City Council - workshop

Is it more than $1.33? No.

I have one too many now. I'd like to welcome everybody to the...

I'd like to welcome everybody to the Waterloo City Council work session for Monday, July 6. Roll call, please.

Mr. Schmidt? Here. Mr. Morrow? Here. Ms. Creighton-Smith? Ms. Berry? Present. Mr. Salamanca? Here. Mr. Martin and Mr. Simon?

Here. Thank you. Mr. Simon?

Mr. Mayor, I would like to approve the agenda as proposed, as well as the approval of the minutes of June 15, 2026, council work session as proposed.

Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carried. First up, a discussion on the hazard mitigation plan update. Jamie Knutson, our city engineer.

Good afternoon, everybody. Jamie Knutson, city engineer. I've got Vincent with Intercog here with me today, and he's going to go over the multi-jurisdictional Blackhawk County hazard mitigation plan. Basically, what this is is It's part of the requirement that the federal government has for most grants or any grant that we apply for. We have to have a hazard mitigation plan that basically says if there's a flood, if there's a fire, if there's any type of these disasters, how is the city of Waterloo, not just the city, but all of the cities within Black Hawk County and the county itself going to respond, who's gonna be in charge, those sorts of things. So today Vincent will come up, he'll give you an overview of our plan, our portion of the plan as part of the whole county mitigation plan. And then the hope is, please ask questions, but then the hope is on the 20th in two weeks, we'll be back then to ask you to formally adopt the plan or our portion of the plan. Again, this is needed for us to be able to go after federal grants. I do have one right now that I am working on that we have had to write, ask, or send in a letter of exception because our plan currently is not up to date. And part of that is to do with all the shutdowns that went on with the federal government from late last fall through the winter and into the spring anyway. But Vincent?

THANK YOU, SIR. JUST STATE YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS AND YOU CAN USE THE INTERCOG ADDRESS IF YOU'D LIKE.

OKAY. YES, I'M VINCENT RIGERI. INTERCOG IS 229 EAST PARK AVENUE. SO AGAIN, VINCENT RIGERI WITH INTERCOG. Just a rough overview of the process of how this has gone again, a rough overview of what the plan is and why we need to do it, which. Will roughly be what was just said, but has been working with the. Blackhawk county emergency management agency to update this plan. We have also been working with each jurisdiction. So, with Waterloo, our main contact has been engineering and planning. Uh, we had 3 meetings with, uh, that we tried to coincide with the emergency management commission meetings. So, January, February and March. We had 3 meetings where we provided again that background of what the plan was, and we collected information for each jurisdiction so that we could update the plan. so again the ultimate purpose of this plan is to be risk informed and reduce the vulnerability to disasters and hazards and again that eligibility for grant dollars and recovery funds from fema this is an update to the 2020 blackhawk county hazard mitigation plan so in that update It's a lot of review of what was in the previous plan and providing changes to that rather than developing a whole new plan. So, the, the 4 steps of hazard mitigation are preparedness response and recovery and then the mitigation process is. Part of that whole step. So, again, the update was a review of the 2020 action strategies that were in the previous plan for Waterloo itself. Then we update all of the census information, all of the critical infrastructure, things of that nature. Uh, we do a capability assessment of what Waterloo and Blackhawk county in general have in place and then we develop new strategies for the for the plan. So, I just want to go over some, some of the changes since this. There hasn't been a lot of changes from 2020 because. I believe in Blackhawk County there's only been two declarations of hazards and emergencies since the previous plan. So the main things that have changed are again the census data, the disasters that have occurred, county level information was updated and then for the city there was a little more focus on specific actions and the map was a little more detailed because we have a critical we have a critical facilities map that we've we made a little more detailed in the plan and then we updated data we updated any new information that we might have received since the last plan and then The just to go over the next steps adoption by the Council for Waterloo, then Blackhawk County Board of Supervisors will adopt the whole plan once individual jurisdictions are done. Once we have all of that in place, we will send the plan to the state for review. They will, Homeland Security will send it back to us if we need to correct anything. We will continue to do that until they're satisfied with everything, and then they will send it to FEMA for roughly a 45-day review, and then they will approve it, and the process will start again in five years when the review needs to be done again. And that's that's roughly the process and that's roughly what's in the plan, which I believe is in your packet. If you want to review anything from it, but. I'll just open it up for questions if you have any. And do my best to answer council.

Do you have any questions on the hazard mitigation plan?

Mr. Simon, you said there was 2 since 2020. do you know what they were specifically?

uh late summer of 2020 there was a severe weather uh declaration and then i believe in either 2024 i believe it was 2024 there was another severe weather one over the summer um i believe they were both just severe uh like wind storms and things of that nature so does fema evaluate after the fact how our mitigation or our response was did they do that THEY DON'T NECESSARILY REVIEW THAT RELATED TO THE PLAN, BUT THEY THE PRIMARY THING THEY'LL REVIEW IS FOR GRANT FUNDING, THEY WILL LOOK TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE A PLAN IN PLACE FOR THE THING THAT YOU WANT TO DO. BUT RESPONSE-WISE, THEY DON'T NECESSARILY REVIEW THAT SPECIFICALLY.

