County Council - Special Meeting

We're going to wait.

I'd like to call today's special meeting, July 30th, 2026, to order. I pledge allegiance to the flag Mr. Schauerman?

Happiness is found in three things. Letting go of what was, enjoying what is, and having faith in what will be.

Thank you. Your call, please.

Mr. Bale?

Here.

Mr. Copeland?

Here.

Mr. Drexel?

Here.

Mrs. Schauerman? Here. Mr. Wirtz?

Here.

Mr. Winarski? Chairman Skutella?

Here. Is anybody from the public here to speak? Or on Zoom to speak? Is anybody here from the public here to speak? And for the third time, is anybody from the public here to speak? New business. approval of a waiver a bit of requirements under the purchasing code on approval of a sole vendor contract between axon enterprise zinc and erie county office um district attorney would you like sure and if i maybe i stand over here i don't like having my back

I'm not for my back is to the other Council members, so thank you for having us today, and I know you all have the packet of information, so in the interest of time. You have questions you want me to jump right into or give any sort of introduction. This came about when conversation that we had this often about the escalating costs of the county was looking at with respect to storage issues. and her request for the departments to look to some solutions, some long-term solutions that would provide unlimited storage to help with those costs. And we looked at Axon and I want to give credit to my Sergeant, Detective Sergeant Anne Stein, who did the research and found this package with Axon, this Justice Premier Plus that pretty much ticks off all the boxes. And I think you have been provided with that information. So this is what we are requesting. As she set forth, we would like to start with Axon as soon as possible. The costs are prorated. We would be handling that cost. And she put forth the cost from the remainder of the cost, which she showed the savings and so forth. We do have the sole source letter as well because obviously the $25,000 put that over the requirement for the sole source letter. So this is what we're just asking to be able to engage in this contract and ask that it be part of our budget to supplement our budget to be able to pay for this service to help out with the costs from the county. Ms. Coughlin was gracious enough to be here as well today with many technical questions that you may have as well as Sergeant Stein with respect to how the process works and obviously how it helps the county out.

We're going to do a motion and a second and a discussion. Mr. Chair.

Go ahead. Could we have time to have some conversation about this with the DA? Alone?

Alone.

No, just because I don't want to go straight into a motion. I would like to be able to ask a couple questions.

If I was in a discussion, we could have that, Tom.

In the discussion. Okay. And so a clarification on this because it is an ordinance. It would normally require two reads. We would first need a motion to move it to a second read, would we not?

Yes.

Okay.

I guess it's all right if we can discuss it and ask the DA any questions that you have. So go ahead and start.

Yeah. Um, Ms. Herz, um, you know, you have this noted as a, as a sole vendor. I saw the sole vendor letter, uh, in a very brief, uh, review online. It seems to me that there are quite a few companies that are offering similar services, maybe not with the exact functionality, but, uh, uh, I think I saw Guardify and Guardian and Celebi. Like there seems to be more than one platform out here. What is the reason for a sole source? What is it about Axon that is driving that decision-making?

I can let Sergeant Stein speak to the sole source. I just, Councilman Colvin, I wanted to note though the paperwork as well, just the benefits of Axon as well. If I may, she can speak to the sole source, but it is really going to help out with the information sharing that we are tasked with with defense counsel. It's going to streamline that, that unlimited storage, because it's just exponentially growing, the amount of digital evidence that we have. And Axon, this Premier Plus, is going to allow us to be able to categorize, organize, streamline the discovery process. And it's just, it is good for our office for that. Actually, both bullets three and four in her packet The audit trails contain a custody, the digital discovery, defense disclosure. So obviously it's very important to our office to maintain the integrity of our investigations, evidence production, and evidence disclosure. So I can speak to that as a prosecutor, how we use it. And I'm going to let Sergeant Stein answer your question with respect to the sole source.

Thank you. So with the sole source and in comparison with other companies, Yes, it offers what we need as an office to fulfill the discovery issues. The biggest challenge for us was maintaining storage. Axon will allow us unlimited storage at the prices that they offered for that 10-year program. There's no gimmicks. There's no false information with that. It is truly unlimited storage, whereas other companies may not be able to provide that information. In addition, the sole source with that, it goes along with you know, categorizing all the digital evidence that we receive. So we have checks and balances put into place of what we receive as an office and what we then can provide to defense per discovery.

