City Council - Regular Meeting

Now so we'll call the meeting order for the record is Tuesday July 21 at 431 PM will begin this afternoon's work session with roll call attendance.

And your smear councilman governor Councilman straighter Councilman with lock here Councilman little Roberts Councilman overton your your citizen here next time up is adoption of the agenda, Mr rare Councilman overton.

There are no changes to tonight's agenda and we move we approve the agenda as published.

Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. You guys have it, and the agenda is agreed to. Next up is the consent agenda.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. There are no changes to tonight's consent agenda. I move that we approve the consent agenda for the mayor to sign and the clerk to attest.

Second.

Have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. opposed nay you guys have it and the consent agenda is agreed to there are no items moved from the consent agenda so we'll move on to department reports first item up is item 13 appeal of denial of mobile sales unit license application msu 26-0146 by dalton white Mayor Mrakas, And I will turn this over to.

Mayor Mrakas, Mr, I can take it Mary okay Mr Mayor this before you tonight was an appeal for a denial of a mobile sales unit license by adult and white he he did apply for a mobile sales unit, it was denied pursuant to our ordinance regarding a. out of state um finding of it looks like it was either according to the documents from the court it was either a prior guilty plea or a no contest plea in another state but um it uh that adjudication doesn't um have any impact on our ordinance our ordinance says any events of that type is um disqualifying from him having a mobile sales unit so that's why i was denied he did appeal it but he doesn't appear to be present for this appeal. So I'd leave it to the council to move forward with it as you wish.

Thank you. Council, any questions for staff? Mr. Mayor? Council Administrator.

Thank you, there's just a question for Bill nary my understanding is under our ordinance it's pretty cut and dry and in terms of. That there's not any flexibility or discretion on on this.

Mr America or no, there is not. You.

Mr man, Mr white is here now.

So I would like to come forward and make any comments.

Sorry, I was running behind earlier today.

I got here as quick as I could and came right on in. So yeah, the gist of it is, is basically back then I was tried, had an opportunity to either go forward with the trial full on or take this deal, which was adjudicated probation, which basically means it's just foregoing a trial, serving time, and then basically it's dropped from the record. It's not a conviction or anything like that. I was under heavily, I was heavily advised to do it by my lawyer at the time. I was a lot younger, a lot less knowledgeable about the world and how things worked and everything else. decision i live with every day on how i would have handled it differently back then like now versus back then i should say um but yeah the biggest part of that is like you know i've guess i've been working for uh bill clark pest control which is a pest control company down there in texas uh ever since i was six years Basically, I was working with them and through the Texas government was aware of it. I was going literally into people's homes every day as a part of my job doing pest control services for that entire time, not even a traffic ticket, all that stuff. I mean, it's really all I can say on my part. And my understanding of it was that i'm not supposed to be hindered from work or licensing and stuff like that or housing because of the route in which we took or that i was advised to take i should say okay thank you did you have anything else that you want to say uh no i mean only the last thing i guess i would say is i know it's not ideal you know i'm intelligent i know exactly how people probably view it and everything else at the end of the day you guys have hundreds of people going into your neighborhoods in and out not trying to be looked at trying to avoid this very thing I'm here in front of you today, owning it and looking to do things the right way. So thank you.

Thank you. Counsel, any questions?

Okay. Mr. Larry, if you would be so kind as to restate What you stated before, Mr. Dalton walked in, so he has the ability to understand what you said before he came into the room?

Certainly. Mr. White, I think where the disconnect is, in our code, any charge of this type is a prohibition for us issuing a license to anybody, and there is no time limit to that. what you were told in Texas might be true, it doesn't apply here. So although other jurisdictions in our area may or may not use this as a disqualifier, we do. So there isn't an exception that council has in our code to grant an exception, even though, you know, of the comments you've stated and things have changed in your life, that isn't a consideration in our code. This type of offense is a disqualification from licensing, and the council really doesn't have a discretion to grant anything else. Correct. Yes.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Kavanaugh. Missionary question. So again, if somebody's charged but found not guilty or found innocent, they still would be pursued. They still would be impacted by this particular piece.

Yeah. Yeah. Councilman Kavanaugh, members of the council. Yes, they still could be impacted by this. A not guilty plea would be different. In this case, it was a guilty plea. And it was a guilty, no contest or a guilty plea, both is what it was. But yes, even a not guilty plea, a charge would require at least that review and the police would review it for that purpose.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. If there's no other comments by members of council, I would move that we except the fact that we can't change what our code currently states. And as much as I understand exactly what you've come up here and said, unfortunately, the legal system has some avenues that allow you to get through it quicker. But unfortunately, they're considered guilty pleas when they happen. And we live with that result, and we don't have a choice in this matter. With that said, I would have I would move that we deny the appeal of the denial for the mobile sales unit license application MSU-26-0146 by Dalton White.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to deny the appeal. Is there any discussion?

Yes, sir.

Councilman Kavner.

I appreciate you being here. I recognize you're trying to do your best to rehabilitate and be a productive member of society. That's noted and appreciated. Apologies that our code is so narrow that it won't grant you this type of an exception, but wish you well as you continue to pursue your endeavors.

Any other questions? Thomas, if not, on favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. You guys have it. And the motion to appeal the denial is sustained. Did I say that correctly? Thank you. All right. With that, we'll move on to item 14, which is the Automatic License Breeder Program presentation. I invite up Chief Ambassador Chaer.

