really a really nice area there Melrose is where the new youth center is going to go So we did coordinate the location of that with this playground. So it's it's gonna actually The plan is maybe for the youth center to go behind, so we left that space open and then included the splash pad and playground up front. There's a lot of nice trees there, so it provides some nice shade for those improvements. Nichols Court, that's another one will receive a lot of feedback It's in the middle of three streets. It's kind of their community gathering space in the neighborhood So a small younger kid themed playground with a nice Gazebo in the middle too as they use that space for for those gatherings so the the gazebo matches the style of the neighborhood North OKC rotary one of the things we heard there was they had a lot of large community gatherings so we have a large pavilion 50 by 50 pavilion included and then we're also redoing the two tennis courts and adding a basketball court along with some sidewalk connections and then some more parking along Colfax because there's lots of people use that park and wanted to build access it from another spot so some good improvements on North OKC Rotary. Riley Leroy Pitts, another community center that we had some public meetings at and also some follow up conversations. This plugin is really neat because it does celebrate the history Raleigh Leroy Pitts and his service to the military so have a nice mural on the community center This really kind of further tells that story also have some some mileage markers on the loop that we're doing and Like a courage walk or run type thing to it. So some really nice features to be added out at Pitts Park nearly done with these Taylor Park We added the playground, the splash pad again together to complement the middle school that's next door. Also looked at adding a basketball court to this one as well and a few other kind of connection cleanup points. In Winans Park, this one is in Historic Preservation District, Heritage Hills East. Had a lot of conversations with the neighborhood group and went through Historic Preservation Commission. We are including a basketball team Pickleball court combination also some good sidewalk connections as you know, this is between Broadway if you've been through that area so connections across Broadway was important to the neighborhood adding some additional parking on the south side and then Well actually on the the east side and then on the south side There's that splitter island that people run through into the fence. So doing some improvements with the curb there to help that And then the last park in this package is Woodland Park, northeast 50th, really heavily wooded along the creek there, adding some connections across and then a playground themed, more of a wooded themed kind of natural playground setting there. So some good improvements to that really pretty park that's there. Schedule quickly, we submitted final plans in July, going through this approval process in August. with bidding starting soon after this into September, notice proceed in October, and then 180 days of construction for 1A and 270 on 1B. So completion mid-27 for the first phase of parks, which is really exciting to see this start to happen. So with that, if there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

I don't have any questions, but I do want to say, and I recognize not all of these are in my ward, but the ones that are, I just really appreciate seeing the depth of thoughtfulness and responsiveness to resident input. Because I think specifically with Winans, that's one for years. I've heard so much about people really I had hoped it could be more connective and active, but it's sort of just been, as many of these, sort of just a blank space. So it's very cool to see so much of that input that I've heard over the years has kind of actually really filtered into your designs. And then even things like probably for some lower engaged areas like the May Park and Zero Line Park, knowing that there was some input and I see all of that in there, but also just from your all's experience and sort of expertise, sort of thinking how can we creatively put some stuff in spaces that, again, have just sort of been really underutilized and see how we can get them more active. So it's very exciting to see. I really appreciate the, like I said, just the willingness to really slow down and listen to the folks and really meet that with your expertise and filter that into the design. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you. Can I ask, well first, I'll just echo Councilwoman's comment regarding your work. I think that everyone who's been collaborating on this effort is doing some really good work. Taylor Park, can we go to that slide? Yes, maybe.

I'm in bad territory here. Are you controlling it? Okay, thank you.

Thank you. So this is where Jefferson Middle School is, which is where I used to teach middle school, so I'm always thinking about it. The sidewalk connectivity, there's sidewalks on 70th, heading east and west, but I'm wondering, there are no sidewalk connectivity unless something's changed since I've been there between 70th and the park. There are sidewalks within, like as you can see here on the map, the kind of almost outlined type imagery, but I'm wondering what's possible to connect Yeah, because I'm thinking about literally the families who live in Prairie Queen, et cetera, because Prairie Queen Elementary is right around the corner. So I'm thinking if someone has a stroller, someone's in a wheelchair, it might seem like, oh, there's grass, but that's not ultimately a good connectivity point. So where are we at with that?