THANK YOU. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? What what would the, what are they reviewing then on the 45 day female review when it's submitted?

They just make sure that we have. There is a review tool that they have, and we just need to make sure that we have included. Every single thing that they require, so. The primary things are flood insurance information needs to be up to date. An action strategy for each hazard that. that the city is considering. So there's 20 hazards, there's 13 that are considered natural hazards, and seven that are considered manmade hazards. So the 13 hazards, of which ones are included, because you can declare if there's something that's considered low, low risk and you don't mitigate for it, such as earthquakes, you don't need to have a mitigating action for that. But they review to make sure that you have some sort of strategy in place for each, uh, hazard and, um, they just check to make sure that your information is up to date. You have the correct, um, contact for information, such as floodplain management, things of that nature.

So, will this be coming to the next council meeting? For the approval of the hazard mitigation plan. Okay, again, I'm getting nods that is coming for that. So, what, what do you think your timeframe is that that we get all the cities in Blackhawk county in there and their councils to approve the plan to get it over to the supervisors.

We are hoping that we send it to the state by the end of the month. The final county plan is sent to for review. We are waiting on 2 more jurisdictions to review their drafts as well, and get them approved by the council. And then we're hoping. We're hoping end of the month, we send it off to the state and they have roughly a 2 to 4 week review process and then send it to FEMA.

I do have a question. What are the disasters that's defined, and then who would be the person that would, shall we say, declare it? Does that end up being the city, the county, the state?

For a disaster to be declared specifically, that would be the state. Somewhere in here I have. So the natural hazards are flash flood, levee dam failure, river flood, extreme heat, severe winter storm, thunderstorm, lightning, hail, all one. A tornado windstorm all 1 drought earthquake, expansive soils, grass and wild land, fire landslides and sinkholes. And then the manmade ones are infrastructure, failure, terrorism, hazardous material, regional, radiological incident, transportation incident. and animal crop plant disease and pandemic human disease. But then yes, that declaration for an actual emergency would need to be federal or statewide. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Well, thank you for all your work on this. I know they were right up at the end of the EMA meetings. I wanna thank Wayne and all of Jamie's staff and Jamie for participating in this. Appreciate all your work. Yeah, thank you. Yep. Next up, we have a discussion on the accent software contract by 2 of my favorite officers, chief Duncan and assistant chief McClellan.

I was waiting for say, and number 2 on the list, but assistant chief is number 2. oh, that's right.

He has no.

That's right.

Rob Duncan chief police kind of exciting contract that we've been looking at. Actually. Aaron has done most of the work on it. With Axon, we've been partners with them since 2021. There's some things that I think we're trying to do to save the city some money, especially in the long term. But I'm going to turn this over to Aaron. He's done a ton of work on this. Try to get it ready for you guys to begin with, and then answer the questions, and then kind of go forward from there.

Thanks, Chief.

Hello, everyone. I am Aaron, and I am here to talk to you about Axon. So I've been asked by a lot of people, hey, you gotta sell this, you gotta sell this. I absolutely am not here to sell you anything. The only thing that I'm here for is to give you information. I've been with the police department a long time. I can tell you that technology has changed. The chief and I have been here about the exact same amount of time. And this job, just this job, has changed so much in regards to technology that we wouldn't be able to do our job without it. So today I'm going to talk a little bit about Axon and fiscal responsibility. So I'll be honest with you. I got three years and less than a month. Our contract doesn't end until after I'm gone. But the reason that people have put their trust in me and the chief is because when we came into this job as civil servants, our goal was to leave this in better shape when we leave than when we got here. So, we have meetings regularly in regards to how can we make this a better place? So that when when we walk out of here, we don't leave them in a in financial ruins. And our leadership is going to follow that same path. So, I stand here today just to talk about something not to sell you a thing at the end of the day. I can't make this decision. This decision is going to be up to you. So I can talk to you about numbers, I can talk to you about technology, but let's get to the nuts and the bolts of it. Why are we here? So in 2021, we started Axon. I'll tell you what, I didn't know what to expect when we got Axon, but about a year into the program, our officers were skeptical. They didn't want these cameras on all the time. They didn't want the signal sidearms on. Every time they draw their weapon, they go off, all the cameras go off the doors, everything. We had the cameras in our car. We had cameras on us. We had the tasers, all of the things. And we didn't know what to expect. I can tell you that liability-wise and accountability-wise, these things have saved the city money. We're able to be more transparent. And we're able to hold our officers accountable when need be. And we do, especially as of late. But what brought us to the point where I need to come up here and bore you to tears talking about Axon? So if you've read anything in the news in regards to Axon, a lot of what you hear is about their drones, the DFR program, or the program where drones respond. Well, we currently use drones. They're not Skydio drones, which is the brand that Axon uses. Those are American-made drones. The Waterloo Police Department's been using drones for quite a while, especially during tactical operations, searching for people, crime scene investigation, things of those nature. And we did not have the budget to get some of these better drones. So we go on Amazon and we buy DGI drones, which are not made in America. And there are concerns with that. But financially, that's what we were able to do. We use them all of the time. I don't know how many countless drone deployments we've had on our tactical situations, but I can tell you we've found people that could have hurt us. We've found suicides. We've found people that were lost. We found fugitives just recently that half the state was looking for in a marsh. Our drone team found those folks, and that incident ended without anybody being injured or not. So as we look to the future in the drone world and the policing world, this DFR program came up. So I started having meetings with Axon in regards to just that. We got to the nuts and bolts of that and they gave me a cost for us to have a drone program at the Waterloo Police Department. Now I know what you're gonna say. Someone's gonna say it. The eye in the sky. Everybody's watching.