All right. See if I can figure out the technology up here and move the slides. First of all, let me start by saying thank you to the mayor and council for having us here to present on our axon automatic license plate recognition, or ALPRs, and how they differ from others that are out there on the market. Even though we are confident you will see a clear distinction Uh, especially when it comes to how the data is stored, controlled and monitored. We also know that any technology like this runs the risk of being misused. This makes it no different than any other tool provided to law enforcement or any other profession for that matter. We trust our police enough to arm them with weapons that can take someone's life. We empower those officers with the ability to take someone's freedom through lawful arrest. Yet some people don't trust them to use this technology with the same caution or responsibility. This dichotomy is certainly not lost on us. And I hope that when we are done with our presentation, that you will be comfortable with the guardrails that we have in place and realize that we are continuing discussions on additional ways to minimize that risk. And with that, for all transparency purposes, This presentation was put together by myself and Jordan Sowers of Axon, their government affairs manager. So what we're going to cover during this presentation is what is ALPR? A plain language overview of how automatic license plate recognition works and what Axon technology looks like in the field. We will discuss security and compliance, discussing Axon's federal track record and their FedRAMP high authorization utilizing evidence.com and what that means to our data. We will also discuss the ownership access controls privacy safeguards and the accountability structures in the axon platform and, finally, we will discuss how the different lpr systems. are handled differently by different companies. So what is ALPR? Basically, it is a camera that captures images of passing vehicles in real time. The software reads the license plate automatically, and that plate is compared to against other law enforcement databases. Officers are instantly alerted to stolen vehicles, missing persons, bolos, be on the lookout type of calls. And per our policy and procedures, our officers are required to physically put their eyes on that license plate and that vehicle to confirm themselves that that is in the correct plate and the correct vehicle that we have been alerted to before they make a stop. All this data is stored securely in Axon Evidence owned by Meridian PD. So we do have Axon outpost cameras, which are mounted throughout the city in different locations in high traffic areas. They operate 24 seven. in day and night, and they do have high-speed detection, so they can pick up license plates driving highway speeds. In our vehicles, we have Axon Fleet 3 cameras, which essentially do the same thing, but they are mobile with our officers who are driving those vehicles. Those are deployed throughout the United States as well through a variety of agencies. So how is our data controlled? One of the things that is very unique or is somewhat unique, I would say, to Axon is we control all of the data. No third party controls our data. They don't have access to our data. If there are any requests to Axon, whether it is a PRR, a FOIA, warrants or subpoenas, they direct that to the city of Meridian because they do not own the data. We own the data. Therefore, we are the ones who evaluate those and take the legal avenue that we are required to take if we are given those options. It is a policy driven retention. So in other words, our agency sets the retention period. And just, we'll talk about state code here in a minute, but I was part of the group that passed the code with the Idaho State Legislature on ALPRs several years ago. And if you'll notice in state code, currently there is no retention period. And the reason We didn't want a retention period at that time was we wanted to evaluate what we believe would be the best retention period, the most useful to agencies, and so we initially started out with a 60 day here at meridian and we've recently moved it to a 30 day retention period that purge that. John Potter, Information purges every 30 days if it is not a plate that we're looking for for a criminal investigation, the plates that the system reads automatically purchase purges every 30 days, whether we would want it to or not, because that's how we have set it up in our system. Opt-in sharing is off by default through the Axon platform. So in other words, if you want access to our hot lists, the vehicles that we are looking for, you have to reach out to us as another law enforcement agency and request access to that. One of the things that is interesting about the Axon system is we can grant another law enforcement agency access to our information through the license plate readers, but we can also put a timeframe on that. So we could give them, you can have access for this, our hot list for a week, and we can revoke that at any moment, because again, we are the ones who control that data and that information. Also, every access is permanently recorded. Who, when, and why? So full plate reads are never used for AI model training to make their system get better. They will get partial reads, and that's how they develop their system to make it better. They're never given full plate reads. And they also utilize immutable logs, which can't be altered or deleted. So once you've entered something into the system or you've searched the system we have a log of that and we have the information of why you're searching that or why you're entering that vehicle into the system mr mayor awesome

Thank you, Chief. Is it okay if we're going with questions throughout?

Absolutely.

Okay. If you don't mind just going back, it may be actually this slide too, but help me understand the training data piece of this, because I think that's an important consideration that some of our citizens have about training. you know, we control our data, we own it. But, you know, is people's data being used to train artificial intelligence systems and things like that? And what does that mean by a full read versus a partial? Yeah.

So Mayor Mrakas, If you opt in to help them improve their product, they only get a partial plate number to improve their product with they don't get a full license plate of somebody that. Mayor Mrakas, has come through the system, so they don't have the access to their personal information.

Mayor Mrakas, Mayor awesome share.

Okay, so if we opt in to do that, they're getting partial license plate information. Yes. Is it redacted by us?

By the system.

Okay, so the system itself provides them with a partial read and then...

If we opt in.

And do we opt in? Because I didn't catch that part.

We don't currently.

Okay, so currently we do not opt in to use the data in Meridian for training purposes for the Amazon system. And even if we did, you're saying it would be partial plates. But in our current choice not to opt into that, is that a department policy? Is that part of, like, where does that decision...

That decision rests with me, ultimately.

Okay, that's helpful.

Trying to figure out where I went wrong here.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Whitlock. Can you go back one more slide, please?

Chief, I'm kind of the dinosaur up here, so all this technology is really cool, but I'm having a struggle trying to figure out how it all fits.

Councilman Whitlock, that makes two of us, actually.

Can you just share with me, I mean, what are we capturing? What is this data? You've got a camera. When I hear camera, I think of a picture. But now we have data and partial plates.

I'm just trying to figure out. We gather what we get is a picture of the vehicle and a picture of the license plate.

And that then follow up castle and that then is stored as a picture of the vehicle and the license plate until. We choose to to transfer that tax on for their training purposes, we would send them a partial.

