City Council - Regular Meeting

More police chief Todd Gibson and Fire Chief Ryan Marlor sat down with us to talk about the proposed 1 cent sales tax increase and its impact on technology.

Technology starts to get engaged the moment you hit 911. When you when you dial 911, it's technology that allows us to pinpoint where that 911 call's coming from so that if you can't get the information out, we can at least get to you. And oftentimes in an emergency situation, whether it's police or whether it's fire, timeliness is important. So time matters. And so what we with technology and the advancements in technology, keeping up with that allows us to get police officers and firefighters on critical scenes sooner. And then when we do have a major incident, we use technology to document that. uh we use electronic scanners and lasers to to investigate crimes so that we can hold people accountable that we can get justice for the victims of that crime. And all that comes through advancements in DNA, advancements in documentation, laser scanners, all kinds of technology that goes into criminal investigations. One of the main main things we we spend a lot of money on computer forensics and cell phones. Every crime has a cell phone connected to it and the technology needed to um examine and and get the investigative evidence off of that cell phone is expensive and highly advanced. And then but it's crucial nowadays to any case that we investigate. But without it in today's environment, it's very difficult to solve crimes, solve serious crimes, and most importantly get successful prosecution long-term in a court case. from the 911 call to the trial to the conviction in court. Technology is employed through all of that and and and makes an impact from an investigative standpoint, from a response standpoint, and from a prosecution standpoint into the success of the policing and criminal justice process.

When I was younger, we had thermal imagers to look through smoke and dark that were the size of camcorders, and today they're the size of your iPhone. um that technology changes and we want to evolve to smaller, better quality, easier to use items for our firefighters. So, that stuff's out there. You know, the the ability to make these emergency medical calls and provide defibrillation for our patients. Those uh machines have gotten better. They analyze better. They have a better um identifying the rhythm of the heart. So, technology is very important. It's very forefront. The technology provides us the quickest route to avoid the traffic to arrive to somebody's front door. Registered more voters will have a chance to vote on the proposed 1 cent sales tax increase on Tuesday, April 7th.