We're just gonna have drones flying around and keeping an eye on everybody. That's not the case.

The drones themselves will deploy only for certain high-risk incidents, maybe shootings, bad accidents, fires, to help the fire department recognize hot spots on roofs so that they can keep their people safe. When they get to the scene, they would be the first on scene. In most cases, they're going to beat every patrol officer that we have and give our patrol officers, our sergeants, our command staff real-time information. That's what interested us. Then they got to the cost. The cost was $137,000 a year for one set. And I started thinking about that, and I'm like, I can't go to the city and say, hey, we want to put two drones on the roof of the Waterloo Police Department and then pay $137,000 extra. Because I knew what that was going to come down to. How many cops do you want to lose, right? so as i went through these meetings and we talked about the new technology we talked about our package that we currently have we got that in 2021 as i said that package when we signed it was for 4.3 odd million dollars waterloo police department in the city pays roughly 450 000 a year because we have an a la carte program now we pay for this out of this this comes next this this this this so we pay roughly 450 000 a year for an insurance policy in liability and accountability. It's probably, I can't quantify this, I wish I could, but it's probably saved the city millions in liability in regards to frivolous or fraudulent claims because we're able to prove them or disprove them within minutes. So as I went through it, I asked Axon, Jackson DeWitt, I said, let me ask you a question. how much every year in cost does your technology go up on average? He said, Aaron, it goes up between eight and 12%, but we've had years where it's 16. So I'm thinking, wait a second. That means at the end of our contract in 2031, we're gonna be paying a million dollars a year for the same exact package. So that brought on another conversation in regards to what if. I said, OK, what if the city, the city leaders, and the police department were able to renew this contract now? Could we get a guaranteed price that would save the city money between now and 2041? Because that's when it would be, 2031 to 2041. So if the police department and the city decided to kick the can down the road, I'm not saying that in a negative way. I'm just saying that that happens. If we decide to do that, that's going to cost an extra approximately six to 11 million dollars for the city. None of us have crystal balls, but I think all of us sitting here could agree that there's probably not gonna be 11 million extra laying around. It hasn't been since I've been here. I had them get us some numbers, and I'm telling you, I went through meeting after meeting after meeting with these guys talking about sharpening their pencils, talking about this needs to be amenable to everyone on the council. It has to be amenable to the mayor, to the CFO, and to the citizens of Waterloo. It took some time. And we did take some things out and add some things in. So the actual quote that you received, I don't think is the most updated quote. It went up by $60,000, not $600,000, $60,000. To that, I think it was 6.6 was the final number, meaning $660,000 a year. $210,000 more a year. 28, fiscal 28 to 38. If you went through the PowerPoint, you can easily see what that number would look like if we wait till 31, or if we just added one drone hive. Needs versus wants, this is a big one. We as a department, as a city, as a council, as a mayor, need this technology once we got it there's not a chance that i can look at a citizen and say it's too expensive we don't need it anymore i don't think as a city we can afford liability wise to not have this technology so then it comes down to what again cost so We can pay the $450,000. We can run it all the way to 2031. I'll be on a beach somewhere, a golf course somewhere, or on a boat fishing. Some of you might do the same. But is that responsible? In my opinion, for me, that would be a hard thing for me to swallow, but I don't get to make the choices. The cost isn't going to be an a la carte. Right now, we have a basic program. with some a la carte things. This is the quote unquote Cadillac package. We've also asked to add interview room cameras, and we're looking into some things in regards to that. We currently don't have those. We have different interview room cameras that don't sync to our system. We then have to download, do this, this, this. So it's not as efficient. So we would like those. That's a want. It's not a need. But the actual system, the actual technology, the actual evidence-based technology in the camera systems and the tasers, the signals, we need those. Myself and the chief have talked to Bridget. I've talked to Kim. I wouldn't have come here without doing that. and we as a department are able to fund this without any more cost to the city. We can do it. We're gonna have to buckle down, but I think it's important enough, I think it's important enough for our officers, I think it's important enough for our citizens that this is a priority for our department. So I'm looking at all of you right now telling you between now and when I leave, I'm making a promise, that we can fund this program. If there's more budget cuts, then somebody might have to come back and have a conversation with you. I hope that doesn't happen. But there's also ways that we as a department need to prioritize things that are important to the department. And I think this is one of the top priorities for this department and the city in regards to liability and accountability and transparency. At the end of the day, it's gonna be your choice, not gonna be ours. I'm sure that you have a million questions. When you look through this contract, I can't read it. I'm a dumb cop that got put in a finance position, now I have a calculator that everybody makes fun of because it's got big buttons because I can't see. But some of it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So we ask a lot of questions in regards to the meetings. I make sure smarter people than me are on that meeting, like Wendy and technology people and. And then I come up with ways to potentially make this happen. So, just quickly, we'll run through the PowerPoint. And if you have questions. You know, just let me know. Again, I'm not here to sell you anything. I just want to leave it a little better than when I showed up, and I hope that you guys can appreciate that. So this is what it would look like. Or I'm sorry, it says 435, but that's not the true number, because again, we do a la carte, so we had to add licenses. We had to add this, this, this, this, and this. And the price has went up since we got it, so those licensings, the licenses have cost us more money. This is what it would look like if we waited. Now, can I tell you that that is the exact number? I can't. That 9.45 probably represents the high side of the 12%. And of course, the company is going to do that. It could be 3% lower than that. It could be 2% lower than that. Or it could be 6% higher. I don't know. But I'm not gonna tell you that's an exact number. I can tell you that it's probably pretty close in regards to historically what that company has done. So now we look at it and we move across to the other side, and that's what it would cost us if we did the DFR, two docs, and then a tactical kit for our, I'm sorry, our tactical team and our patrol squads. So you can see right there that that's gonna take that cost up over a million dollars a year with the package that we currently have right now. I'll go back to that. It's not the package we can get. Technology-wise, it's not even close. This is the exact same package that we have right now. It's not going to be what we could possibly have for that $660,000. So those are the numbers. If we don't do anything, wait till 2031 and add some drones for response. Hit the wrong button. This is what it would look like at that 654 number. I mean, obviously this is the 654 number. That's 6,545,000. That went up 60,000 because we did take some things out and add some interview room cameras so that everything that we have is on the same system. every single thing that we have downloads to the same thing. And that was important to us. And we did get rid of some things to make that happen. Whoa, I talk with my hands.

