Let's do that again. Welcome everyone.
I, Council President Tolams, call the
May 11th committee of the whole meeting
to order at 6:31 p.m. As a reminder, we
continue to have remote aspect to our
meetings. Both staff and members of the
public may be participating in tonight's
meeting remotely via WebEx. There are
multiple public comment opportunities at
tonight's meeting. There is a general
public comment opportunity at the
beginning of the meeting or you can make
comments after the presentations and
council question and answer periods on
each of tonight's agenda items.
Basically, at the point where we switch
from an inform informative um aspect to
the uh item into the deliberative
deliberative aspect. Uh members of the
public may address council at this time
in person or virtually. Those who signed
up in advance to make comments will be
called on first. If you're joining us
virtually and would like to make
comments, please raise your virtual
hand. That means if you're on the phone,
please press pound three. If you joined
by a computer or a smartphone, look for
a hand icon or send the host a chat
message. If you're in the room and did
not sign up, I will ask for other
speakers before closing this portion of
the meeting. You're invited to address
the council regarding matters that are
directly related to tonight to Isaac's
ISiqua's programs, projects, services,
or events. Comments related to political
campaigns are not permitted. Please
direct comments to the whole council and
not individuals. While this is not a
question and answer session, we will
contact you to follow up if needed. When
recognized, unmute your microphone for
virtual attendees or step up to the
lectern in person attendees and then
state your name, address, and
relationship to the spa city. Speak
clearly and pause frequently. And please
limit your comments to 5 minutes. If you
are attending virtually and do not
respond after your name or phone number
is called or if your connection is lost
unexpectedly, the meeting will need to
proceed. Personal attacks, obscene
language, derogatory remarks, and
disruptive behavior will not be
permitted. For any groups in attendance
that may be interested to speak on the
same topic, please consider designating
a spokesperson. If you want to show
support for someone's comments, please
raise your hand. Uh clerk, can you
identify the first person who has signed
up to speak?
>> Yes. Um, and I'll be asking you to uh
come up two at a time and have the next
person kind of wait until um it's their
turn to come up. As Council President
Mart said, there are multiple public
comment opportunities tonight. If you
would prefer to wait to make remarks
until after the staff presentation on
the item you're here for, just say pass
when I call your name and I'll switch
you over to that list. Okay. So, the
first two people we have signed signed
up tonight are first Sam Bertis and
second Melissa W.
>> Uh, press the button.
>> Hello.
>> Good. All right. Hi, city council. I'm
officer Sam Berdis with the Isqua
Police. I'm patrol officer here. Today I
want to talk about how automated license
plate readers or ALPRs can support
community caretaking in Washington state
when they're used responsibly with
proper safeguards. In Washington, police
departments also use these system to
help to help find missing, abducted, or
endangered people. One of the most
important ways ALPRs help communities is
through rapid response. Imagine a child
abduction alert or a silver alert for an
elderly person with dementia. Officers
can receive alerts when a vehicle
connected to that case passes an ALPR
camera, helping officers act quickly and
potentially save lives. These systems
can also reduce investigation time,
allowing officers and detectives to
spend more time focusing on the
investigation elsewhere instead of
manually searching for vehicles. In
Washington state, lawmakers and local
agencies are also recognizing that
community caretaking is not only about
safety, but it is also about trust.
Recent leg legislation including Senate
Bill 60002
establish statewide privacy protections
and operational rules for ALPR systems.
These rules limit how long data can be
stored, require audits and training, and
restrict unauthorized data sharing. This
balance rem uh this balance matters
because many Washington residents have
raised concerns about privacy and
surveillance. Community members want
tools to improve safety, but they also
want assurance that these tools will not
be misused. Discussions across
Washington have emphasized the
importance of transparency,
accountability, and protecting civil
liberties while still allowing law
enforcement to investigate serious
crimes. Community caretaking works best
when public safety agencies and
residents work together. Responsible
ALPR use can support that goal by
helping officers respond faster to
emergencies and protect vulnerable
people, all while operating under clear
rules that respect privacy and public
trust. In the end, technology itself is
neither good nor bad. What matters is
how we use it. Isqua has the opportunity
to show that safety and civil rights do
not have to compete with each other.
Thank you.
>> Melissa W.
>> Good evening.
Good evening. I'm Detective Oritzky with
the Isqua Police Department and thank
you for the opportunity to speak
tonight. Um, I wanted to take a few
minutes to share some perspective on
investigative technology, specifically
automated license plate readers or
ALPRs. Um, and explain the tools and how
these are actually used in real
investigative work. I also want to give
a real world example of the kind of
behind the scenes investigative work
that most people never see.
So, back in December of 2023, I was
assigned a burglary case um in a local
isan neighborhood. During that burglary,
the suspect stole the victim's vehicle
and was captured on the Ring camera
pointing a firearm towards the house.
Watching that video was very unsettling
um because it was obvious how easily the
situation could have escalated or turned
deadly if the homeowner had confronted
the suspect or simply walked outside at
the wrong moment. The suspect was
clearly armed, bold, and dangerous. The
stolen vehicle was then entered into the
National Stolen Vehicle Database. Um,
and during the investigation, I used
ALPR technology. That technology led to
two detections of the stolen vehicle
within Seattle. One of those detections
showed the vehicle entering a store
parking lot, and from there, I was able
to obtain surveillance footage, and
positively identified the suspect.