And we can look, and I apologize, there's a lot of these, but we do have some alternates for some other areas. and we'll definitely look at that and see what those alternates are in there and then also if there's any available funds.

We've also have opportunities within our sidewalk program sure that we've got contractors out there working right now If you're just talking about connecting the park out to the street, that's right We can handle that way if we need to cool that I think that'd be super useful and Taylor parks on my mind Especially because just yesterday I was talking with Tina at Boys and Girls Club and the rec center like Boys and Girls Clubs reactivating that rec center I was able to connect Tina to a math teacher, Miss Gantt, who's taught at Jefferson for, I don't know, she probably wouldn't want me to tell you how long, but from both of them, the kind of concern is the connectivity of students leaving Jefferson and getting to the rec center, and so just making sure there's that little extra bit of connectivity.

No, that makes sense, and we will definitely look into that.

Yeah, thank you. And then Rotary Park. And this might be more of a director Todd or city manager question. Do we know where we are? Those neighbors have been since I won back in 2019 obsessed with a sidewalk on Tulsa. They have a lot of speeders who will get off 50th Street or expressways right there at 63rd where things get really kind of janky, you know what I mean? So I don't know where we might be with sidewalks up and down Tulsa with this project.

I'm just going off from some memory, but... If I recall, the sidewalks in that area are extremely difficult because of some right away issues. But I'll check on it for you and find out that's between where. Yes, sir.

It's between northwest 50th to the south and then 63rd. Yeah. You know where Northwest Expressway turned off the 630. Yeah. A lot of resident drivers will slip slide down now. I'll double check on that. Thank you so much, director. And thank you again. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Exciting. Oh, OK. We have somebody who signed up to speak on this item. John.

Deophilus?

That's me.

I was actually supposed to. Got a lot of energy going through me right now. I was actually supposed to speak with the flock situation, but then I wasn't like, I'm not sure if I should do that. I don't know how much time I got, so I'm gonna go ahead and get to this.

You have three minutes, but this is not the... I know.

It's about maps, it's about construction. The good thing about this is construction in Oklahoma City. It's important, right? Well, humans are a part of that construction, and how we treat humans are very, very important to Oklahoma City. So my name is John Theophilus, old speak. I'm a 39-year-old male resident of state of Oklahoma for 35 years. The first concern I have is for the welfare of the homeless. The MAPS program does not include a homeless program for the electricity for the homeless. Homeless have no access to electricity. The only electricity we have is through the different means through if the state decides to leave the electricity on outside that we can plug into. But where's the welfare and concern for the homeless? There's nonprofit organizations that are designed to help the homeless. They should have access to power so where the homeless can plug in and have electricity. It's a common thing. We should understand that it's an important part of humanity. But the second matter is the most important, and it's the personal welfare situation behind the . The system that I'm addressing is now larger than the state of Oklahoma. It's larger than the nation. When Apple told the FBI, no, they don't have to give the words, the corporation that I'm talking about or the organization I'm talking about is bigger than them. I'm asking you to reject them, though. Not to become your new king, but that you grasp sovereignty while it is attainable. There are those that read minds, and the ability to give them access to passwords is the leverage that the FBI did not have when they were trying to deal with Apple. The mind readers have acted like the son of man turning sons against fathers and fathers against sons. And I was used by mind readers since I was a child. I haven't realized all the sexual trauma I experienced was at the behest of mind readers. My biological father allowed his daughter to play in the kitchen with grease. He had hot water on me that gave me third-degree burns. Later, I witnessed him spooning with two of his teenage daughters while his wife, Dara, stood above him watching. I don't know if you noticed this, but my hand has been moving like this the entire time. That kind of sounds like Obama, right? That's how he does his... That's the sign of mind readers trying to adjust me even while I'm talking right now. So what I'm asking you to do is think about the behavioral health services in Oklahoma City. I went to Red Rock earlier today to get help concerning behavioral health.

