The Safety and Licensing Committee met 09/27/2023. It was a short meeting only lasting around 14 minutes. Most of it was taken up with discussion on the Police Department’s sole source request for Flock Safety Automatic License Plate Readers Cameras. These cameras were an investigative tool that provided real-time license plate information that was compared to a national database. The city had been running a pilot program which included 29 cameras placed in throughout the city and now wanted to continue that program with 19 of those cameras. The cost to maintain them through the end of the year was $36,150.
The committee voted unanimously to approve the request.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Police Chief Polly Olson told the committee that the Police Department had experienced tremendous success with the cameras during the pilot program. Through 05/01/2022 – 07/25/2023 the Police Department had 183 “verified successes” because of the cameras. Those included solving 30 hit and runs and 22 retail thefts, making 5 domestic violence arrests, and handling 19 major crimes including burglaries, weapons complaints, and fraud. They also recovered 30 stolen vehicles and 4 stolen license plates.
She pointed specifically to the incident of shots being fired on Linwood Drive on April 14 and the burglary of Expert Jewelry Repair on July 2 as cases that may not have been solved without the use of Flock Cameras.
She told the committee that the cameras were not used for routine traffic enforcement and could not be used to flag issues like expired registration or for speed enforcement. The most common traffic enforcement issue they used them for was for hit and run investigations and identifying vehicles that flee from officers. Additionally, police departments needed a specific reason to search for something, and there were audit trails and checks and balances. “They’re most commonly used as an after the fact, in fact, investigative tool, where we’re essentially looking at vehicle information pertaining to a specific investigation and responding to say hotlist alerts from the National Crime Information Center database, which is mostly for, say, stolen felony involved vehicles, missing persons, and things of that nature.”
After the pilot program, Chief Olson was proposing that the city maintain 19 of the 29 stationary cameras used in the pilot. There was also one mobile camera that has been placed on the city’s existing speed trailer, had been deployed throughout the city to address high crime areas, and positioned near special events. If they could have afforded to continue with 29 cameras, they would have, but in order to be fiscally responsible the Police Department cut them down to 19, picking the top 19 locations to maintain.
The cost through the end of the year was $36,000, and the Police Department had found money within its budget to cover that cost. They were bringing this forward to the Safety and Licensing Committee simply because the cost was over $25,000 which required it to be brought to their attention.
Next year, the cost to maintain the cameras for the entire year was going to be $54,000. In order to account for that in the 2024 budget they anticipated about a $5,000 increase in revenue with a restructuring over false alarms that would be coming before the Safety and Licensing Committee in the next month or two. They also expected to have some reductions in expenses including $7,000 for Narcan because they found a way to receive it through a state program, about $3,000 in Taser supplies, and the discontinuation of their Leads Online Contract which was a program with area pawn shops to identify stole goods. They also expected their tuition reimbursements for employees to go down in 2024 and they were going to reduce their career fairs travel budget by about $1,500.
Chief Olson told the committee, “As you can see, we literally went item by item line item in our budget and reduced where we could to come up with the $54,000 needed because we feel like this is just a critical safety item that we need for our police department.
It was a sole source contract because although other companies made automated license plate readers cameras, Flock’s cameras were utilized by several other Fox Valley municipalities including Neenah, Menasha, and Little Chute. They also integrate directly with Axon technology which manages the body cameras the Police Department uses.
The committee voted unanimously to approve the sole source request.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1112095&GUID=6F2085A8-F7B2-45D5-B106-83E1432C4D52
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