And that's that.

There's our big number. There's our big number. So 10 years, $6,600,000, that's our big number. Right now we paid 4.5. This kind of goes through the options in regards to that, or what a rewrite would look like. Now, over where it says rewrite, or if you're looking at it where it says rewrite, that was kind of a graduated pay scale to get to that $6,545,000. I didn't like that at all. The reason I didn't like it at all is because it's harder to budget for things that change every year. I would prefer it be the same every year. Again, I'm not the one that makes the choices. But my small brain, it's easier for me to know that I need $660,000 this year and next year and the year after and the year after. I know where I need to cut back on. I know where I can spend. So there is a graduated scale that can be done. But at the end of that scale, those numbers are going to be much larger. And again, you'd have to come up with it. I didn't like it. This is what it would look like for procurement if we waited until 2028 and did it, 2029 and did it, 2030 and 31, what those numbers might look like. So those numbers are going to go up considerably the longer we wait, potentially. There's your 8%, 10%, 12%, 15%. So some of you are business owners in here. If you knew something was going to go up 20%, whether it's steel or wood or screws or whatever it is, tires, and you knew that was going to happen next year, my guess is your warehouse would be full of things for next year that you could get it this year and save some of that money for yourself and for your customers. I'm not here to sell you a thing. It doesn't make any difference to me, although I would love to see this happen for our department. I would love to see it happen for the city. You know, the saying is, you know, we as a Waterloo Police Department of the city want to set the example. We don't want to be the example. That's really important to me. I say it to my officers all the time. I think the city of Waterloo does set the example. And I think this is necessary for our department. I think it's necessary for the city. and we have it within our budget to do it, I would just ask that you look at it, scrutinize it. You're smarter than I am. And if you have questions, I will make sure that those get to Axon. I will make sure that if they can sharpen the pencil, they'll sharpen the pencil. But I'd ask you to think about what happens if we kick the can down the road for those next folks that are going to be sitting in your chairs and sitting in my chairs. Do you have any questions, comments, smart remarks?

Before we get into questions, I think it's important to understand that what comes with a 10-year contract, number one, it's price fixing. Okay. But number two, would you explain how the rotation of tasers and technology, body cameras and in-car videos was included in this contract for 10 years?