Without the uh access to ALPR
technology, I likely never would have
identified the vehicle at that location,
obtained the surveillance footage, or
identified the suspect. After roughly
two and a half months of investigation,
I submitted the case to the King County
Prosecutor's Office and the suspect was
ultimately taken into custody. Now, fast
forward to March of 2026, just two
months ago. Abolo or be on the lookout
um was disseminated to law enforcement
agencies regarding um that same suspect
who is now allegedly involved in a
homicide in Reton. As many of you know,
Isakiqua borders Reton um and State
Route 900 is a major corridor connecting
the two cities. At the time of the
homicide, both Reton and Isakiqua camera
systems were disabled due to the
changing laws and regulations. Uh the
suspect was believed to be driving a
very distinctive vehicle with a known
license plate. Um, and in the past,
investigators would immediately use ALPR
systems to identify possible vehicle
locations uh to safely apprehend the
suspect and quick as quickly as
possible. Instead, several concerns came
to my mind. First, we had no functioning
ALPR systems available to quickly
determine whether the suspect vehicle
had entered our area, delaying the
possibility of apprehension. Second,
because of the proximity between Renton
and Isiziqua, I was concerned for my
2023 victim um could potentially be
targeted in retaliation. It's entirely
possible the suspect harbored resentment
towards the victim for cooperating in
the earlier case that led to his arrest.
Third, the suspect was known to be armed
and dangerous. Without advanced
information, an officer could
unknowingly encounter the vehicle during
a routine traffic stop with very little
warning about the risk level involved.
There are real public safety concerns.
If investigators had immediate access to
ALPR data, we may we may have been able
to determine within hours whether the
suspect had entered our city and
potentially accelerate the apprehension
process. Instead, the suspect remained
at large for more than a week. And a
week during that time, uh there was
continued and unnecessary risk to the
public. So cases like this highlight the
balance between law enforcement is
consistently trying to maintain
protecting civil liberties while still
having access to modern investigative
tools that that help keep communities
safe.
I also think it's important to
understand the amount of oversight and
accountability involved with these
systems. Many pe people assume officers
can simply search databases whenever
they want and that's absolutely not the
case. For example, ALPR data within our
system is retained for 21 days. Every
search I conduct must be tied to a
specific case number and a legitimate
criminal investigation. Every query is
logged under my individual credentials.
If I were to access information without
a lawful investigative purpose, I would
be held accountable for breaking those
rules. So, law enforcement officers
simply cannot search a database because
we're cops. There must be a documented
and lawful reason for every search
conducted.
I also think there's a great deal of
misinformation surrounding this
technology. I understand why there are
concerns and public health discussion is
important, but many assumptions and
information about how these systems work
or how law enforcement can access these
systems are inaccurate.
Ultimately, I believe technology can and
should be used responsibly with strong
safeguards to protect constitutional
rights while still allowing law
enforcement to effectively investigate
crimes and protect the public. Without
these tools, um, investigations would
become significantly more difficult. In
many cases, dangerous offenders would
remain unident un unidentified or at
large longer than they otherwise would.
It would be like stepping back in time
to detective work of the 80s, 90s or
2000s. I hope this provides some
perspective on the realities
investigators face and how these tools
are actually used in practice. Thank
you.
Next, we have Alex Helms, followed by
Jan Cox.
Perfect. All right. My name is Alex
Helps and I'm the community resource
officer for the Isqua Police Department
and I've had the honor of serving Isiqua
for eight and a half years now. So, I
wanted to share two Isiqua specific
examples that show how ALPRs uh support
deescalation and leads to safer outcomes
for both officers and the community. In
the first case, an alert officer was
flagged to a stolen uh license plate on
a pickup.
>> Oh, no. Can you get a little closer to
your mic? There we go. Thank you.
>> There we go. Uh, which is often a sign
that the vehicle itself is stolen. Uh,
officers located the truck parked in a
commercial lot and safely contained the
scene before making contact. The
registered owner soon returned and fully
cooperated with officers. Officers
determined that the vehicle was lawfully
owned and the issue was limited to a
stolen rear plate that had likely been
placed on the truck without the owner's
knowledge. The plate was recovered as
evidence. Because officers had real-time
information from the alert, they
approached it with awareness instead of
uncertainty. That allowed officers to
quickly reassess the situation, lower
the intensity of the encounter, and
resolve it calmly with no arrest or use
of force. The second case involves a
vehicle flagged as stolen. When
contacted, the owner explained that the
license plates have been legally
transferred from a previous stolen and
recovered vehicle. Documentation
confirmed the plate was properly
registered. Further investigation showed
the original stolen vehicle record had
not been updated. Once that was
verified, no enforcement action was
taken. Again, the alert served as a
starting point, not as a conclusion.
Officers used it to guide communication
and verification rather than escalate.
The situation resolved efficiently and
respectfully without unnecessary
detention.
These examples highlight how ALPR
support deescalation by reducing
uncertainty and providing clear realtime
information. Another key benefit is that
ALPR helps officers locate vehicles
while they are parked and unoccupied
rather than identifying them during
traffic stops. Without it, flag plates
are often discovered in motion, which
quickly escalates and leads to
high-risisk stops or even pursuits. When
a vehicle is stationary, officers have
the time to observe, coordinate, and
plan a safer approach. That creates a
more controlled environment and in law
enforcement control equals safety. This
reduces the likelihood of pursuits which
are among the most dangerous situations
for everyone involved and limits the
need for high-risisk stops which can be
stressful for the individual.
When officers have accurate timely
information, they can better distinguish
between real threats and
misunderstandings.
that leads to more measured responses,
fewered unnecessary escalations, and
more cooperative outcomes. Together,
these cases show that ALPR is a decision
support and deescalation tool. It
doesn't replace officer judgment. It
strengthens it by reducing uncertainty
and supporting safer, more balanced
interactions for everyone involved.
Thank you.
Takes me a second, guys. Sorry.
Is this where I do I unmute there?
Sticks.
Good evening, city council.
My name is Jan Cox and I am lucky to
live in this vibrant community. Um, my
address is now Seamish, but when we
bought our house, it was Isiqua. And so,
Isiqua is still home in my heart. It's
where I do all of my business and my
living and I call it home. So I um this
is that's why I care so much about the
city and what happens here.
>> I'm here tonight because I care deeply
about the kind of city that we choose to
be.
I do understand the arguments being made
in favor of the flock cameras. I
understand the desire to address the
traffic issues and the public safety
concerns. I know it's important.