And if I can just add on that too, if you see the two columns at the top. So right now we have a platform that just allows us, and Sarah can correct if I'm wrong, to just get some digital evidence like body cameras, photos. We can't get paper discovery as much. We can't get CDs. We can't get interviews all the time. So this allows us to get everything at once. So there's nothing that's going to be lost. And we can make sure we have a comprehensive disclosure procedure that we are tasked with by the courts.

So in my view, there's many times like our planful software where we're doing our budgeting, where we're already locked into the ecosystem that it makes sense to have a waiver. There's sometimes like Esri where it really is like a one-of-a-kind, stand-apart software. I think that sometimes the purpose of putting something out to it for an RFP is not just – soliciting for the lowest price, but to make a fair comparison of the features and benefits of each package, you know, as presented on a bid that's put in. I understand that there's some features here that are, you know, highly sought after, but were other vendors solicited so you can make a comparison for the cost versus the features?

No, because right now, Buchanan Axon is the It's being used across the Commonwealth. It is being used in several different counties. This is the best prosecution resource for what we need to do. And as Sergeant Stein said, with the unlimited capabilities, and I can't speak to that whether or not, I don't know if it's Guardian or the ones that you listed could do that. So I just speak to the other features as well.

And some of the other vendors that we had looked into are not based for a prosecutor's office. So Celebrate owns Guardian, and that is simply for mobile forensics, digital forensics. Axon does offer solutions for just law enforcement. Motorola offers solutions for just law enforcement as well. This is one of the first companies that we came across that offers a solution solely for prosecutors and attorneys.

Mr. Chair? Mr. Jackson? Has there been any input given by courts IT or IT on the selection process?

So, yeah, I can answer that. This is not a new conversation. I think it should be known too. We've been discussing this for about a year, trying to find the proper solution for the data storage, evidence storage. And we tried looking at options like LaserFuge, which is something we already own as a county, because I was trying to see if we could use something else. And we could not get it to work for what they needed. Like Anne had mentioned, they had looked at a couple other items. And really, we came down to, from an IT perspective, where we're getting stuck is we really need to worry about The amount of storage. So they cannot just get their documents in and then in even seven years get rid of them. They need to maintain them for 5, 10, 20, 30 years. And because they need to maintain them so long, this is data that is not getting smaller. So 10 years ago, you used a camera. You got a piece that was this big of data. Now you use a camera for the same amount of time you're getting a piece that's this big. And then you need to save it. for that 10, 20 years, and it just never gets smaller. And what we're running into in this moment, I know we talked about this a couple weeks ago, is the cost of housing that at this very moment is just economically unaffordable. We had had this conversation with DAs a couple months back, I think maybe nine months ago, we had sat down and we were like, well, we could do some on-site and we were still kind of debating the price because they were Exxon was cheaper, but it was close. So we were like, well, we can discuss the pluses and minuses of it. However, with the changing economics that will most likely remain for at least five years, it just wasn't feasible anymore. The cost to the county would just be unsupportable. And knowing we had this problem on the rise, when I became aware of it, like Beth said, I went to the departments and said, hey, These are the issues I see in your department. If you can find something for this, this would be very helpful. And I think trying to appease that, trying to make sure we're getting above these price changes. I know, I think I sent it out. What we're looking at is I had ordered a piece of equipment that was $76,000. When I re-quoted it just six months later, it was nearly $700,000. And I was told by the vendor, those prices would continue to increase. My concern is, is we will hit a point where cloud storage, where vendors like this will also have to soak up that cost and they're not going to keep it to themselves. So getting a 10 year contract and getting that locked in while we ride through this economic wave will be very helpful and beneficial to the county to not have to worry about price increases and changes over that next decade and gives a little bit of stability.

You know what? I appreciate that. No offense to anybody else in the room. I know you're all experts in what you need for the storage, but that's the voice I was looking for. I did not see you on camera.

So thank you.

I have a lot of trust in our IT.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Mr. Chair.

Sorry, Charlie, go ahead.

Along that same line, so is this It's going to solve their problem. Is that going to help us with our overall problem? Are we going to be able to free up some extra space?

This will help mitigate an issue. Something I had been looking at for a while was how we could manage to utilize less servers. Because they are one of our largest data drivers, This will allow me to remove a piece of replacement equipment from our system, which is one of the big numbers you're seeing in there. There's a lot of variables. Honestly, a lot of numbers we left out that this may save, but I didn't want to promise. I do believe that in the long run, this will be beneficial for the county all around, and I do believe that we'll have to buy less equipment in the long run. I will tell you, I don't see it to be a short-term change because prices are raising so much and it's going to soak up what I'm able to adjust. But I do believe in the long run, it is going to help us. I'm not going to have to buy, say, four of those servers. I can get away with three, which at $700,000 a pop is a gigantic savings for the county.