Thirty seconds remaining.

And they were not there to help me. They in fact told me to go to a primary care physician. You're there for mental health and you're not helping the homeless when they're asking about mental health? But they'll get government aid from you guys? Appalling. Appalling. My siblings detested their ways. And I married a woman who was a mind reader too. You know how weird it is to see your child being manipulated in front of you? To see scenes played out? Even in this courtroom today, I've had scenes, well not courtroom, but in this council meeting today, I've had scenes played out.

We're out of time, thank you. Okay, so now we are on item BL that Councilman Cooper wanted to pull out, but he's not here. Otherwise, all that's left is to approve the consent docket. I think we can't. I'm not going to hold up the consent docket.

I will pull BL out for a separate vote if needed. Okay.

All right. Well then, do we want to take a motion on item BL? We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes six to one. All right, now we're on the remainder of the consent docket, which we can adopt with one motion. We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes unanimously. Now we're on item 10, the concurrence docket. We do have someone who assigned to speak on item H, Jessica Scott. And I should probably say, we so rarely have action on the concurrence docket. These are merely, in a sense, our acknowledgement that these things have happened. We do not actually have a controlling vote on these items that were passed, in this case, by the Water Utilities Trust. But go ahead, Jessica.

I wanted to explain why I'm concerned about this amendment because it's more about $100,000. There's a bigger pattern that I would like people to pay attention to in government contracting. A company gets a city contract, sometimes there is real competition, sometimes the normal consultant selection process is waived so that it doesn't get real competition. And the council actually voted to do that in March of last year for Ardura to waive the competitive process. But then once the company is already established on the project, the contract can come back to council for amendments and more money. So taxpayers can end up with no competition when the contract starts and no competition when the price goes up. Once a company has the project, it becomes easy to keep giving it more money. And like for today, a fee increase of $100,000 for Ardura Group, a large engineering corporation headquartered in Florida, And when we're spending public money, shouldn't we at least be asking whether qualified local companies could do the work? Are there no companies in Oklahoma City that could contract on this? Because when we hire locally, the money doesn't just pay a contractor, it pays local employees, it gets spent at local businesses, it stays in that tax base in the community. Instead, we sometimes have a cycle where public money goes to a large corporation then the contract gets amended, more money gets added. And you know, it's not just being against businesses, but government doesn't exist to guarantee corporations a revenue stream. So, you know, my questions would be how much has this contract increased since the original reward? What exactly is the $100,000 covering? Why isn't the additional work being competitively bid? And why are we continuing to expand contracts with large corporations instead of looking for opportunities here in Oklahoma City? I just don't want the local economy to become a revolving door of additional payments to corporations. My comment today is not solely about Adora Group. Adora Group is just one example of some of these what I consider to be corporate handouts. Thank you.

And the city manager tells me that if you'd like to meet somebody from utilities outside to discuss that in more depth, they would be happy to do that. All right, now we can adopt the concurrence docket, items A through J. We have a motion and a second. Can I ask for your votes? Passes unanimously. Now we're on item 11, items for individual consideration. Items A, B, and C were previously deferred, which brings us to item D. This is an ordinance on final hearing. It was recommended for approval rezoning 13701 North Mustang from AA to PUD 2141. Councilman Carter, no one has signed up to speak, and that is true of all of today's zoning cases. Okay. I'd still like to hear from the applicant.

Little Dennis, if we could talk.

Good afternoon, David box 5 to 5 North 11th Street. I hear about the output. This is a PD that would allow for residential development. We had a community meeting. We expected a significant turnout. We rented the VA center in Piedmont, and one person showed up. So he seemed to be generally happy with it. It's an interesting area in that Memorial Road does not actually exist. The right-of-way is there, but it's never been developed. Spent a lot of time at Planning Commission. There are three TEs that were added at Planning Commission to limit the number of 40-foot lots, also add enhanced fencing along the arterial network, and we included along Memorial Road in case that was ever developed out. We'd have to do that as well. So no one showed up to protest, and it was recommended for approval unanimously by the Planning Commission.