I believe we all want safe
neighborhoods, but that's not the issue
before us tonight.
The issue is trust.
These cameras do not simply monitor
traffic. They create a vast system of
surveillance that tracks where people
go, where we travel, who we visit, where
we live, where we seek our medical care,
where we get our groceries. And this
information becomes stored data. And
once that data exists, it can be
accessed and shared and sold and
subpoenenaed and abused.
This is not speculation. It's happening
all over the country.
Many residents are especially alarmed
because license plate data has been used
by ICE and other agencies to locate and
detain immigrants. Many and or most of
whom are hardworking people with
families here and jobs, children's and
school, deep roots in our community.
There are neighbors and our friends and
we care about them. Regardless of
anyone's political beliefs about
immigration policy, we should all be
concerned when ordinary people begin
living in fear that simply driving to
work or to church or to a grocery store
or dropping our children off at school
or workers filling up their tanks at the
gas station and being abducted. or
Latina moms walking their children who
are afraid to walk their children to
school can be placed on a government
tracking system where it can they can be
easily found by ICE.
I have lived as you can tell a very long
life and I have lived and breathed and
truly understand the real value of our
immigrant communities. I grew up in the
Selenus Valley in California which is
called the salad bowl of the of the
world. We supplied produce everywhere. I
was raised around immigrants and these
were the laborers who worked our
surrounding fields.
Oops sorry.
They did extremely hard, backbreaking
work that our citizens would not do.
They took jobs our people didn't want.
They were grateful for the opportunity
for this work. These immigrants were
good, honest people who h whose hard
labor provided the benefits that
sustained our country. I went to school
with their children. They were our
neighbors and our friends whose children
went on to become productive citizens
and lead which rich full lives in our
country. These immigrants were the
backbone of our economy then and they
still are. And we couldn't survive
without them. We couldn't run this
country but benefits of the jobs that
they fill all across the nation in so
many industies industries and their
value cannot be underestimated.
It's the reason I care so much about the
injustice and the cruelty that is
happening to them and it just hurts my
heart. This is the kind of surveillance
and it's just another tool would be aid
in their aiding to their oppression.
A healthy city depends on trust between
residents and local government and
surveillance erodess that trust.
But I also want to speak to directly to
the economic concerns as well because I
know that matters and because I know
this city cares deeply about its
reputation and its business growth. Many
people of conscience are now paying
attention to which communities are
embracing surveillance systems that may
aid in the aggressive immigration
enforcement. And more and more people in
our communities are making decisions
about where they shop and where they
dine and where they have their
businesses, where they hold their
events, and where they spend their
money. The people don't want to spend
money in places where their neighbors
are being tracked and targeted. The
city's reputation matters.
We do want do we want to become known as
a welcoming forward-thinking community
that values civil liberties and dignity
or do we want to become a city that
helped normal no help normalized mass
surveillance because it was convenient
as we know history tends to judge
harshly
is at my time I'm sorry can I can I just
finish that sentence it tends to judge
harshly the moments people surrendered
freedoms little by little in exchange
for promises of security. Tonight you
have a u an opportunity to show courage.
I encourage you to please choose
community trust over fear. Thank you for
listening.
>> Thank you.
>> Noting a number of hands went up on
that.
>> Next we have Marggo Horn followed by
Sarah Ryder.
Hello, my name is Margot Horn and I'm a
new transplant from Chicago and a proud
resident of this beautiful town of
Isiqua. I'm here to uh categorically
state that I am opposed to uh ALPRs and
specifically flock cameras. I feel it's
a real violation of my right to privacy
both in the constitution.
uh and it it's just just completely uh a
concern to me and I really want to say
how opposed to it I am. I I have no
trust in the data, the security of the
data with flock and uses of it. I am
supportive of law enforcement, but I
think that the flock is an is a real
additional concern and it has no place
in our our town at all. In fact, I would
like to recommend or propose a an
ordinance banning flock cameras
specifically from Isiqua and our
borders. I would really like to see that
from this council, an ordinance banning
the flock cameras. And I don't think
it's good for business either. Um I have
an example. Well, I recently had an
evening out with with friends, a group
of friends, none of whom live in Isiqua,
and we had dinner on Front Street and we
saw Greece at the Village Theater. It
was a lovely evening, but all of those
people, every single one of them had
indicated that they are not going to be
coming to Isiqua anymore if these flock
cameras are in place. You know, it's
just impinges on their privacy, too. And
they can take their entertainment
dollars and their shopping dollars
elsewhere. And I think we have to really
be cognizant of that because we have
such a lovely community that people like
to come to and it is not good for
business. So that's really all I want to
say to say about this, but I really
really uh urge you to consider very
strongly um not bringing uh ALPR
specifically flock cameras to our
community. And I also would like to see
an ordinance passed by this council
banning flock cameras from our city
borders. Thank you very much.
>> Number of hands went up on that one as
well.
>> Hi, I'm Sarah Ryder. I live in the Talis
community in Isiqua and um just like
Margot was saying, I would like to ask
the city council to put an ordinance
against ALPRs that specifically host and
our data is collected on the cloud. Um
I'm all for ALPRs. I do work
professional security and I'm all for
ALPRs when they're in-housed and they
are a closed loop system and I'm all for
that. However, I'm not okay with a
cloud-based system, especially from a
private tech company who wants to
install them on public streets. So, I
would ask the council respectfully to
pass an ordinance against any ALPRs that
host their data on cloud-based service.
Thank you.
>> A lot of hands went up on that one, too.
>> Next, we have uh Nico Rondelli, followed
by Jen Hegodorn.
Um before I begin, I would like to thank
council for allowing me the opportunity
to give public comment today. So my name
is Nika Randinelli. I am a student at
Gibson High School in the Isiqua School
District as well as an intern for
Council Member Walsh.
We've already seen so many people in our
community come out against flock cameras
and I really don't see how any of it can
be interpreted as a better move for
Isiqua.
Surveillance does not keep people safe.