They would yeah they would receive partial if we sit there all they would get is the plate read okay partial plate read sorry okay. So going back to some of the privacy concerns and legal safeguards. So as you can see under current law, under current case law, automated license plate recognition does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. License plates are government issued and they are displayed on public roadways. Courts have consistently held that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a plate visible in a public place. So law enforcement has a recognized duty to use lawfully available information to protect our community, and that is what we do with this information. Idaho Code further governs our ALPR use statewide by stating data may only be used to investigate felony or misdemeanor crimes and traffic accidents. Or to locate missing persons and so, and it also requires mandatory training, as well as semi annual audits are required, we audit more often than semi annually. And as I said, none of this information is sold to commercial entities or data brokers or third parties. Our data is for our mission, and that's why it stays and rests with us. So about the security infrastructure behind the data here. Axon is one of 48 companies globally to achieve Fed ramp high status, which is the same security standard required by the Department of Defense, as well as our US intelligence agencies. And they have had been working in this space as far as this security of their data storage for 20 plus years. So what does that mean to us? It means there's mandatory continuous monitoring, multifactor authentication, as well as annual third party security audits as required by federal law. Strict technical separation between Axon's commercial cloud and a federal cloud environments, which means there's no option for the federal government to go in and have backdoor access to any of our information that we put in our systems. Federal agencies such as DHS, Department of Justice and others have independently audited this security and they've approved of their practices. vendors with access to national plate networks but no federal security certification operate under fundamentally different and lower standards than what axon is currently doing So not all ALPR systems are the same. We talked about the data ownership and where it rests with us. One of the things to be aware of is other vendors retain data rights, creating ambiguity over who responds to legal requests and who controls the deletion options of your system and your data. uh their data sharing models again open network models will plate reads nationally by default and then therefore that data may be accessible to any participating agency without case-by-case authorization as i pointed out before in order to have access to any of our hot lists somebody has to actually reach out to us and we're actually developing and looking at mous with people so that it is an official request if they want access to that and that it has been reviewed by our legal team. Retention control, again, some platforms use vendor-controlled retention. We don't do that. We set our retention periods at the Meridian Police Department in the city. And then, again, federal and third-party access, national open network databases may be accessible to federal entities or commercial partners. without local agencies direct authorization. They don't have that access with this platform. This is one of the very reasons that we took our time going to this platform. We were approached by other vendors. And quite frankly, we had long discussions about some concerns with those vendors. And so we pumped the brakes and took our time to really evaluate this. and having worked with axon for at this agency over 20 plus years here at the meridian police department we know really where their priorities lie and they are very very in tune with the dangers of advancing technology. Before they roll any technology out, they actually meet with ethicists and others and scientists on whether or not that technology is going to be utilized appropriately. So they do their due diligence on our behalf as well.

So this is just an example of real quick yes, not to put you on the spot, but any idea how many communities in Idaho use axon versus and another vendor.

I believe we're the first to use axon lewiston I believe is using excellent outpost. And there are others now looking at utilizing it. I know that Boise City is looking at using it. Ada County Sheriff's Office is looking at going to some Axon outposts and may actually have some of those up already.

So one or two currently Axon. Anybody else is on a likely other system, but not all on one system.

Correct. Okay. So if you look at this slide, it shows you what you have to put in if you are trying to access, if you want to add a plate to the system so that we can get an alert on it. It goes through the hot list that it would need to go on. You have to have the plate number, the plate state. Most importantly, why are you putting this into the system? It asks specifically that category. Why are you looking for this license plate? and it and it puts a priority in there and you can put so it expires if you're looking for something within the week you can put an expiration date if it's something that's not a high priority on there otherwise we go through there manually and we will remove those that we've entered if they have not been useful to us and then you can put in there further information the reason that you're doing it as well so not just the criminal offense but more information of exactly what kind of a criminal case is it. And then you can put the vehicle information in there if you have it, and you can put vehicle owner information in there as well. And then to do an LPR search, again, you put in the purpose for the search, whether it's the criminal purpose, which in Idaho you have to have pretty much almost any plate read has to be tied to some type of criminal investigation. And it gives you a spot for either the case number or the incident number, and another space for more reason of why you're looking and searching that vehicle. And you can put in parameters like a search period. Do you want to search these particular cameras in the last two hours or the last 24 hours? So you may be searching it, and I'll pull up a little bit of an audit. But we're searching for vehicles that were in the area of a sexual assault. And so we can put parameters around that that here's the area where this assault took what vehicles were ran through that intersection in the last two hours and then, as you go down again there's more details and those types of things in that. Entry form. Mr mayor that's i'm sure.

I feel like examples really help people. It might help me. I'm going to give you, please don't be offended. I'm going to give you an outlandish maybe example, but it could happen. Let's say crazy police officer Tim is stalking someone and not that that person exists or that there's anyone I know necessarily named Tim who would do that, but Let's say that they're stalking someone and they're interested to log into the Axon system to find out what their intended target is up to. Tell me all the reasons that that couldn't happen or if it did happen, why or why not that person would be caught? Like, how would we handle that if that happened?

Well, I can tell you how we'd handle it. We would fire them. I hope so. That's that's the point behind the audit trail and showing the criminal offenses. This I can go in, I can put a time frame in right now. Matter of fact, I did it earlier today. We put in the time frame and we printed out the audit log immediately. And so we can start looking at those things. I can tell you, is there a foolproof way that nobody's ever going to try to abuse a system? Absolutely not. I can tell you this. We have had officers who have used their mobile data computers in their cars in the past to access ILETS information, and we've terminated those officers. The key is we're putting on lots of guardrails, and then rest assured when those violations, if they do occur, they will be handled appropriately. And we have proven that with our track record for certain. Just like any technology, any tool, it can be abused. And we've seen that across the board. I mean.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Schroeder.

I get that. But help me understand a little more. So the audit log is super helpful. So I assume that for everyone that because who knows, like I assume that means, you know, exactly what user logged in, what they looked at.

I'll show you that in a minute. Yep.