Or kill two birds with one stone or more.

That is my hope. Yeah.

Mr. Chair.

Mr. Coffin.

Yeah. This sounds like a fairly ripe conversation. You said you've been talking about this for a year. I'm struggling the most with the expediency that's being requested of us to not be able to have this discussion in a normal finance and personnel to move it to a second in the same meeting. In my experience, most special meetings are really reserved for more of an emergency type of issue. What is driving the expediency of this request?

It really is cost. It's very hard to explain how quickly these prices are changing and adjusting. And Anne can maybe speak on getting the contract through Axon, but it does sound like we're kind of at the tail end of how far they're going to go with the price they're giving us. And I can't imagine they're dropping it after, but I will leave that to you.

Yeah, I've done that. Go ahead. I mean, with the prices rising exponentially everywhere else in the tech industry, surely these companies are going to follow suit at some point.

So we feel that the price quoted to us for this, I think it's a 10-year contract?

Yes.

But we feel that this price for a 10-year contract is volatile enough that if we don't issue a purchase order by the time this quote expires, that the price will go up?

What I'm seeing, I would have concerns of it.

I mean, it is a 10-year contract. I'll just speak from my experience as a vendor to customers. I sell wire copper, which is one of the most volatile commodities there is. On any given day, you can have a 20% swing in pricing. And I'll tell you, all of our prices that we issue are spot prices, valid for the day quoted. But I also know that when a customer the next day sends me a purchase order, can you get this going? I'm making damn sure as a vendor that I can. I've got a P.O. in hand at that pricing. I want to close that order. I can't imagine that there's that kind of volatility in a software and cloud storage that, quote, expiry would. mean a huge pricing because i understand the pressures on the hardware side of things and and the servers for for our own usage but i mean this is a 10-year contract i mean they have they have to calculate within that their own internal costs rising over the course of 10 years otherwise they would never be able to commit to that kind of pricing well respectfully i imagine this coughlin didn't expect

a $700,000 quote when she went back to find out that server either. And I just respectfully don't really want to take that chance. They were gracious enough to give us this contract. I mean, they could have just said no and gone as high as the other vendors. So I guess that would just be my request, respectfully, if you're talking about them. I'm following our court's IT. I'm following our IT. I trust them. I don't know this world as much, but I trust them. They're telling me that this is, we were tasked with this. We were asked to do that. We did it. And I think we are, we have a very good contract, sustainable contract, and it will give us, as Councilman Bale said, killing two birds with one stone. I would just, I would just be very concerned if we, if we don't do it and we don't get this benefit, then where do we go? And I don't know that to be honest, to be honest with you, I don't know the answer to that, but it would just be a risk. that I'd rather not take, but I do understand. I understand your questions about the expediency, but I trust the IT people.

And Rock, to that point, I can't promise you what would happen. I really can't, but she is correct. I honestly, I sent out that quote and said, hey guys, I'm writing up my budget. Can you send me a quote for the replaced server next year? And I went back to my day and then this quote came across my desk and I looked at it and went, Oh, you must be kidding. I messaged him back. I called him. I was like, I'm sorry, this is incorrect. And he's like, it is not. And we then went to like two other locations. I was checking things online and it turned out it was. So you are correct. It is very possible that it would not be that volatile, but I do have concerns about it, to be honest with you.

Anybody else? Are there any more questions? I need a motion to move this to a second week.

The first week? The first. We're still.

Where we at? This is the first year. You want to do that?

I didn't hear. I'm sorry. I didn't hear the motion in the second for the first week. So let's do it. Okay. So approval of waiver of bid requirements under the purchasing code and approval of a sole vendor contract between Axon Enterprise Incorporated and the Erie County Office of the District Attorney.

We need a motion to order the second meeting. Second. Discussion. Discussion. Discussion.