Flock uses sneaky tactics in their
marketing and messaging to claim that
they don't collaborate with agencies
like ICE, but their technology has
already been used in thousands of
lookups for ICE, as well as nationwide
searches for people crossing state
borders to receive reproductive
healthcare.
Your constituents have made their voices
heard. We do not want flock in Isiqua.
As leaders, it is your responsibility to
listen to the people. Thank you.
>> Number of hands went up on that as well.
>> Yes, Jen Hegodorn.
>> Thank you. My name is Jen Hegedorn. I
live up the hill on West Sunset and I'm
also the pastor at Spirit of Peace
United Church of Christ here in Isiqua.
I want to thank you all for responding
to the strong community concern about
flock cameras that were originally in
the grant that you all will be talking
about later. However, I am disheartened
to hear that ALPR cameras are not only
still being considered, but that Mayor
Mullet made a presentation about their
necessity just last week at Timber Ridge
to some of my congregants.
My faith compels me to stand with those
who are most vulnerable and I am deeply
concerned about how ALPRs
open our most vulnerable community
members to higher levels of
surveillance. The UDub Center for Human
Rights published a study last August
called Leaving the Door Wide Open where
they detailed the front doors and the
back doors that give DHS access to data
often without local police department
knowledge. And I see Phil Nef on the
screen, so I won't say more about that.
Y'all can hear it from the expert
himself.
My concern is that installing ALPR
cameras, whether we intend it or not, is
like sending an invitation to ICE,
unlocking the door, and then entrusting
the key to a private company. A company
that has already shown it will use that
access however it sees fit. systems
outlive our original intentions. Human
rights must always be the priority.
In the news last week, White House
borders our Tom H. Homeman described his
plan to increase deportations by quote
flooding the zone. He promised that
people would see more ICE arrests than
ever before and that when that happens,
people he called collaterals,
so those who were not the target, again,
so much dehumanizing language, would
also be arrested. I think there's a
sense among those of us who have
citizenship status, who are white, who
are not the targets or connected to
targeted communities, that things are
better right now.
They are not. Every day, people in east
side cities are being detained. I hope
that you all as leaders are hearing
these stories. Fear remains the daily
reality of thousands of our neighbors.
It shapes every decision, every
interaction, every moment. And we can't
let our guard down at this moment. And
in our current world, ALPR cameras serve
to do the exact opposite. They gamble
with protections of the most vulnerable.
They ask us to trust the asurances of a
private company and a federal government
that do not care about the community we
call home. True public safety cannot
come at the cost of lives of the lives
and well-being of our immigrant
neighbors. I urge you to support the
ordinance that would put a ban on ALPR
cameras, serious restrictions that don't
leave our data to chance. Thank you so
much.
Number of hands went up on that as well.
>> Next we have Nicholas Herang followed by
Eleanor Surumgard.
Hello city council and mayor. Uh I'm a
lifetime Isakqua resident and uh
currently live in Oldtown just a couple
blocks away. I walked here um and I am
deeply in love with this city. Because
of this, I'm also deeply opposed to
Isakiqua implementing flot cameras or
any kind of ALPRs that have a
centralized data system that is not
fully under Isiqua's control. As you've
heard from many people, flot cameras
pose a risk to the security and privacy
of residents and visitors in Isiqua. And
this is not evenly distributed.
The risk is taken on by people of color,
immigrants, low-income individuals, LGBT
community members, and those seeking
reproductive care. There are many, many
documented cases of ICE using flot
cameras to track and target people and
other places where it has been marked,
walled off, and that has not stopped uh
access by the federal government or
other agencies. Um, so again, I'm firmly
opposed to flot cameras being
implemented in Isiqua and I would fully
support an initiative to uh block this
sort of thing in the city. Thank you.
>> Any hands went up for that one?
>> Hi, city council. Thank you for the
opportunities to speak. I've been a
resident of Isiqua for 14 years and I
have uh been a voter since I turned 18
and I am also against the implementation
of ALPR and flock cameras. I um echo the
sentiment of many of our uh residents so
far um saying that the uh surveillance
is not uh perfect and would not uh
provide safety if gone through flock. I
am opposed to um this because uh it has
been shown that while um local law
enforcement might be held accountable,
the federal um law enforcement will find
a way to use this data against our um
community. And I want Isiqua to be a
welcoming community like it's been all
the time I've lived here. And I don't
think that this would encourage that.
Thank you.
So that a number of people supported
that statement as well. Um I I want to
take a moment every so often and when we
have large uh uh public comment
sections, I like to just sort of
summarize what we've heard so far just
so the kind of we know where we're at.
So we heard initially about uh ALPRs as
a public safety tool and IPD policies
and um Senate Bill 60002.
We heard concerns about ALPR data use uh
by federal agencies including ICE. We
heard about uh privacy concerns. Uh we
heard suggestions to ban flock cameras.
We heard a slightly different suggestion
to ban cloud data ALPRs. Uh we heard
concerns about flock corporate policies
and we heard about concern for
vulnerable community members. Just
wanted to sort of see where we were thus
far.
>> Thank you.
Next we have John Zl followed by Anne
Fletcher.
Thank you, city council. Uh my name is
John Zmel. I'm an Isiqua resident. Uh
[clears throat] would like to share my
perspective on flock as a data uh
technology professional who's worked on
remote sensing systems similar to this
one in the past. Uh, I'll get right to
the point. Um, due to the design of
flock system,
any data gathered in Isiqua would be out
of the control of Isiqua's officials.
It's impossible to make any meaningful
guarantee
on what might happen to Isiqua data once
it's collected by a camera that is
connected to and operated by a
nationwide network.
We've all been online and experienced
how data that is stored uh can be
breached. In 2025, there were 4,000
breaches in the US alone. Uh I mentioned
this just to help keep in mind that data
rarely stays where you hope it stays.
Uh so what about flock specifically?
Flock is [clears throat]
uh unfortunately a poster child for this
principle.