Fantastic. And so how would we catch someone who is abusing this tool? How would that come to light? When we're doing our own internal audits, do we find out, are there things that flag suspicious activity? This tool doesn't seem like it's being used the right way. How would that come to light?

yeah for us when we one of the things and and lieutenant frazier has more technical uh expertise in this area than me so he can chime in at any time but one of the things is is there excessive use of the the technology is there one person who is consistently running the same plate over and over and over again and if they're consistently running that same plate searching that same plate why is it not in our system as uh to be on our hot list to alert them when they put it in there and so that's that's one way the other way is when we look and go where's a case number and there's no case number attached to any of these searches that's going to uh raise our intuition on this is possibly being misused in the end, really, they can't track where they're going, they can track certain areas that they've been in but it's not like it's a camera that's following them it's really.

they've passed through this intersection at this time, Mr Mayor and he does have a phone a friend behind him if there's anything that. was going to want to add to that question or.

Thanks, Chief. Mr. Mayor, Council, Councilwoman Strader, I appreciate your question. You're asking, like, practically, how does this work? You know, how would we detect it? So it starts with security and control in the first place. They would have to be logged into the platform on the City of Meridian's network. So that's one of the things. They'd have to be at work on one of our devices on our network. And the way this looks, the chief talked about auditing earlier, how there's a semiannual requirement. We do it much more often than that. And auditing can mean a lot of different things, but the support staff working in our real-time support center and supervisors in general know who's using ALPRs the most, you know, detectives, certain officers on certain details. So, and I think you said crazy officer, Tim, if he starts popping up like, oh, we're seeing a lot of searches by this guy out of the blue, then that would warrant looking into more. So those are some of the ways, you know, we narrow the funnel down of people who even have access to the information when they have access to it. We know that nobody's at home using this off duty because it's not possible. And then the sometimes daily, but at least weekly review of who's doing what we can see red flags in there pretty easily. But to the chief's point, police and many government officials have access to information that others don't have. And to some point, there's no way to prevent it entirely. But the mechanisms we do have in place, we're fairly confident that if something that outlandish were to take place, And nobody else would bring it to our attention like the you know the individual that the officer was talking or whatever we would have a high probability of finding it, or at least having the conversation to look into it more like why, why is there so much activity out of the blue.

Mr. Mayor, as part of our audit function, is something generated that alerts a supervisor if searches take place without an associated case or an associated crime or offense? Like, is there something or is there like a random auditing that happens where, okay, you know, every month we choose three axon license plate reader searches at random to audit them like help me understand that auditing function and what kind of goes into it and where i'm coming from like my background isn't a lot of financial services where like fraud prevention and stuff's really important and that sort of thing would happen often where like um people would have to clear their trades and even like your email might show up at a supervisor's desk like four times a month randomly um like those kinds of random controls help in any situation. So I was just curious, is that an element in our auditing? Help me understand how that auditing piece works.

The auditing protocols that have been evolving at the police department, we continually are adding guardrails and procedures to those. What it looks like right now is we have four main gatekeepers of all this information who can audit this information and look at it multiple times a week in multiple formats. One of the things you brought up, if we're seeing a bunch of searches that are not associated with a case number, that could potentially be a clue, right? The chief brought up, you have to, or you can see on this slide, you have to put in a case number or an incident number if there isn't one, which happens for a variety of reasons. Our staff has to write none or pending if there is one that will be created. That's another thing to look out for in that audit trail. In the auditing process, we look at bulk pieces of information, the main view, just a breakdown of what officers are doing what, and you can see, you'll be able to see it on the chief's slide, officer name, time, reason, and you look at those trends. And when we look at that data, We know who's working on what shifts and in what cadence. It becomes very expected in what they're doing. And we can easily correlate that in the back of our minds to events that actually happen. The other part of that is how does the detection of malfeasance become more automated? That is something that we work with Axon on because that is something that has evolved within the field, right? It's important to be able to do that. Axon does have on their roadmap to develop analytics for that. Don't know what it's going to look like when it'll be delivered. But obviously, we're not the only council, the only city, the only police department wanting this information and being able to look at it easier. Right now, we have the luxury of having a lot of interest in the topic, setting it up, looking at best practices and governance. So we pay a lot of attention to it just that way.

Thank you. That's really helpful.

Mr. Mayor, Councilman. Chief, a comment you made about how this has to be tied to a criminal investigation. I would imagine amber alerts would be automatically entered into this, and we would see those.

So an amber alert, depending on what kind it is, right, may be criminal or missing persons. So missing persons, missing endangered persons is also covered under the state code.

And silver alerts, are those, that's for?

Again, it would be a missing endangered person. Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

Yes. So this is really a condensed view of an audit because the spreadsheet actually goes way out with things that you really probably wouldn't be all that interested in. But you can see that we have Sergeant Allen, who ALPR searched for a 1099 check or a wanted person. And then Josh Jordan, who is working a sexual assault case down here. put that in and looking for plate reads as well on an sexual assault investigation. Sergeant AHA working a narcotics case actually has the DR number in that case, which means they've actually established a case that they're working and already have a Department report number 4, and again, Joseph Wilden, we're looking for a wanted person. There's an alert for the investigation right there. So you can go through. It shows you the times it shows you the access. It shows you the cameras that they've that they've either hit off of or that they've accessed. So. pretty detailed. And for instance, you asked about random audits. I literally this is one that Brandon provided me yesterday, but I walked down today and said, pull up an audit I want for the last five days. And they clicked on it, pulled up the audit, and I started asking questions. What does this return mean? What does this mean? What does this mean? Because I'm like you, I'm not nearly as technologically savvy as some other people, for sure. So we are very, very involved in improving this entire system for sure. It is one of the things that we'll let the cat out of the bag. We're really kind of the leaders of trying to put even more guardrails under state code. because this technology is very, very important to the job that we do and to the safety of our communities. But we also realize there is always a risk of somebody trying to abuse whatever tool it is. And so we're the ones that are really leading that push this upcoming legislative session to put even more guardrails under state code. And I'll just... What happened here? I'll end with here's a few ALPR wins that we've had over the last month, actually less than a month. We had a hit on a stolen vehicle out of Arizona where we were able to arrest the perpetrator of that crime. Felony wanted suspect. tied to four commercial burglaries in the area, and when we were able to make an arrest based off of an ALPR hit there, they were also in possession of felony drugs. Traveling fraud groups, this is one of the things that we use ALPRs for a lot, because we have these groups that are hitting the different towns and different areas, so we can get that vehicle description, put it in our system, and when they come into Meridian, we're able to get an alert on them and we were able to do that and arrest these people um who are trying to defraud our local Costco here and you you can kind of just go down I don't won't go through each one of them but we've had some really good success things there prior months we did use alprs to actually locate a wanted uh suspect for uh l lude lascivious conduct with a minor who was in our community And we would have had no idea they were in our community without a hit off of that ALPR that had been the plate that had been put into the NCIC system. So we would like to believe that we at least saved future victims from being victimized by that suspect. And with that, we'll answer any other questions that you may have for us.