So since we've talked, unfortunately, I have been told that Memorial Road exists and that it does exist.

Well, it's a dirt path. Kids ride four-wheelers and such.

Apparently, 50 years ago, one of our engineers lives out there and that road was there and we've let it go. Do we know anything more about this road or prior to?

So I'll tell you, it's a dirt path now, and there's a significant blue line that runs through there. And so if the city were ever to expand Memorial at that stretch, it would be a significant undertaking due to the size of that stream and what would have to be done to engineer over it to connect Memorial. Maybe that's why we don't have a road there anymore. Probably.

Got it. However, if we decide to do something there, the developer is ready to help. Well, we'll give you all the right-of-way necessary, and we have a really pretty fence. All right. I appreciate you explaining it. Thank you very much. I will move for approval. Maybe. There we go. Tell your dad we said hi.

Are there people getting a chance to vote? Well, it sounds like we have a motion and a second visible to some. Cast your votes if you can. I wish to vote aye.

Very suspenseful. Thank you.

Passes unanimously. Item 11E is an ordinance on final hearing that was recommended for approval resounding 549 Southwest 149th from AA to PUD 2144. Councilman Hinkle.

You want to come back up and talk about this? Anytime we're getting a tulip farm in Ward 5, I want everybody to know.

Once again, David Box 525 North 11th Street. This is actually an expansion of the Orr family farm that will include a tulip farm. So Dr. Orr has done a tremendous job with that farm over the years and has consistently added to it, reinvested in it, and this is just the next phase in that. So there was no protest. It was recommended for approval by Planning Commission.

I mean, do we have motions and things? I better refresh, I guess. Oh, there we go. Okay, we have a second, but not a motion. I've never seen that one before, but I'm gonna assume we do up there. All right, cast your vote. Or two.

Thank you.

Passes unanimously. Item F is an ordinance on final hearing recommended for approval rezoning 10524 Southwest 29th from PUD 1735 to PUD 2145. Councilwoman Havers.

Hello, David Box, 525 Northwest 11th Street, here on behalf of the applicant. This is, it's a PUD that is kind of a redo of what's already there and it's necessitated by the Turnpike. Kendall Dillon and I went and rezoned all this many years ago. Turnpike came through and bisected the property in half and it's kind of required us to in various PUDs kind of redo it. And so we're really just putting some uses around in different spots than are otherwise there. We're not really adding anything. It's just adding some flexibility. So this was recommended for approval and I would ask to Strike te2 so I would ask you to amend the MDS to strike te2 We had a conversation with Mustang Public Schools Mustang Public Schools does not desire that right iron fence that was put on us by Planning Commission so in an effort to ensure that we have a happy neighbor we would ask that te number to be stricken so amended amend the MDS to strike te2 You too

OK, so this is a amendment motion on item F. We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes.

And then while that's good.

I'll vote yes too. Maybe my computer's mad at me for referencing Plato earlier or something.

I don't know. Okay, the amendment passes unanimously. Okay. Now we'll bring up the motion to approve item F as amended.

Yes, of course.

We have a motion and a second. Pass your votes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. All right, item G was previously deferred, which brings us to item H. This is an ordinance on final hearing that was recommended for approval rezoning 1933 Northwest 39th from R1 and SPUD 1800 to SPUD 1843. Councilman Cooper? Yes, but it's been refreshing for a while, I'll tell you.

I believe we spoke on the phone about this we did do you mind just briefly let the public know once again David box 525 Northwest 11th Street this is an SPD it's a bit of a unique situation that we actually came through and rezoned it just maybe two or three months ago my client was able to acquire the lot to the east and so we're simply adding the regulations that we had already negotiated at playing condition to that additional lot all those TES that you see were TES and that Ms. Powers, the War II Planning Commission member, put on to ensure that we had all of the landscaping and screening requirements that were in the previous SPD.