Uh let me provide some examples from the
state of California which I've chosen
because they actually have a state law
that makes it illegal to share a to
share [clears throat] ALPR data uh with
outofstate agencies.
[clears throat] Yet still uh in Capola
in 2025, local flot camera data was
accessed in over 3 million outofstate
searches, including by immigration
enforcement. The police chief of Capola
says these were inadvertent and were not
the result of any deliberate attempt by
city staff to circumvent California law.
I believe her. Santa Cruz 2025. The
police chief reported the flock safety
system inadvertently permitted law
enforcement agencies outside of the
state of California to search. Referring
to their local data, the police chief
also added these violations were not
known to the Santa Cruz Police
Department.
Elserto California.
Police say that federal agencies gained
access to their flock cameras without
their knowledge.
The police department then worked with
Flock to install safeguards to limit
access. However, additional accesses
accesses by federal agents were
discovered again. The police chief says
that uh came as a surprise to me.
Also, San Francisco, also Richmond, it's
happened here in Washington State. It's
happened here in King County.
[clears throat]
I think you get the idea. So I want to
be clear that I personally believe that
these cities and police departments
were trying their best to adhere to
their state law only to find that the
company the app that they depend on
could not deliver.
So I believe this is flock specific.
Flock
doesn't [clears throat] just operate in
the town it operates in. It's connected
to a nationwide network by uh through
its architecture that is centrally
controlled by a software company in
Atlanta. It's a sharing driven
architecture and a sharing driven
business model and it can provide the
appearance of control but it does not
provide real control or security as all
these cities have learned the hard way.
My suggestion is that a system could be
chosen
that meets the criteria that we have
here in Isiqua,
which could be that our data stays here
within control of our city officials and
our police department, not software
engineers 3,000 m away and not
opportunistic outofstate agencies. Uh,
I'm sure we could find a better tool for
the job. Thank you for your time.
>> Any hands went up on that?
Next we have BJ Alum and David Kappler.
Hello. Um my name is BJ Alum. Um I'm a
resident of Isiqua for about four years.
I live over on Dogwood. Um I want to
thank the city council for their
attention to this issue so far. I know
it's raised a lot of outcry and I do get
the sense that the city council is
listening um and prioritizing it like it
being on the agenda tonight. I really
appreciate that and I think it speaks
well of the council. Um I also want to
encourage the city council to pass as
early as possible an ordinance that
would explicitly um put in strict guard
rails around what kind of ALPR data
could even be pursued to be put up in
public in Isiqua. Um, I think that
people have been pretty clear about
features that disturb them. And I would
like to see an ordinance um, put in
place that specifically prevents
technologies that fit that profile from
being considered. Um, things like making
sure that that data does not go to a
sharable uh, queryable national
database, that it's only accessible by
um, ISQUA officials for known reasons
um, related to active serious crime,
things like that. So, thank you very
much.
>> Any hands went up for that comment?
>> Okay, next we have Reagan Harper
followed by Will Keryotti.
Hi, council. My name is Reagan Harper
and I live nearby on Newport Way. Um, I
appreciate the perspective supporting
Flock and thank those who have shared
already. Um, I love our little town and
I'm so thankful I get to raise um, our
children here, my children. I work in
the schools and I'm heavily involved
with my kids and their friends. Um, and
regarding flock cameras, um, I don't
think our kids need more cameras and
surveillance in their lives. Um, I have
five kids ranging from elementary
through high school age. Um, uh,
including kids who are starting to
drive. They're already growing up
surrounded by cameras everywhere in
stores, homes, cars, public spaces
in a world moving so quickly toward a
surveillance state. I would love to see
our local kids protected from that as
much as possible. Um, I was impressed
when Lynwood completely shut these
systems down due to concerns about the
footage becoming public data. Um, to
quote a councilwoman in an article from
the Lynwood Times in February of this
year, the contract with Flock has failed
on its most basic requirement, trust.
Council was not promptly informed of a
data access breach. Promises that the
system would not be used for immigration
enforcement were broken. Safeguards we
were told were in place did not work.
With where technology is headed, how do
we know safeguards would not be broken
in other areas? Um, besides what Lynwood
recently experienced with immigration, I
think it's important to start putting
reasonable limits in place now rather
than continuing to normalize more
surveillance in everyday community life.
I would love to see an ordinance that
restricts the types of surveillance
technology allowed in Isiqua and for
those protections to be in place before
any grant money is accepted.
Thanks for the work you all are doing
and for taking the time to listen.
Many hands went up on that comment.
>> Uh, hello council members and thank you
for the floor. For the record, I'm Will
Keryotti. I live in Isiqua and I go to
school in Isiqua. I love it here. You
may or may not remember, but I spoke
about Flock cameras before when we were
trying to get them on the agenda. And
when I spoke then, I brought up concerns
about my own safety as a person who has
been, for lack of a better term,
stalked. Um, tonight, I'd like to talk
about the safety of my friends and
neighbors instead. Um,
that night when cameras were brought up
as a potential agenda item,
the phrasing used to characterize the
response was a range of opinions. Um,
but it wasn't a range. It was a range of
reasons. It was people afraid of ICE
stalkers, domestic abusers because this
data has been leaked before to people
that wasn't just government. Um,
and
there was a lot of reasons to be afraid,
not just of vice, but definitely of ice.
Um,
but
sorry, one moment.
What the community response was was in a
sense unanimity because
everyone there had different reasons but
everyone there was afraid.
Afraid for themselves, for their
families, for their friends, for
whoever.
The council and the police force are
meant to serve citizens.
and everyone
being afraid isn't serving us.
Even if we trust our local forces to use
these resources responsibly, the
resources themselves, flock can't be
trusted due to the fact that flock is so
lax with their security and flock, the
way the system works, it isn't all
within our control.
Um, I understand that flock could be a
convenient tool for in some ways making
Isiqua more safe,
but it's not the tool we need. The
avenue to safety is very, very rarely
through convenience.