So, we did have to, we had to change some of that around, but here, Generalities, we're going to get new tasers three times during this contract. Whatever the new technology is, they have to give us a new technology. They have to give us the training cartridges, they have to give us the duty cartridges, they have to give us all of those things. New cameras come out, whether it's body worn cameras, vehicle cameras. When that new technology comes out and we have run through our time span with the equipment that they have, or we have, they have to give us new equipment. Not only do they have to give us new equipment, they gotta come here and put it in. So our garage isn't doing it. They have to come and install those cars. We have to open a bay over there, and we've got to get 35 cars through that. And they usually come for two or three days, and they do that for us. That's included with this. Interview room cameras, it would be the same thing. Signal sidearms for our holsters, for our cars. All of that equipment, as technology changes, we get the new equipment within that. so if we think about it in terms of tasers and we didn't do this and we didn't get in a program where we were getting those things we have a hundred and between reserves and everybody, close to 140 tasers. And if we had to pay for those individually every three years, that would be an astronomical amount for the city. That right there would probably pay for three years of a contract renewal if we had to do that, or in-car cameras, or body cameras. Those numbers would be close to a million dollars if we did them a la carte. We don't wanna do that. It gives us protection within their technology. The technology has changed so much that we're getting newer technology because of the package. Things that are gonna help us with investigations, with you name it, the gamut, that's gonna help.

And sir, for those of the council members that weren't here in 21 when we went to Axon, Can you just give them an update what it means for the signal sidearm technology and the taser and when you activate your lights and all of that?

Sure. So let's call it another accountability feature for us, right? So there have been times where officers forgot to turn their cameras on. It's happened. It doesn't happen anymore because they will get in trouble. That's the accountability part, right? Right. But within their gear and within their car, there are things called signals. So let's say, easy one, holster. There's a signal on their holster that is bolted to their holster. If they draw their weapon, it turns the camera on automatically. If they open the rear door of their car to put a prisoner in or a detainee, it turns their camera on. If they activate their taser, it turns their camera on. It not only turns their camera on, but it turns others around them on so that those cameras come on automatically. That is then put into the system, and we have all of those camera views, and that's the liability part for the city. That's the liability part for the department. It's also the accountability part for our people.

Thank you. Questions? Mr. Mauro.

So you are advocating renew this now, and as you're waiting to 2031, renew it now, and they will give you this kind of a discount, if you will, of deal. Is that correct?

We have until the end of September. They will not extend this contract past that. So I would ask that we scrutinize it, that we go through it, that we educate ourselves, and we do all the things Not in a, I don't want anybody to move fast. I want you to take your time and go through it. But I think time is of the essence in regards to this contract, because what I will tell you is that contract will absolutely go up.

Okay, all right. And then, and currently, if you look at this package you have right now, do you get the new tasers and the stuff automatically with that, or is this something new that you've added?

So we literally just got the brand new Taser 10s, and we are getting those deployed in the next month. Those have already showed up. So that was one of the scenarios that we had to maneuver or massage within the contract because we already got them. We didn't want them again in six months because it's a lot of training. So we were able to massage that within the contract. and lessen some of the cost for that. We will still get renewals as new technology comes out or as time allots for us within the contract. So that will still happen for sure.

The technology that you get, is it proven technology, or do you ever get to the point you're testing things out? What edge of technology are you riding?

You're at the tip. Okay. We're not getting anything that hasn't been already tested or, I mean, this is, you know, I'll be honest with you, Axon's got the market, right? and they've got the market here. That's why you see Black Hawk County, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, all of the major departments are going with this. A lot of the departments in Minnesota have switched over to Axon, and especially the DFR program and the drones for response because it's such a safety feature for their officers. And that's why we started looking into it. I didn't think we were gonna have to look at contracts. I thought maybe we could just get the drones and see what happened. When they told me the scary numbers, In regards to 2031, I thought it was my responsibility to at least pass that on and have a conversation about it.

Thank you.

And I would hope that any council members that have some lot of questions especially on the drone you know response uh program uh to reach out to you in the next few weeks and and actually just if you have time to come in and sit down so that you can actually go over all of these options with them and the importance of them uh anyone else mr salamanca

So the $654,551, you're saying that the Waterloo PD budget can absorb all that, or are you saying that the budget's going to absorb some of it, or just some clarification on that?

I am guaranteeing that between now and when I leave that the city will not have to come up with $1 of that. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Mayor. Well, Ms. Berry was...

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

Hope you like your new bed. And this to us, presenting this. And Councilman Morrow brought up about tasers, because I do have a concern about that. So as this technology improves, we know that we had an incident over my Waterloo days with an accidental misfiring of a taser. So will these new tasers, are they new and improved, but we don't have to worry about accidental kinds of... discharges as such.

When you put them in a human's hand, there's gonna be human mistakes. I think of it as, it's a tool, right? And there's possibilities that any of those things could happen. What we as a city need to do is make sure that our officers are well trained, which we do, and also recognize that sometimes accidents happen and we have to hold them accountable. And with that accountability comes a little more attention to detail.

So the advancement doesn't, I mean, as technology advances, we can't say that these new tasers would be any different than from what we currently have then?

That would be like me saying that a patrol officer is never going to hit anybody in a squad car or accidentally discharge a weapon. I mean, the reality is, as much as some people would like to believe that we're not human beings, we certainly are, and we make human mistakes. Oh, sure. And, you know, we train, we're the most highly trained police department in Iowa. I'll say that to anybody that'll listen. There's no department that trains more than we do. We prepare everybody for what we can prepare for, but we're not perfect.