Good. Good work, Commissioner. And thank you, David. I will move for approval. I will verbally move. Well, no. Yeah, I'm going to have to verbally move for approval. Please.

We have a motion to second cast your votes on item H. Passes unanimously. All right, item I is an ordinance on final hearing that was recommended for approval rezoning 801 North Cemetery from SPD 807 to SPD 1845. Councilwoman Avers. All right.

Sorry, Carter.

We have a motion and a second cast your votes.

I vote aye. And it's, I think, going to just be this way for a bit.

Passes unanimously.

All right, item J is an ordinance on final hearing. It was recommended for approval establishing a special permit to operate use unit 8250.15, moderate impact institutional truck driving school in the I-2 and S-Y-T overlay districts at 918 South Agnew, Councilwoman Kim.

Yes, I believe between staff and a planning commissioner, they were able to add some tech teams to just kind of address the connection between this kind of heavier commercial use and nearby residents. So with that, I will move for approval.

All right, passes unanimously. Item K is an ordinance on final hearing that was recommended for approval, closing a portion of the east-west right-of-way of Kings of Leon Lane, Platted, California, and a portion of the north-south right-of-way of Charlie Christian, Councilman Pennington.

Thank you, Mayor. This is just going to eliminate some right-of-way for the purposes of further development in Bricktown, and I'm going to move approval.

We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes unanimously. All right. Item L1 is the public hearing regarding the dilapidated structures here listed. Amy, has anyone signed up to speak? They have not. And so we'll advance to the resolution at L2 declaring that the structures are dilapidated. Motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes unanimously. Item 11M1 is a public hearing regarding unsecured structures here listed. Amy, is anyone signed up to speak?

No, they haven't.

They have not, so we'll advance to the resolution found at M2 declaring structures are unsecured. We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes unanimously. Item in one is a public hearing regarding the abandoned buildings here listed, except for those previously struck. Amy, has anyone signed up to speak?

No, they haven't.

So we'll advance to the resolution founded in two declaring the buildings are abandoned. We have a motion and a second. Cast your votes. Passes unanimously. Vice Mayor Hinkle presiding.

Moving to item 11.0, resolution authorizing municipal councilor to confess judgment without admitting liability in the case of Hans Talabon versus the city of Oklahoma City. Executive session is not requested. And it passes unanimously. Item P has been struck. Item Q and R are executive session that we'll handle at the end of our meeting. Okay, we need to vote on the executive session for Q and R individually. Q passes need a motion for our I And it passes unanimously. Item S is claims recommended for denial. Executive session is not requested. And it passes unanimously. Item T is claims recommended for approval. And it passes unanimously, which brings us to comments from council. Word one. Word two.

Wow. He's good.

Wow.

Come on, James. I'm hungry.

No, I do publicly just want to say about my mother. She and I went to go see The Odyssey recently, and it just really meant a lot because she did not know that story. She dropped out of school in the seventh grade, and so she never found herself assigned that story. But she found herself in my apartment picking up that book just randomly when we went to lunch. And I said, do you want to go to the IMAX? And so a week later, we... went out there and watched that film and she just loved it. And I'm just so happy that my 82 year old mother, who again dropped out of school in seventh grade, but then did a pilot program in Texarkana to get a GED, put herself through nursing school tests, you know, kind of top of the class Just getting that opportunity for her to see one of the oldest stories ever told was just so beyond rewarding. Whether or not you like the film is kind of not the point. It's the story itself. And I guess that's made me reflect on why I'm just so passionate about connecting people to opportunities. She literally took a pilot program for a GED. It took a social worker. connecting her with those resources and then it took a social worker after she did the ged test to ask her what did she want to do with her life and because the vietnam war was happening she was like i can't fight but i could serve as a nurse and i just always want everyone to remember that not everyone has access to those opportunities and it really does take sometimes that individual touch to get people on their journey so anyway i just wanted to say thank you to her for going with me but also for setting me on this path Board three?