There is a clear line of what should and
shouldn't be okay here. And I really
urge you to consider the fears you're
hearing about from community members
today. Thank you for your time.
>> Many hands went up on that comment.
>> Nathan Paige is the last speaker who has
signed up in advance.
>> Hi. Uh thank you for hearing everybody's
comments today. Uh I'm glad I did not
come with uh prepared remarks since I
ended up being the very last speaker um
of those here in person today. Um but uh
to kind of try and underscore what some
of uh us are saying
um I also would be in support of an
ordinance blocking flock specifically
and this kind of uh centralized
especially third-party privateowned ALPR
systems.
um
to liken this to uh kind of a concept.
Um
some of my fellow residents here have
been saying uh that it we we've heard
from members of the police department
that it's an issue of trust. Um but it's
actually not an issue of trust. Uh we
already know that these systems um have
poor security, have been abused, uh will
be abused again. Um, and it's sort of
like, you know, if our police department
is like if there's like a guy, our
police department is like if there's a
guy sitting next to a river and the
river is all information on private
citizens of the country, our policemen
can dip their hands into the river and
uh get specific pieces of information
now and again. Uh but the question that
we the residents are asking is what of
the larger river? Uh there are many
people who have their hands in this
river and uh even if uh we trust uh our
own local police department. Uh again I
want to underscore that due to the
architecture of the flock system. This
is a national database. Um other if we
install flock system uh cameras into our
neighborhood uh we become part of that
national system. It is not just that our
police department um has access to this
but again uh ICE and other uh agencies
who have access to this system uh be it
in Washington state or clear across the
country um can look in and see
information relative uh related to uh
everybody here uh if you live here. Um
so uh that is my larger concern and
um let's see yeah even to underscore um
part of the mention of uh their poor
security um in coverage of flock cameras
um uh journalist pieces and even videos
by simple YouTubers have featured uh
like video clips um that they took
directly from flock cameras because as
it turns out the security is so poor
that um even being in relative proximity
to a flot camera gives you uh somewhat
easy access. Um it's probably not uh
your mother-in-law who is going to be uh
accessing this footage, but um anyone
who is like relatively determined uh and
can do some web searches uh can find out
how to do this and accomplish it. So uh
I'll access or uh I'll uh
reiterate the uh my support also for
like a closed loop um system uh such as
my fellow resident mentioned. Um if we
ourselves control the data or our own
police department controls the data then
it's relatively uh safe in our own hands
and again we would have more say into
actually who gets to access it in that
case. Uh, thank you.
>> Many hands went up for that comment.
>> Uh, council president, we do have a few
members of the public with us virtually,
but none of them have indicated a desire
to speak at this time.
>> So, we will ask now if anyone who has
not signed up wishes to speak this
evening, either in person or remotely.
And I'll read the additional uh themes
that I heard in the second group of
speakers. Concerns around cloud data
vulnerabilities. Uh lo a need for local
data control requirements. A need for an
ordinance with data guard rails or a
closed loop. Less government
surveillance in general. Uh a concern
about leaked data potentially
endangering stalking victims. And then
concerns around native uh national data
access. So, I want to thank everyone for
their public comments and remind that
there will be uh time for additional
public comments beyond what we've heard
already uh in both of the items that
we're going to have this evening. Um and
with that, we will move to the first of
our items. Um this is a council of the
whole meeting, so these are
bothformational items. No action will be
taken this evening. We're basically
acting as a big sevenperson committee at
this point. So, our first item this
evening is COOM0258,
a SOQA climate action plan, presented by
Stacy Vin McKinstry, our sustainability
manager, and David Rei, our
sustainability coordinator.
and members of the council. Uh, as
mentioned, my name is Stacy Vin
McKinstry. I'm the sustainability
manager and joined tonight by David Rei,
our sustainability coordinator.
The 2021 Isakiqua climate action plan
was written as a fi it to include a
five-year uh update. Tonight, we're here
to share with you an overview of the
process we have undertaken to update the
IAAP, share a summary of major updates,
including highlighting a selection of
targets and actions, and discuss the
next steps for review.
The direction we seek from you tonight
is how to move forward with the IAAP
review and adoption.
When staff began the process to update
the IAP about a year ago, we anticipated
making a few minor changes uh improving
connections between some of the actions
and targets and cleaning up the measures
and how we were reporting to the
community. The 2021 plan was well
informed by the community and identified
a strong vision, goals, and strategies
that we wanted to retain. As we embarked
on the process, we identified the need
for a more significant update and many
changes. This came through multiple
meetings with committees, boards, and
commissions, as well as our research and
review of updates to climate plans in
neighboring jurisdictions.
There were several targets that needed
to be refined, and we also wanted to
broaden many of the actions to allow for
more flexibility to implement the most
meaningful and impactful actions over
time. One driver for these changes, as
I'll uh speak to a little bit more in a
few minutes, is the proposal to move to
a 10-year plan that required that we
build in more flexibility as well as
multiple checkpoints throughout the
process.
Our approach over the last year to
update the plan was broken into three
phases, and I'll walk through each of
these. During the spring and summer of
last year, we formed two committees. We
really wanted to take a deep dive into
some sections of the plan that we
thought needed additional work. This was
the natural systems section because many
of those actions did not link to the
target and the target also needed to be
reviewed. The other section that we did
a deep dive into was the land use and
transportation section. That was because
many of the existing actions in the 2021
plan were related to the title 18 update
which had um happened during this
process. We wanted to really take a
fresh look at many of the actions in the
plan. For the natural systems committee,
we invited members of the environmental
board, the park board staff and
snowqualami tribe to participate for the
land use and transportation section that
included or committee excuse me that
included members of the environmental
board, PPC, TAB and staff. During this
time, we also met u multiple times with
the environmental board on the approach
timeline and um process for updating the
plan.