Okay. And I understand that. We're all human, make mistakes. I just wanted to just get clarity to see if there's a different kind of technology with new tasers. I mean that an accident will not happen unless you literally not have it in the position of not to fire, right?

With electricity, if it's engaged, it could happen. If it's off, it can't. And if you bump it, it could. It's one of those, I wish they didn't happen, but they certainly do. We can't avoid them. I mean, we can avoid them, but I can't tell you they won't happen.

And then when you, and my last question, so when you get these new tasers, what do you do with your old ones?

We send them back. They go back to Axon. Everything that they give us new, we send everything back so that we even get a credit for our old cartridges that are unused. So if we send back 500 cartridges that were not used, whether they're duty cartridges or training cartridges, we get a credit with the company in regards to that. But they do require we send it back.

And then regarding the drones, because drones come in different sizes, right?

Yes.

And so is this like a huge drone if it's going to be on top of the... No. I don't know much about drones.

No. In fact, the tactical drones are about that big.

Okay.

The drones that would be on the roofs that would go to calls, those drones are a little bit bigger. They're probably about that big. But those drones are equipped with different camera settings, FLIR, so that you can use them at night if we have an Alzheimer's patient that walks away or something. The heat signature can be picked up. And those cameras are fantastic. They can be, like I said, used for fires. I tried to bamboozle the fire chief to help pay for this. He wasn't fully opposed to it, but I got more talking to do. I'd just like to compliment you on your

Farsightedness and your negotiating skills, maybe when you get into your early retirement package, you could come back and work with Noel in his area for negotiating. So I understand technology typically goes up, but I also know that certain things like internet, that kind of thing, goes down every year, does more, costs less. I mean, do you factor that into?

No, and here's why. There's no other company. The reason that that happens is because of competition, right? So the more people that are involved or the more people that give you that, you've got to bring your prices down. Do I see the price of this going down? Absolutely not, not unless a competitor comes up with the exact same technology or better with the same amount of ability. And right now, for the foreseeable future, I don't see that happening. I think the eight and 10% is probably gonna be low in 10 years. I think that's gonna be low.

And then just real quickly, what would you say is the drop-dead date for us to make some decision?

I think we've got to have something signed if we're going to do it. We have to have something signed before probably mid-September and then get it voted on and get it through. Again, I'm not pushing anybody to do anything. I want you to do your homework, due diligence, all the things, ask as many questions as you want. You can get a hold of myself. You can get a hold of the chief. I can bring Mr. DeWitt in here from Axon. You can have another work session with him. He's way smarter than I am. And talk about all the things. But I would ask that you really take a look at it and pick it apart and do whatever you need to do.

Thank you. Mr. Simon. Thank you for this. Real quick, I'm like you, I have to get a calculator out. But you had said that The average increase is 8 to 12%, but it could be as high as 26%.

They've had years where it's up to 16. I think he did say that they had one year that was in the 20s, but that was an anomaly. It wasn't the typical.

So if I do the math, if it goes up from 435, if it goes up 12%.

You're forgetting that we signed that 10 years ago, or in 2021. Okay, so what is that based on? So you would need to go off the cost of if we just signed up for Axon today.

And that's what? Is that on here? Is that the 573 number? Stand alone? In your 27, if you go back to the...

I don't think that I have that number, but I certainly can get it. If we just got the package that we have today, I can assure you that it wouldn't be anywhere near 4.5 million.

For 10 years?

For 10 years.

Okay. I was looking at what was our existing now and what you had wrote down for 2031.

That would be going off a 2021 pricing.

Okay.

So 945,000 is... And the other thing that I would mention is when we got the 435,000 to the 450,000, we were one of the first departments in the state to get that package. So we ended up being... Setting the example for the rest of the departments that have done it so as I recall negotiating that and Talking through that we got a way better deal then because of the marketing power that our department would have for the company

Okay, and then you said that that funding source is coming through the police department budget, correct? Yes. Okay, and then the other question I had, and you touched on it. All the chief's bonuses are cut. Perfect. He's all right with that. You had touched on it briefly. You said that there was some cost savings possibilities with the interview room cameras. And you said that you're able to link the interview cameras with a little bit of work of marching it over and plugging it into the thing. So how much is that difference? Is that a large number? Not a lot. So it's just easy to add it on. I know how when you add on stuff, you add a little here, a little here, a little here. Before you know it, it's a big number.

Well, I can assure you that I won't allow them to add anything on, but there's a chance we could get them to cut some out. I think they get sick of talking to me, just like you guys are sick of listening to me. But some of the costs that we were talking about had to do with installation and parts, where we may be able to get that done, keep the cameras and get that done for a little bit cheaper. Is it going to make much difference in the quote? No. But it's certainly money that we could potentially save, and if we can, we will.