Board four? Six? Seven? I'm good. Citizens to be heard, you have three minutes. Amy will tell you when you got 30 seconds left. First up is Jessica Scott.

Disappointed is not the right word to use today, so I will use the words pissed off. Flock is extremely unpopular, and now some of you will be too. Around the country, protests are taking place against flock in red states, in blue states. City folk, country folk, the left, the right, both agreed on this issue. How many people showed up today and gave comments in support of flock? None. You had zero voters today in this room ask you to vote the way you voted. You betrayed your voters. You betrayed the residents of Oklahoma City, residents of cities in all the surrounding areas that are driving here to work, driving to a friend's house. You portrayed citizens from other states passing through on I-40 or I-35, stopping off the interstate for a drink and a bathroom break. This was not just about you. or even just your voters. This was about the constitutional rights, rights to privacy and basic freedoms of anyone who even passes through Oklahoma City. Your vote will not be forgotten by the next news cycle. The news cycles will continue reminding your voters with every flock abuse, every wrongful detainment, every national story of the dangers of flock. The only thing that will make people forget this vote today is when you reverse it.

Next is Patricia Russell. Going once, going twice. Brandi Torres.

I'm not here for Flock.

I'm disappointed that Mayor Holt is not here and my councilman is not here because this affects they are two of the people who really need to hear this I did ask the chief of police when he was leaving after flock to come back for this he is not here either but I just want to start out by saying good morning, mayor and council members. I so respect each and every one of you at a level. As a social worker of 30 years, I know it's hard to sit up there and have people scream and yell at you. And that people don't understand that the system, every system in our United States

was never meant to hold this complexity or this much volume.

I have lived in this community... Okay. I'm here because every avenue available to me has failed. I've lived in this community since 2016. I have volunteered here. I perform pro bono advocacy work through my LLC. I've written publicly, which you can see in the Oklahoman, continuously about building strong communities. And I take civic responsibility very seriously. I vote in every election because I believe in participation in our democracy matters. Last legislative session, I spent over 500 hours working in a bipartisan fashion to pass a bill. I authored the legislation, whipped the bill, and worked with Senator Dossett. I don't come before you lightly. I believe in solving problems through proper channels. That's why I contacted the chief of police, the mayor, and my city council member and submitted two open requests, open records requests before standing at this podium. None of these avenues have responded. I want to also, to address something directly, I live with a nervous system disorder. I understand my own responses, I recognize when my nervous system is activated, and I take responsibility for managing that. And if today doesn't tell us anything about nervous systems this whole day, I don't know what will. But having a nervous system disorder does not make me less competent, less capable, or less credible. I'm open to discussing this further, as obviously I didn't read fast enough, but I've had interactions with the police since spring that I have sent certified letters, I've emailed open requests, and they've never been acknowledged. This isn't about getting people fired, it's about accountability, and I don't come here with only complaints. There are things we can do to help our police be better police and know their own nervous systems and self-regulate their own nervous systems so we can quit having these interactions. I was the last person I thought would ever have this type of interaction with police at my home.

to be ignored after all the advocacy, all the volunteering, all the time at the legislature is heartbreaking. And I wanted him here because if he saw this face, he would be able to . I've worked on his campaigns. I've done so much in support of this whole thing. We need to do better. We just need to do better.

Thank you, Brandi. Randy, if you'd like to meet someone out in the foyer, city manager can have somebody come speak to you. That's strictly up to you. Lashondon Kirkendall.