During the fall and winter, staff worked
on revisions to the actions based on the
input we had received from the
committees and began revising the plan
content. We started an in-depth review
of the proposed action revisions with
our boards and commissions. And we also
vetted those actions internally with
staff across multiple departments.
Our purpose for engaging with TAB, PPC,
and the park board was to get an early
review of the feedback we'd heard from
the committees so that we could then
engage with the environmental board,
receive their feedback in an iterative
process.
Excuse me.
Mirror Pauly also held a town hall in
the fall to share the progress that we
had made on IAP implementation and gain
input uh from the community.
Our next step was to form a metrics
committee in the winter. That group
began a deep dive into the measures in
the plan. The original IAP had a lot of
challenging components to measure and we
didn't have a lot of clarity on how we
were going to measure and report out on
implementation.
This committee gathered together to
propose recommendations and make the
measurements simpler and more
transparent so we could really
demonstrate our progress or lack there
of lack thereof progress. The metrics
committee was made up of members of the
environmental board, TAB, the general
public, and staff.
In the winter and spring, we worked with
students from Gibson High School to
complete a survey of youth priorities so
we could incorporate that feedback into
the plan. We continued to review the
actions and target revisions with our
boards and commissions and we engaged
with the U. PTE committee two times to
review those proposed actions.
We also continue to vet with department
staff.
Right. So that is a summary of the
process that we've been going through
over the last year. Uh next I wanted to
turn to summarize some of the major
updates that we're proposing for the
2026 ISO climate action plan.
I will in just a moment dive a little
bit deeper into some of the target and
action revisions.
So, one of the uh major revisions that
we're proposing this plan is removing a
lot of the background that described the
development that led up to the 21 plan
2021 plan. Instead, we're incorporating
the progress that we've made since 2021
in terms of implementation as well as
progress towards our targets.
As mentioned earlier, we're also
proposing a 10-year plan. uh we are
including many checkpoints throughout
the process to ensure that we are on
track or that we can revisit the plan
and the actions within if we find
ourselves off track. In general, we feel
like we know the types of work that
needs to be done and we've created
actions that provide flexibility so we
can um make choices and implement uh the
best actions at at the time of
implementation.
We've also worked to improve the
connections between actions, targets,
and measures. Um, as discussed
previously, there were a lot of targets
and actions that we felt were
disconnected. We reworked many of those
to ensure alignment um with the
associated actions and uh to ensure that
we have measures we can report out on to
council and the community.
We have also broadened many of our
measures. In the 2021 plan, there were
specific actions that called out a
particular campaign. Instead, we've um
really worked to make those actions more
flexible so we can implement those best
practices over time.
We have vetted and incorporated a
selection of actions that we feel are
going to be very impactful. This was
based on input from our um committees,
commissions, boards, and the PTE
committee. Um these actions are more
policy focused and they will require
further review and analysis but we feel
like they'll have a large impact in
terms of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions.
We have uh restructured the
implementation plan of the IAP to
provide more transparency in terms of
likely cost when the action would be
initiated and who would be the lead
whether that's a department or a partner
organization.
This plan also continues to recognize
the absolute essential component of
community engagement that is both in
terms of calling out specific actions to
engage community members as well as
tracking that level of engagement. Uh
this was really incorporated through a
lot of public comment that we had
throughout the process as well as
environmental board feedback.
And then finally, uh, this plan really
does call out the need for utility,
state, and federal regulations in order
for us to meet our targets. We cannot
meet those greenhouse gas emission
reduction targets with local action
alone, and we recognize that in this
plan.
So, next, I'm going to dive a little bit
deeper into uh some of the targets that
were updated through this plan.
I wanted to start with just a general
note about the targets. Uh we have made
minor changes to targets throughout the
plan. We believe that the targets are
attainable based on current knowledge
and experiences.
However, there's no given that we will
meet them. We really need to see major
shifts in behavioral in behavior. We
need federal, state, and utility policy.
Um and with that we do think that the
targets presented in the 2026 plan will
be attainable. Of course we don't know
what changes we might see from
technological, political or legal um
over the next 10 years that may
influence our ability to meet those
targets.
So I wanted to just touch base on um one
of the major targets that we're
proposing for revising in this plan. Uh
this is our uh tree canopy target that
sits within the natural systems and
water resources focus area.
We underwent many discussions with park
board, environmental board staff, uh
many public comment on this target to
really come up with a revised target
that we think is achievable.
So our current target is a 55% tree
canopy by 2035. And what we've proposed
or revised in this plan is instead
looked at the number of acres that we
would plant uh by 2035 in order to
achieve a a tree canopy of 53% by 2050.
We do think that this is achievable.
It's going to be challenging. Um but
according to our um urban forester, the
planting acreage is available and we can
track our progress towards this target.
We also added two new targets to this
section. One is looking at our tree
distribution and we'd be measuring that
through uh looking at a tree equity
score across our census blocks by 2035
achieving a 90% tree equity score. Um,
and then the other, and I'll just note
too that that one really aligns with
objectives in our urban forest
management plan as well as one of the
callouts from our lead for city
certification of looking at tree equity.
Um, and then we just learned that the
state uh also has a goal around tree
equity of looking at 75% tree equity
score across census, urban census
blocks. So, we'd be striving to go a
little bit higher than that state goal.
Um, in addition for this focus area of
natural systems and water resources,
we've added a water target. Uh, we
didn't previously have any targets
around water. So, in consultation with
our public works staff, we've included a
target for meeting water reduction t um
a water reduction goal as identified in
our water system plan to ensure that
we're consistent with goals that we're
setting with the state.
Next, I wanted to highlight one of our
other focus areas where we've made major
changes both to the targets and actions.
Um, this is our community resilience and
well-being focus area.
This was an example of a section of the
plan where many of the actions weren't
measurable. Um, and we really wanted to
ensure that we had both targets that
were measurable, um, and we could report
out on progress as well as a series of
actions that made sense helping our
community prepare, respond to, and
recover from any climate emergency.