Mr. Chair. Mr. Colton. There's a series of unusual asks with this. One, our agenda was published to the public, I believe, yesterday. I had to then request the agenda packet to even know what this discussion was going to be. I first saw this meeting, I think it was Monday that it was sent out, that it was actually on our calendar with no explanation as to what that meeting was. But, you know, we're being asked to waive our rules to put out an item for an RFP, moving it at a special meeting without review of finance and personnel, not giving the public the opportunity to not even see it on the finance and personnel agenda, but even on a regular agenda. I promised that on a special meeting, we had no speakers here today because that agenda had just been produced yesterday. And then we're being asked to move something to a second And in each of these steps in their own, I don't mind too much. And I appreciate cost concerns. I appreciate the work put in by IT. But this is a bridge too far. It hasn't been properly spelled out as to why we need to move at this kind of extreme speed.

Brock, we lost you.

I was just saying, I don't think that it's been properly given to us to demonstrate the dire need to move at this kind of speed.

If we didn't pass this today, what would happen?

Is there a reason why we... We would have to re-quote it.

If that were the case, then it's kind of up in the air what it looks like. We can take that option.

In your opinion, what do you think the chances are that price is not going to increase, that it's going to stay the same or decrease?

I know this is not the answer you want from my professional opinion. I'm really not sure. Everything's been so volatile. I know I have a piece of equipment that we purchased that was double the price depending on which vendor sent it and how long they were willing to promise. It's possible it could not represent, to be honest with you, but it is also equally possible that it will. And I'm just running on that concern. And I guess that's you guys to decide if that risk comes to that level. The economy when it comes to IT equipment is very volatile right now. I just can't promise you.

Mr. Chair. There's some conflation here, though, because the evidence that has been given to some select members of this council in a special meeting was that material costs, hardware costs are growing exponentially. I appreciate that. But this quote is for a service. for an online cloud-based service whose own costs are surely increasing as well. But this is a quote for a 10-year contract. If we don't think that they have escalating costs of servers and all of the hardware required for them to provide that service in their quote, clearly they have to accommodate that in some way. It's a 10-year contract.

We don't have tons of it here, right? I'll go back. We did not have a special meeting. We followed the rules and called a special meeting.

I had followed. I had sent everything to our solicitor for review.

I'm not alleging that the rules aren't followed, to be clear. We did follow our rules for the special meeting. I'm questioning the need of a special meeting.

Do you think it's possible to see if they will give you an extension on that date?

That is your question. If anything's funding, it's possible. Yeah, we have to. We'll ask and hope that they... Mr.

Chair. Isn't there a motion on the floor?

We're in discussion.

Mr. Chairman? Yes. I appreciate the volatility of the marketplace with this request. I think in the future, as IT and other departments are considering soliciting such bids, that it would be important that the public process, council's process, and our ability to put forth these questions for public comment consideration and our own deliberation be incorporated into those requests made of vendors. The 10-day window on on the quote is short by any standard, let alone a municipal government standard. And I'm sure the vendor is fully aware of that as well, given the space that they are working in. So I would just ask that in the future that we relay to other departments that as they make these requests, as they solicit bids, that those bids take into account what our required processes are so that we're not constantly faced with the dilemma of making what may seem to some as short-sighted decisions without all of the proper consideration and due diligence on our end.

And part of that is we are placed in this situation because of our summer schedule and the short number of meetings.

Yeah, I'm fully sensitive to that and to the summer schedule as well. Even if we had to move... more expeditiously with a request such as this, I think that we would be able to, we could even accommodate a second read and the full due diligence through multiple special meetings if we had to do that, or at least a longer timeline. for members of council to properly review all of the documentation. I appreciate that IT has been working on this solution for a long time. But as we get now, here we are with a quote that expires in less than 24 hours. And so we're kind of, we're up against the wall in order to make what we think is the best decision. So I think in the future, as it is today, while I'm fully supportive of the DA's offices' need to retain all of this evidence and to be able to utilize it effectively, whether it's on a local server or in the cloud, I'm with all that and I respect their decision making process and the review that that I made in this process. And so, you know, ultimately, I will I will support this moving forward. But but I'm I'm going to be a no on the moving to a second read just on on the principle that that I think we, you know, even in the summer as as these things emerge, we need to figure out a better way. to handle this. This is the second near deadline emergency meeting that we've had at the request of the DA's office. And I think in the future, we still need to look at the best ways to deal with this process.

And just to that, I'm not just trying to push something through you know, to break any rules or do something toward here. We are told by IT that there's a problem and we need to find a solution for it. So I just want to make sure that, I'm sure that's not what's being implied, but we just felt that this was, we were helping the county with the costs. We were following our IT's guidance and this is what we came up with. We need to go and try to find another quote. We will do that, but I just- HAB-Masyn Moyer- Go back to your question that we are and I didn't know the other emergency that comes in words mentioned we're not trying to do anything that's cool shady here.