Council, there's no questions.

Chief got a handful of questions. So it may kind of rapid fire through some of these. Talk to me about false positives. How many false positives have we experienced since we've launched?

Lots of false positives.

What's the process when a license plate is flagged before an officer makes contact?

Absolutely. The first thing that happens is on the screen pops up a picture of that license plate. And so it and it will actually tell you whether because, say, I have a personalized plate from Nevada and i'm wanted, but I have a personalized plate in Idaho that has is the same personalized plate, it will just pop up and say stolen vehicle, for instance. But then it says out of Nevada so we look and we go well, this is an Idaho plate number one number two like I said before we're. Our officers do anything with that they have to put eyes on that vehicle in that plate and confirm themselves physically, that is, that license plate from that state and that vehicle.

Mr follow up so. Personalized played out in the same scenario. So we get a hit, an officer pulls over this person. And maybe they miss like, what what does that process play out? I mean, does it conducted like any other traffic stop? And I guess what kind of redress do our citizens have if they're stopped? because of the use of these cameras. And it turns out that they shouldn't have been stopped in the first place.

Sure. Quite frankly, it's almost like any other traffic stop where we, there have been times where we've pulled people over for suspicion of expired tags. And because the tag that they had on there maybe was expired, but they had the tags in their deal. It's just like any other traffic stop. They talk their way through it and then we send them on their way because it was it was our mistake based upon what we saw on their vehicle. So it would work the same way. We would work our way through it. One of the advantages that we do have is at the real-time crime center or support center is those people are also getting those alerts. So the ones that are sitting in there, not just the officer, they're getting those, and they'll let our officers know whether it's false or not false. And so there's a little bit of duality there, backup.

That's my camera.

Have we had any incorrect arrests? We have not.

We haven't had any stops that I know of with these false hits. They're pretty... don't want to say they're pretty glaring but they are pretty glaring um i was working patrol one day and i got a hit and i was excited the chief's going to get to make it an arrest here and then i looked and i was like well that's the wrong state um so it's you know you know to look does the does the plate match the state that it says it should be from and and you should be able to identify it from there and if not then you look at the vehicle and you run that plate through dispatch to confirm that.

There's maybe a couple more for me that's whatever to chief before I move back to the city of I was a newspaper writer and in our office we had painted on the wall if your mother tells you she loves you check your sources so that's where this questions come from your trust the verification you talked a lot about how you internally you're auditing use it is going on as a department discussed or explored an independent 3rd party body to independently review those audits to help ensure there's greater trust amongst our public. no we haven't okay mr mayor maybe in that same vein has the department explored or discussed creating a public-facing dashboard so that our citizens can see how this is being used we have had those discussions as well as our drone flights okay maybe if i call up on that is that something that the department is planning to launch deploy create is it something you're just exploring no it's something that we've actually had very deep discussions on and what does that look like great Mr. Mayor, maybe just a couple more, then I'll wrap it up. How many Meridian Police Department employees can access this software?

To search or to place it in there? Any sworn officer can do a search.

Okay. And then how long is our current contract with Axiom? For sure.

Yeah, about 85 months remaining.

And would that contract auto-renew or would it require a separate action from the department?

No, we would have to have further discussions with them.

Thank you, Chief. I appreciate it.

Mr. Mayor.

Council Chair.

I think like I at least I would feel better if we and I'd love for you to brainstorm about this if the council and the mayor think it's wise but if we want to just think through as part of our processes and procedures if there could be a random auditing function of some kind That would make me feel better because it's like a double check, right? Just make sure that people have in the back of their mind, just like how when you send an email at work, you know there's a decent chance that your email could be reviewed by anybody, right? I think the same kind of concept with this type of technology makes a lot of sense. some sort of a random auditing function, I would just encourage you to explore that idea because I totally think that this is really critical technology. It's being used effectively. We have a lot of pressure around our operating costs. So to help our officers do more, I think it's an incredible tool. I just want to make sure that as you are, as we're going through using it, and even when we first approved, you know embracing these types of technologies it was with a lot of guard rails and just making sure that we're not taking it for granted and we're constantly improving right mayor councilwoman straighter

That's absolutely an easy push for us on the random auditing. We absolutely understand that. And I am going to toot the team's horn a little bit because having conversations with other people, they've complimented us on how reserved we are and how conscious we are of this technology and the guardrails that we've worked with Axon to put in place outside of just what they normally did. And that is something that we plan on continuing to do is working with them to come up with the best ways to do those things And as Lieutenant Frazier pointed out, they are working as well on even better auditing systems and better ways to go through those and alerts. And that's one of those things that certainly we welcome.

Mr. Mayor, would it be fair to say like that this could be an ongoing conversation? And I'm just curious, like, at what point does it make sense to come back and sort of provide an update? This is, you know, these are some of the improvements we've made. This is how it's going. Because again, when we first embraced this, we never said like, we're just going to go here and never look at this again. It was always with the understanding that we're going to constantly look at it, continue improving it and make sure that those guardrails are really strong.

yeah we actually planned on coming back early fall to actually discuss drones and we can do both of these in that same conversation, because I think you would be really impressed with the success we've had with the drone as a first responder Program thanks.