And we're still going to have interview cameras, whether we use axiom or another product in our interview room. So there's going to be a cost associated with that. So you're going to be looking at the difference between the 2 and we've got to move on to our next work session. I appreciate all the work that you and your department has done. Thank you very much.

Thanks everybody. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Next up fire Marshall Oliver with the software changes to Waterloo fire rescue. He's asking for less money, by the way.

And he's a hero.

I walked through the right door. And you passed the test.

Good afternoon, Council, Mayor. I'm Fire Marshal Brock Welliver with Waterloo Fire Rescue. And while Chris gets this pulled up, what's that?

It's clicking.

What I'd like to present to you today is a software purchase or it isn't simply a software purchase. It's a modernization of Waterloo fire rescues technology infrastructure over the years. We've accumulated numerous software platforms, spreadsheets, databases and manual workflows. And tonight I'd like to show you where we are today, where we want to go and how we plan to fund that transition. Why are we here? Like many organizations, we've adopted software over time that solve individual problems. We have one system for reporting, another system for inspections, another for investigations, another one for personnel, another for training, and so on and so forth. The result that we have is multiple vendors, multiple databases, duplicate data entry, and department created spreadsheets. and manual processes to connect everything together. Our personnel spend a lot of time moving information between individual systems instead of just using that information through one platform. This is our current software environment right here. Each of these programs serves a purpose and most of them have been a good product for us. This proposal isn't just because one product has failed. We've had some issues with a number of products, but overall they work decent for us. It's because none of these were designed to function as 1 integrated system. Every 1 of these platforms requires its own administration training support and data management. Our goal is to simplify that. The software that we're looking for is called First Do, and instead of 10 different systems not talking to each other, we're moving to one integrated system that does. So all of those systems that we had talked before share that data back and forth. Our fire reporting, inspections, personnel training, so on and so forth, share all that same information, which means less duplicate work, better reporting, and better operational awareness. One platform, one login, and shared data across those platforms. Apples to apples comparison right now 1st, do of. What we have, I believe I gave you 2 quotes in that package that we sent out. We have 1 quote that would switch everything that we are currently using today. For through 1st, do essentially no cost, but we're also looking for it to integrate and upgrade the modules that we're using. So. The question that we've asked ourselves throughout this process is whether we'd be giving up anything that we currently have, and the answer is no. We're looking for additional capabilities, as this points out, additional platforms to help our workflows integrate that data more seamlessly. So these are opportunities to improve our efficiency without purchasing additional software in the future. So, again, we're moving from multiple vendors, multiple databases, duplicate entries and into a single ecosystem with a shared data, one entry point and integrated workflows. Currently, we do use a inspection testing and maintenance platform that also helps offset some of our software costs. This is what we're currently using a day through or at the compliance engine. Currently, we have implemented implemented this back in 2019 to help offset the properties inspections platform. We are currently tracking 2400 fire protection systems throughout the city, which we have a 94% compliance rate with through this. And it generates approximately 8500 dollars for us to help all set those costs. For that properties inspections platform. Currently, vendors are charged $20 per report to upload those reports into the ITM, where the vendor gets $15, and Waterloo Fire gets $5 of revenue share through that, minus some handling fees through Bricer. And what we're proposing is to increase that ITM share to $25 per report. which would increase our revenue share from $5 per report to $10 per report to help offset costs for this new first due platform. Can we move? Yeah, we can go to the next one. And so expanding the program we would again be charging an additional five dollars per report and we'd also be start to implement. Fire extinguishers and fire exit negress lights that will also be tracking those as those systems are supposed to be annually inspected annually as well and that would be another source of revenue for this to help offset this platform. Up here on this graph, you can see that on the left hand side where that's on the left hand side is our current model where we are generating 8500 dollars a month or not a month per year. Um, to offset the properties, the inspections platform. However, the increased platforms would be approximately 30 dollars or 30,000 dollars annually on top of our current software costs. So, if we increase our revenue share from 5 dollars to 10 dollars. Uh, per report, just on the, uh, systems that we have, uh, that we're tracking now would increase that cost up to 22,600 dollars annually. Additionally, tracking fire extinguishers and exit negress lights. Uh, taken in a conservative 50% assumption there. Would generate approximately another 11,000 dollars on top of that. So we'd be looking at bringing in a revenue annually of 33,000 dollars to help offset those. The platform fees again, another look at the potential growth there. So, when the, when the system. Matures out, we'd be looking at anywhere from 38,000 to 40,000 dollars to help help offset those costs. If we were to implement this new software. Again, some conservative assumptions here. So year 1 again with the 50% compliance on the fire extinguishers and exit and egress lights, we'd be looking at 33,000 and year 2 with more compliance at a 70% assumption. We'd be around the 38,000 dollar mark where in year 3. With close to 90% compliance, we'd be looking at that 40,000 dollar mark. And our goal is to create a sustainable funding model for public safety and technology that doesn't impact the general fund or the fire budget. And our implementation timeline would be Um, hopefully, uh, to get a resolution on, uh, by next council meeting, and then that would set things in motion to, um, get things implemented, um, after that document assigned and, uh, we're trying to head off some of our current. Um. Platform renewals, so, as you can see here, we do have a renewal coming up in August, which is our EMS platform. However, we're going to choose to slow roll that 1 and implement that in the later time in 2027. that's a major revenue source for us and we don't want to upset that 1 just yet. We want to get everything right. So, our goal would be to get the fire side and inspection side of things implemented by. early winter and with everything ready to go by January 1, 2027, and then go into the EMS side of things. So we're just requesting that your approval to move forward with this to continue moving on. And following approval, we'll begin the implementation on the fire side of things again. We'll intentionally keep the things for addition for an additional year and. Again, this isn't about buying new software. It's about improving and investing in Waterloo Fire Rescue's future modernization technology and improving efficiency and supporting our firefighters with better information and strengthening community risk reduction efforts and doing so with a funding strategy that minimizes long-term impacts on the general fund.