HAB-Terry Palmos- No, I understood.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- The county.

Madam DA, that wasn't my implication at all. I wasn't casting any allegations. I was just simply noting that I think for all of us and for the taxpayers that we need to be sensitive to the due diligence in these processes.

And that's fine. I understand that. But to your point, I think it's very important to let other individuals know that, that are looking themselves. other departments because they may not know, you know, the process or understand, you know, we're under a time crunch. So that's just how we operate it. So I do, I think that we could let the other departments know what you said, Councilman Marks, give them an idea. I'm sorry, can I interrupt?

Please. By process, how long would you guys need the extension until in order to satisfy and give everyone a second rate? Just what you're saying.

We can always tailor this. Board, vote down the second read. Can we bring it back when we have more information? Gemma, what do you think about that?

Right now, there's a moment to go to a second read, and we can take a vote on that. But the first read, neither. to have it on as a first read at least. So then when at the next meeting, it would be the second read. And at that time, if you still wanted more time to table it further.

Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mayor. And I understand everything that Mr. Wirtz and Mr. Copeland are saying. And I do obviously value the time and the opinions of the public and their ability to view it. But I also come from a point of view where we ask people we trust that we hire people, subject matter experts in their field to come up with a solution and make decisions. And then we seemingly disregard those expert opinions when they're telling us that it needs to be done now. So I, look, we deal with a lot of stuff. And if any one of us thinks that we're an expert in every single field in this county, and even within a week or two weeks that we would have a comprehension of You know what goes on in either one of these these entities to their level, I think, is disingenuous at best, so for me, we asked these people bringing people that we trust that we hire as experts that we want them to make decisions. I think that we allow them to make decisions and then you're held accountable. You're held accountable just like we are for those decisions. So we're being told this isn't the first time we've heard it. You've been talking about it for a year. This isn't, you know, we know that I think this landscape is changing dramatically with artificial intelligence and these data centers. I mean, this is going to be a whirlwind in the next, you know, six months here, whatever. I don't see where we're going to do anything. I can see the effective savings right now. In my belief, from what I've been told, I don't think that we're going to get a lower price or that it's going to remain static. I think that only the possible exists that we're going to be held hostage by these companies because they're going to know we need to make this decision and that price is only going to go up. That's not fair to the taxpayers either.

And to answer your question, our next scheduled meeting that will be going on is August 25th without calling another special meeting. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Mr. Chair. Mr. Colton. To Councilman Bale's point, I am not a subject matter expert in nearly anything. Uh, and for me to arrive at my opinions often has to go through several conversations with many people to, uh, arrive at my position. I mean, we, we have, uh, some items coming up for a second read on our next agenda that I'm still undecided about. Uh, and, and that time is not only just to hear the public comment or, uh, to allow the time to consider those items, but for ourselves too. I mean, like I said, I've only been provided with the information related to this ordinance yesterday afternoon. I've had less than 24 hours to review this and study it in detail. Part of what we do is the due diligence of researching this. And just to clarify to the DA, I'm not alleging or saying in any way that any of these procedures were improper. We have the ability to call special meetings. We have the ability to move things to a second read. We have the ability to provide a waiver to the administrative code. My issue is that in some, all of those special considerations get to be a bridge too far, and I don't think that this is the proper amount of time to deliberate.

One thing you would ask two questions. Um, did you need further explanation on those questions during the discussion? Yes.

No, I feel well-informed on those topics.

Okay.

All for the question to move to a second name.

Mr. Copeland.

No.

Mr. Drexel.

Yes.

Mrs. Showerman. Yes. Mr. Wirtz.

No.

Mr. Wynarski.

Yeah.

Mr. Bale.

Yes.

Chairman Skotella.

Yes.

And that motion carries five to two. This will be a second read. The approval of waiver of bid requirements under the purchasing code and approval of the sole vendor contract between Axon Enterprise Incorporated and Erie County Office of the District Attorney.

Second. Second. Any more discussion on this? Call for the question.

Mr. Drexel?

Yes.

Mr. Showerman? Yes. Mr. Wirtz?

Yes.

Mr. Winarski?

Yes.

Mr. Bale?

Yes.

Mr. Copeland?

No.

Chairman Scatella?

Yes.

Motion carries six to one.

Motion to adjourn. I move. We're adjourned.

Yes. Thank you guys.