Chief on average, how many. license plate reader inputs are done a day or a week.

Mr. Mayor, it varies based on what's going on. At any given point in time, the Meridian Police Department is only looking for around 50 license plates total. They come in. The only people that can insert a plate are supervisors and designated support staff in the RTSC. If a plate is put in by a supervisor over the weekend, it's automatically reviewed at the beginning of the business week to see if it still needs to be in there. In the case of a missing person, if the missing person's found, that plate needs removed. So it does vary, but about 50 plates on average at any one time.

Three a day, five a day, 10 a day to be at that. I guess my point is like, what's to prevent a supervisor from reviewing every single day for now, whatever was put in the day before? Is that too onerous of an audit? currently with our current numbers going, I get it. It may go up and it may get to the point where it doesn't make sense, but is that too much to ask for right now?

I don't think so. But again, you know, over a holiday weekend, even three days is the maximum time frame we're hitting now before there's review. And we're very diligent about that because it's a maintenance issue with that. Only look for what you should be looking for. And it also eliminates noise and confusion for patrol. Speaking to the accuracy of the hit and what, you know, the confidence level that an officer can have in making a determination in the field that's incumbent upon us to feed them with the correct information, cut out the noise, and eliminate some of that false alerting that can occur.

Mr. Mayor?

Council Member Cavanaugh.

Question for maybe Mr. Neri, the Chief. Are these logs able to be public record requested?

Um, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, uh, council member, governor, these are requested a lot. I mean, they are reviewed, but believed by, by Tishra, our police attorney constantly. And we don't, we don't, uh, provide most of this information unless it is a public, unless it's a public available information anyway, but otherwise the, all the parameters are like, you've talked about, we don't provide that.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. Just to take a second and just kind of thank our police department chief and your command staff for the diligent work you've done on implementing this program. Obviously, a lot of thought went into it. Nobody in the city other than probably the police department and to some extent our IT department has had to deal with building safeguards around so many important systems over the last 10, 15, 20 years, dealing with security on NCIS, on islets, on our mobile data terminals. I mean, this isn't something that's brand new to you with the License Plate Reader program. You've had to deal with how to build security into systems for decades. And I'm impressed with what you told me. I think I feel good that this data is secure, that we have it, we hold it, no one else can have access to it. And honestly, if somebody did happen to get a picture of a vehicle on a license plate, they really have nothing. because they don't get to know the backstory of what the investigator is looking for or what that investigation entails. They don't get that information if they ever obtained what that vehicle or that plate was. So it's a tool that's an investigative tool that's, I think, made our community a much safer place to be, and hopefully it will continue to do that, much like everything else we do, specifically the drone program, which I can't wait to hear more about in the future as well. so for me it's great job i'm glad we're again leaders within our state doing this the right way helping the state code get enacted in such a way that i think we've done it right um that's it's something i'm very proud of and i like to always say that here at meridian we try to do things the right way we don't try to rush to get something done we think through it and uh it just continues to impress me when i hear how you guys put this together this evening so thank you

Thank you, and again I want to thank the command staff, because they really did do the heavy lifting on this program, and so they deserve the kudos, so thank you.

Council next up is item 15. Mr. Mayor, at this time I'd like to move to executive session for Idaho code section 74-206a subsection 1a Idaho code section 74-206 subsection 1c and Idaho code 74-206 subsection 1f.

I have a motion second to go to an executive session to have a discussion. If not, correct color.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Kavanagh straighter with lock little Roberts Overton.

I always much case will go on executive session. Council to have a motion. Mister mayor, I move that we come out of executive session that have a motion second come out of executive session in discussion if they'll pay for simple by saying aye aye aye those named yes ever out of executive session. That's what we're doing I move that we adjourn the workshop that it was a second journal paper saying that by saying aye aye those they yes have it we are adjourned. And we're just going to take a 3 minute break in between before we get started. or five, however long it takes.

Okay, let me get you all my other emails. Sorry.

Council will call this meeting to order. For the record, it is July 21st. Tuesday, July 21st at 6.05 p.m. We'll begin tonight's work at City Council Main with roll call attendance.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councilman Kavanaugh. Councilwoman Strader.

Here.

Councilman Whitlock.

Here.

Councilwoman Little-Roberts. Councilman Overton.

Here.

Mayor Simison.

Here. Next item is the Pledge of Leasen. If you'd all please rise and join us in the pledge. of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all next up is our community invocation which tonight will be delivered by jason billister if you'd all please join us in the community invocation or take this as a moment of silence and reflection

Mr. Mayor, thank you. Members of the City Council and ladies and gentlemen, please join me for prayer. Almighty God, thank you for another day of life and breath and opportunity to serve you and others. And God, I thank you for our mayor, our city staff, our city council members, and the Meridian community for this evening. And mighty God, we invite you here. We ask for your guidance, your wisdom, your keen discernment as we begin this meeting. Help us, Lord, to trust you more. And Lord, we give you this meeting and time And I pray that you will guide all discussion that brings meaningful outcomes and stronger bonds for our community. And God, I pray that they will be able to solve our city's problems and make good policies. And Lord, please bring a new level of peace and clarity to everyone involved in this meeting. Grant them excellence in their governance. And may your will be done in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Jason. Up next is adoption of the agenda.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. There are no changes to tonight's agenda. I move that we adopt the agenda as published.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it. And the agenda is agreed to. Council, anything under announcements and recognition? Okay. Seeing none, we will go on to our public forum. Ms. Corkin will sign up in her public forum.

Mr. Mayor, yes, we have two. First is Doug Hastings.