Because I'm gonna address him hopefully one of you guys can relay the message My name is Lee Shondon first name is Sean and made a name Kirk and all Out of respect for a scheduled meeting. I have later today with councilman Pennington I will not address any topic that's going to be discussed in that meeting rather I'm here for one reason and that is to flex my presence as a ward 7 resident I have absolutely notes no problem carving out time and every other Tuesday to stand before this council and advocate for the residents who aren't able to make it themselves. I get really worked up speaking in front of people, but anyway. And I intend to use every single second of that. And this is for Mayor Holt. I wanted to address something directly, and I would like for him to take it constructively. It's obvious that 180 seconds is not always sufficient time for residents to fully articulate their concerns and receive meaningful, relevant feedback from this council. Three minutes might be enough time to introduce a problem, but it's not always enough to educate about history, impact, circumstances, and most importantly, potential solutions. At the last meeting, I did not appreciate Mayor Holt's snarky opposition, and I'll be extremely matter-of-fact when I say this. His opposition was neither necessary nor sufficient. Now, he has the right to opposition, but I'm gonna give you guys an example of what a more productive response would have been. I understand the concern that you have. I don't know if I yet have enough information to say or to determine if I agree with the proposed solution. If you could provide additional context and documentation, I'm willing to review it and respond accordingly. That's still opposition, but it's informed opposition. And that's the kind of dialogue residents deserve from their elected officials. We must all work together. I'm not here to point fingers, and I'm not here just to bring you guys a list of problems. I'm here to bring problems, concerns, and potential solutions. Ward 7 residents have legitimate concerns, and I intend to bring those concerns before this council with facts, documentation, and proposed courses of action whenever possible. I don't expect every council member to agree with me. I don't even expect every proposal to be accepted and or approved, but I do expect the concerns of Ward 7 residents to be heard, considered, and responded to substantively. So every other Tuesday, I will be here. Not because I don't have anything better to do. I actually have a lab to run, but I believe Ward 7 is worth showing up for. So on behalf of your mayor, I wanna congratulate all of you guys for your combo prize. You guys have managed to get the right and the wrong one simultaneously. And I'm gonna wait until my time is over.

Thank you, LaShonna. Mari Williams.

Mari Williams, Ward 5. I'm back up here because the place I do outreach, Unhoused outreach for unhoused folks There's a bunch of these new signs up and these signs are For a municipal code that was passed seven to eight weeks ago put into place. I should say I believe it is 30 35 30 35 it states quote the placement erection construction and or maintenance of any structure and or shelter whether temporary or permanent upon any public way including a center median and considered unlawful possession of city property and a trespass on public property and is prohibited Oklahoma City Municipal Code On these signs, there's a picture of a tent with a cross through it. And there's dozens of these signs where people used to be. I don't know who approved this, how municipal codes get put into place of this certain nature. But like I said, there's a picture of a tent on it with a cross through this. All of these signs, there's dozens of them, which is really Interesting of the city to do considering that a lot of our own house folks can't even read or write usually because they were trafficked as children The city just keeps displacing people and shuffling them around They're not being housed every time the city uses thousands of taxpayer dollars and manpower to bulldoze where people were staying They simply moved to a different part of the city. When are we going to use all of that taxpayer money to actual? and transfer it into actual rehabilitation for these people. Have we forgotten that people struggling with substance abuse are humans just like you all? There's not enough shelter beds, there's not enough public housing, especially public housing up to code, or even less, up to national standards for living conditions. People still have to pay rent to the public housing authority. the options are go to jail for trespassing under this new municipal code be displaced from your friends families pets and any important documents you have or pay rent to the city those are the options that people are people are being put with these people have lost their social security cards years ago they're they're not able to access services like like basic food stamps or even to get their mail from the Homeless Alliance, which is why a lot of the people are on Virginia Avenue where all those signs are. And I just, I suppose if anyone would like to answer how that municipal code comes into play.

So typically we don't answer the questions in this, but I'm glad to address this. So this is part of the key to home program and it was part of housing. And so the the statute or the ordinances existed previously. So when this recently approved, but it was something that we could put into place to say, if you erect a structure that prevents us being able to maintain or having people have access to that, that it's not legal to do that. But as part of housing program, and key to home and we did get people into housing as a result or when their process still because that center meeting and their middle meeting there is one that's still being addressed mm-hmm okay thank you for your answer yep Lauren Kennedy go once Steve Hunt not here John Theopolis not here

Matesha Glickman?

Not here.

Which brings us to the end of Citizens to be Heard. Yeah, we gotta recess for executive session and we'll be back.