Council questions.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Morrow.

In my career, I've been involved in several transitions and all like that. Do you have a pretty good confidence that the data you have will get transferred over to the new pretty easily or by the people that's bringing the software to you?

Yes, so across the fire industry, it's now called NIRS. It used to be called NIFRS, but it's a set form that the government sets out that we have to fill in specific data points for it. So each one of those data points should be able to transfer over easily.

You got no concern that you'll not get something come across?

I guess that just depends on our current software and how well or how nice they want to play once we say we're not going to renew their contract.

And will the new people have a team basically that helps you get up and running?

Yes, there would be a one-time implementation cost on top of this for the first year. I believe it was around $12,000.

Would they bring like a super user or something here to kind of help get your people trained up?

Yes, exactly.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Mr. Mayor?

Yeah, Mr. Simon.

So just briefly, where will the funding come for this? Is this in your budget, or is this something that's going to be added to your fire department budget?

I believe initially that I don't know where the initial money is going to have to come from on the onset of it. But right now, I think our, our current costs for software around 50,000 dollars annually. Purchasing this would be around 80,000 dollars or a little above 80,000 dollars. I think it was 85, I believe 85,000 dollars and that's where the offset would come from through the inspection testing and maintenance fee increase there. So, essentially, it would be a. a net zero on it once that program gets approved and up and running. However, if we decide that we don't want to go with the entire package quote that we went with, we could switch over to First Do and their implementation that they have now with a few additional modules that would increase our current technology.

And the, and the thing that you're going to keep until. Next year is that easily added to the software package when you decide to bring it on? Yes. And that and that cost is. Known how much that's going to cost or is that?

Yeah, I believe I can't I'm trying to think back through the quote of through what. We pay so on an annual basis, I want to say it's sixteen thousand dollars. I think. If I might, if I'm not mistaken, it might be less than that. However, we would have to renew that contract moving forward through twenty, twenty seven. So there would be that additional cost in there as well.

And they don't know what that number is to add it to this software. If you were to, if we were to approve this, you don't know what that number is.

Well, the first do is a la carte. You can add any of these platforms, but we're looking at taking on their entire catalog.

Okay, that's part of the $80,000? Yes.

Okay.

I think, not to interrupt, but to answer your question, A lot of these offsets aren't going to come right away. No, because it has to do with inspections and when the inspections are performed, the thing that bothers me part of this is that, you know, I had your job and the fire inspections. But now you're going to have a fee to. To inspect fire extinguishers that are already included in the inspection and to inspect emergency and exit lighting that are included in the inspection.

That's not included in our inspection costs. That is. The businesses, you know, they could actually self report these inspections as well, too, but. Yeah, there, I mean, that was 1 of the hesitations we had with not implementing fire extinguishers or X and egress lights prior, but this is 1 way to help make up those costs.

Well, I understand it's to help make up the cost, but. In the past we haven't charged for correct. It's been part of the inspection.

Correct.

You know, extinguishers exit lights and that now we want to add that on to the to the basic of the commercial or industrial users.

Well, another way to think about it would be that we haven't increased many of our inspection fees. Since I've been doing it, and probably since you were in the office as well, too. So not saying that we have to increase those inspection fees on 1 side, but. It's just another item to think about.

It's tomorrow that we got our next meeting.

Okay. Just 1 question. Yes, sir. This reduced manpower. So you can actually maybe. Have less man hours putting doing the records and everything time will tell.

Um, but I, I don't think I don't see it reducing our inspections man hours.

No, but as far as the computers side of this, when you're accessing is going to help with manpower there.

Just for the reporting side of things, it does. Since we implemented the ITM module back in 2019, prior to that, contractors were required to submit those reports to the office through the old snail mail method, and it was a nightmare trying to track all of those systems. So just the modernization of these platforms has helped us out tremendously in tracking systems and their compliance. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate all the time and effort you put into this. And we're ready for our Housing Authority meeting.

Who has a motion to adjourn here? Mr. Salamanca.

I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. Second.