Good evening. Good evening. My name is Doug Hastings. Thank you for your service to our community. My concerns tonight are about potentially inadequate and improper scopes of work for traffic impact studies. Meridian's comprehensive plan dictates that citizens are stakeholders who are to be involved in quote, coordinating and directing the overall pattern of development activities within the community, close quote. The Comprehensive Plan also indicates that traffic impact studies may be required for certain developments. Primarily, ACHD, in concert with ITD, manages these studies, which evaluate current traffic volumes, the impacts of new development, and ensure that roads and intersections provide acceptable levels of service. The City reviews these ACHD studies as part of its development process. Research indicates that opportunities potentially exist for developers to circumvent the requirements for these traffic studies. For example, a developer with a large scale phase development may present its overall plan in a city mandated neighborhood meeting with residents, or perhaps during preliminary meetings with city planning staff. Under current ACHD policies, the developer is then allowed to potentially misleadingly present only a small phase of the overall project for ACHD review and for city approval. This incomplete process could dramatically understate the estimates for traffic impact. Analyzing only the initial phases of a larger development excludes key criteria such as future level of service scores, safety data, concurrent development, queue lengths, and other compliance components of ACHD's livable streets performance measures. Transportation infrastructure decisions that are made today will impact Meridian residents for decades. I respectfully ask the Council to investigate the processes associated with the creation and the review of traffic impact studies. New development should not be approved before honestly addressing transportation deficiencies. The roads are not ready. The infrastructure is not ready. Meridian's residents deserve better planning that ensures that roads, public safety, and quality of life keep pace with growth. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, next was Donna R. Hunt. It's an online sign up and she's not online. I can't hear you sorry sorry i'm Donna hunt I don't believe she's here and she's not online. Okay.

With that we'll move on to the rest of our action items for this evening. First time us as a partner in forces approval the fiscal year 2026 submitted revenues and expenditures in the amount of 250,000 $360 360,000 $333 Jenny are you presenting anything on this. If you just want to come up and explain to our public what we are actually taking action on.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. So the next three items is part of our fiscal year 27 budget development process. This is a formal adoption, not adoption, an indication that we are going to publish our budget as it states in our budget workshop on the 20th of June. So we concluded our budget workshop. This next phase is to publish our book and our budget notice in the paper for two consecutive weeks. So this is a purely a reading of the amount that you guys are going to tentatively adopt.

And that is item 2 so I don't wonder we're focused on is a culmination of this year's approved budget as well as all the budget members have been approved or the tentatively approved by Council to this point in time.

That's correct fiscal year 27 final budget. 26 all right jumped ahead. And then, do you want to talk about item three as well sure so item three is our declaration of intent to declare our that we're going to take our foregone amount for fiscal year 27 budget.

Council any questions for Jenny on any of these three items at this time.

Okay. All right, and with that customer to mr. Mayor change we action on each of these 3 individually correct correct. On item number one I move that we approve the fiscal year 2026 amended revenues and expenditures in the amount of 250,000 $360 no excuse me 250 million 360,000 $333.

have a motion and a second to approve item one is their discussion. If not, call the roll.

Thank you Mr. Mayor Kavanagh, Mr. Rader, Wedlock, Little-Roberts, Overton.

Aye. All ayes motion carries, and ayes agree to. Next up is item two, which is the Senate approval of fiscal year 2027 proposed revenues and expenditures the amount of $224,442,540 for purposes of publishing prior to the public hearing in August.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. Making the assumption that I approve the tentative approval, I would approve that we tentatively approve the fiscal year 2027 proposed revenue and expenditures in the amount of $224,442,540. Second. I have a motion and a second. Is there a discussion? Councilman Cavanaugh.

Mayor Mrakas, vote in favor of this this evening and may revise my opinion, as we get to a final vote and certainly invite the public to come in the way ended our public hearing is coming in in August, but i'm in full approval of this motion this evening.

Mayor Mrakas, You know, for the discussion that's quite cultural.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Kavanagh? Aye. Strater? Aye. Whitlock? Aye. Little-Roberts? Aye. Overton?

Aye. All ayes. Motion carries. The ayes agree, too. Next item up is item three, which is declaring the intent to collect foregone property tax for fiscal year 2027 in the amount of $536,339. Mr. Mayor.

I would move on item number three that we approve our declaration of the intent to collect foregone property taxed for fiscal year 2027 and the amount of $536,000 or $536,339. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve item three. Is there discussion on the motion? Councilman Cavanaugh.

Oh, nobody's surprised. I won't be voting in favor of this this evening. I think our community showed tremendous trust in us when they supported the levy last November and. As we went through the budget hearing process, I think I identified a little over half a 1Million dollars that we could remove from our budget. Mr. Mary, you said during our budget hearing that the foregone wasn't needed for ongoing expenses. And so I would encourage the council to take another hard look at the budget book between now and our public hearing. see if we could identify $536,339 worth of items to be removed. I recognize that could be a challenge, but I would really encourage the council to look at not collecting foregone this year.

Any further discussion? Quick call to roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Kavanaugh?

No.

Strater?

Aye.

Midlock? Aye. Roberts? Aye. Overton? Aye.

Four ayes, one nay, and the ayes misagree to. So we now have our numbers to publish for the public hearing in August. Okay, thank you. Okay, with that, we'll move on to our public hearing this evening, which is public hearing for Live Well H2026-0004. We will open this public hearing with staff comments.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So this application is for a conditional use permit and development agreement modification. The site consists of 1.16 acres of land that's on LO and is located at 3175 North 10 Mile Road. So in 2021, a request to rezone the property from R4 to LO zone and district was approved. The request was made per the provisions within the Meridian Comprehensive Plan for the purpose of constructing a 10,000 square foot office building in lieu of residential development and a development agreement modification to replace the existing agreement and enter into a new agreement to develop the site consistent with the proposed development plan. So council granted the office use, Slash zone and provisions outlined in the comprehensive plan. This application is for the modification of the existing development agreement to include an animal care facility as an allowed use on the current. As the current development agreement limits the uses to professional services, personal services, and healthcare and social services, and the conditional use for permit for the animal care facility if approved. Access to the property is from Eustick Road, which shall be an entrance only. So this area right here that can only come in, entrance only, and it will be signed to show that it is not an exit. The applicant will need to work with ACHD on any allowed curbing within the right of way to help ensure that this access is for ingress only. And then on North 10 Mile Road, it will be limited to a right in and right out only. Business hours of operation within the LO and CN districts shall be limited to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. per the UDC. The applicant is proposing to operate the business within the following hours, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, 12 to 6 p.m. The applicant will be required to operate within the hours that they provided. The applicant was also required to provide a 30-foot landscape buffer along these properties as they are adjacent to residential areas, residential homes. So they were required, the existing DA required a 30-foot landscape buffer and only a 20-foot landscape buffer along here. and the applicant did provide that. As far as specific use standards for animal care facility, all the animals shall be indoors at all times except for when being exercised and at such times animals shall be under the supervision and direct control of the caretaker. The animals will, they have a fenced in, they're proposing a fenced in area if they have to take the animals out to relieve themselves and they will be supervised at all time. The animal facility owner and operator shall comply with all the state and local regulations related relative to such a facility and shall maintain housekeeping practices designed to prevent the creation of a nuisance and to reduce noise and odor to a minimum. Again, these animals will be indoors at all time except for when relieving themselves. All animal waste will be maintained and discarded in a manner that minimizes odor. They need to coordinate with Republic Services for the appropriate size and location of the proposed trash enclosure and relocate it to an area that is away from the residential units. And currently, this is where they are proposing to put the... to put the trash enclosure so they have moved it away from the residential area. And this is the floor plan for the facility. So the applicant did provide some conceptual building elevations. As you can see, a certificate of zoning compliance and design review for this application has been submitted. So it will need to be reviewed and permitted prior to the submittal of the building permit application. and they have to meet our architectural standard manual. And for this type of building, they are required to provide one parking space per 500 square feet of gross floor. So they were only required to have eight parking spaces, but they did provide 43 parking spaces for this. The commission recommended approval of this. So Chad Jones, who was speaking on behalf of the applicant, was in favor of it, and also Neil Smith, who worked for Mission Pet Health, and he was representing the owner. there was no one in opposition of it no one commented and there were no written testimony and there have been no written testimony since the Commission hearing there were no outstanding issues for Council the only thing that the Commission talked about was the location but they did not have any issues with where it was been proposed they thought it was uh appropriate for the location so at this time i will be happy to take any questions that you may have on this application thank you linda council any questions for staff mr mayor cosmo law and as i understand it there is no overnight boarding correct see no other questions is the applicant here

Like to come forward and make any comments. Good evening.

Chad Jones, I'm representing ALC architecture 11190 State Street, Suite 120 Eagle, Idaho. We concur completely with staff. We work pretty extensively with staff to give

but the conditions require it and more.

If you want a real-life example of what this building is going to look like, we have a live well that just opened, grand opening here just a week ago right off Eagle Road. If you've seen it, I'm sure you've seen it driving down Eagle Road. That's what it's going to look like, just slightly smaller. So the exterior fabric is going to be identical. I will stand for any other questions if you have any.

council any questions for the applicant mr mayor councilman overton just out of curiosity you're required to have eight parking spaces but there's 43 that's a sizable increase is there a expectation that you're going to hold events at this location as well no you know um

A lot of times people, you know, meet their wives there or their husbands, you know, bringing their dogs for emergency care. So you might have an extra vehicle or several extra vehicles. And I'm not entirely sure what other events they may have. They may have like special things that, you know, talk about animal health or those types of things. So that's what's part of that extra space is for, is for those type of things.

Mayor Mrakas, This mirror was robertson slide went by pretty quick for me how many, and if I use the wrong term how many look like candles do you have inside or is it was it.

Mayor Mrakas, Those are exam exam room areas primarily. Mayor Mrakas, there's not really any candles. Okay.

Mayor Mrakas, Mr mayor. That's one little Roberts not yet not done yet sorry. So you're strictly it's strictly like a facility to come have your dog or any pet just their their shots there, so you don't do like surgery or anything like that there.

believe there are some surgical room spaces in there for that yes. So yeah you have your immediate care and you also have your extensive care, if you want to call it that.

So you could, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. So you could have an overnight situation with an emergency care or, you know, a dog gets hit or something like that? Or is this kind of strictly a planned medical?

Yeah, yeah, that's really it. I mean, you know, if an animal were to get hit or whatever, primarily they would go to an actual hospital.

hospital that had other facilities set up for that specific care not this one won't have that thank you okay now some additional questions okay thank you sir can one sign up to provide testimony on this item mr mayor no okay is there anybody who would like to provide testimony on this item if so if you would like to come forward now if you're online use the raise your hand feature Seeing no one coming forward and no one raising their hand online. Does the applicant have any final comments or did they waive final comments? Does the applicant waive no more comments? Okay. Applicant waives any final comments?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Camber.

Will we close the public hearing on item number four? Second.

I have a motion to second to close the public hearing. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed nay. The public hearing is closed.

that's what governor straight and forward uh and uh modified development agreement apologies so i'm going to move that we approve application h-2026-0004 as presented in the staff report of july 21st and include all applicant and staff testimony second have a motion second to approve item four is there discussion on the motion if not correct call the roll

Mayor Mrakas, Thank you, Mr mayor kavanagh straighter I would lock I little Roberts over to.

Mayor Mrakas, All eyes mush carry Sam is great to. Thank you very much. Next time up is executive session.

Mr. Mayor. Councilman Overton. I move that we go into executive session per Idaho code section 74-206A subsection 1A, Idaho code 74-206 subsection 1C, and 74-206 subsection 1F. Second.

I have a motion and a second to go into executive session. Is there a discussion? If not, call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Cavanaugh? Aye. Strater? Aye. Woodlock? Aye. Little-Roberts? Aye. Overton?

Aye. All ayes, motion carries, and we will go into executive session.