Uh, this section was really informed uh,
not only by the measures committee, but
also in consultation with the
environmental board and our emergency
manager.
Moving one layer deeper to our actions.
Um I wanted to note that we have
retained uh and clarified some of our
most meaningful actions or critical
actions throughout the plan that really
address our biggest greenhouse gas
emissions around buildings and
transportations.
Um we have really touched um revised
many of those actions to make them
stronger and more flexible over time.
There are a number of new actions that
we're introducing in this plan. Uh just
to give a snapshot of some of those,
they include actions around workforce
development, looking at a more dedicated
funding stream, uh water conservation
programming that was not previously
included, uh programs that help address
invasive uh vegetation to uh make our
tree canopy more resilient to climate
change, and then um actions around waste
reduction. particularly uh there was
interest from the environmental board on
single-use plastics.
In addition to um highlighting some of
those new actions, I wanted to highlight
a few of the actions that we think will
need further council review and
discussion. These actions I raised in
particular because they may involve a
new policy. While any proposed policy in
this plan would undergo additional
evaluation to consider impacts,
benefits, greenhouse gas reductions,
costs to the community or business. Um
we want to make sure that the council is
comfortable advancing these uh proposed
policies in the plan before moving
forward. Uh some of these proposed
actions also uh there may be a question
around our role or the ability for us to
advance such an action. Um particularly
staff have flagged the um action around
uh opportunities and partnerships for
acquiring timber sales and whether
council would be comfortable including
that. So while we are not going to
discuss these actions this evening, I am
flagging them just to recognize that we
uh would like to engage in further
council conversation to discuss these
actions prior to finalization.
So where are we now? Um the
environmental board uh at our meeting
last month recommended a few additional
sections that we include in the plan. Uh
we are in the process of preparing
those. They relate to uh identifying
what we're not able to do in this plan
because of for instance legal
constraints um as well as a call to
action for the community.
Um other than uh seeing those two
sections, the environmental board
essentially has given uh kind of a
thumbs up pass of the targets and
actions and the draft narrative of the
plan.
Um and we are also finalizing all the
narrative, working on formatting and we
anticipate having a full draft plan uh
ready for review by the end of May.
Um, as mentioned, the environmental
board did provide that verbal support
for the draft plan. Um, and they
anticipate preparing a formal
recommendation to council at their June
10th meeting when they'll they will
receive that full formatted draft. We
are aiming for council approval of the
plan by July or within July in order to
inform our budget requests for 27 and
28.
So tonight, as mentioned, the the
question we have before you is um what
would you like your next step to be for
review? Uh we've proposed a few options.
Uh one is to bring back to a committee
of the whole on June 8th for a full
review of the draft plan and to discuss
specific actions or other aspects of the
plan that you're um interested in
digging into. The second would be option
would be to bring to council June 15th
for that full review
uh prior to making any decision on how
to move forward. And then the third
option would be to pass back to the PTE
committee for further discussion and
deep dive um prior to coming back to
council. Um and those would be in either
early June or July.
So, our next steps are finalizing that
content and the design of the plan,
bringing to the environmental board for
final approval and their formal
recommendation to council. Um, and then
following the pathway that you all
determined for us for that review by
council um with hopeful adoption in
July.
With that, we seek uh your input on how
to proceed with the approval and
adoption of the 2026 isqua climate
action plan.
>> And with that, I will open
[clears throat] to uh questions from
council before we take additional public
uh comment on this. Deputy Council
President Jack.
>> Okay. I have a couple questions. Uh,
first one, maybe this is a bit of a
silly question, but I'm curious why
we're calling this a climate action plan
when it really is kind of an overarching
sustainability plan, right? Like water
conservation, single-use plastics,
invasive species. It's they're all great
things to do and I'm fully in support of
those, but that's not it. In my mind, it
doesn't really fall under the bucket of
climate action. So, I'm just curious
about what the rationale was for that.
>> Yeah, good question. As we were meeting
with the committees and getting input
from boards, commissions throughout the
year, there were a lot of desires from
the community as well as the committee
and um board members to incorporate
other items that we felt belonged more
in kind of a more general sustainability
plan. What we've done over the last few
months is tried to apply that climate
filter and said, does this impact
resilience? Is this reducing emissions?
Um, so for example, the invasive
species, what we asked the proposers of
those actions to do is tie that back to
climate. And so the tie-in there is
reducing invasive species in order to
ensure our tree canopy is more resilient
to the impacts of climate change is how
we frame that in the plan. There are
some actions there that were of interest
of our boards and commissions to include
um probably primarily around the the
waste and materials section that council
may decide are outside the scope of the
climate plan, but we've attempted to
apply that climate filter to all the
actions.
Um and then is there any plan to at any
point have an overarching sustainability
plan that includes some of the
sustainability items that aren't
directly climate related?
We haven't discussed that. Our work
really focuses on climate action and
we've worked to contain that within the
climate plan. Um within the
comprehensive plan, uh there was
a lot of content in there that got to um
more the wildlife piece. There's been a
lot of interest from the community on
incorporating more actions around
wildlife. um we've incorporated that
into the climate plan as it relates to
creating that resilience to climate
change but at this time I don't believe
that there is um any uh work from the
administration to develop a general
sustainability plan.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um and then the last
question this one's a bit more specific
but I on the slide on some of the
changes that were made um you said
something like 150 net new acres of
trees planted. Can you explain a bit
about what that means? For example, you
know, if you if we're going to do street
trees, is the acreage planted like
related to the size of the dirt or is it
related to the size of the tree canopy
and at what age? If so, what age of
tree?
>> Yeah. So the way we worked with the
urban forest manager on that one is that
is not necessarily looking at street te
t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
trees, but looking at large open acreage
opportunities, for example, at Lake
Seamish State Park and if we are to
plant um or stay on track of planting up
to 150 acres by 2035,
um it's believed that the canopy 15
years from then, 10 to 15 years from
then would help us reach that 53%.
um tree canopy. So um through his
analysis, he's really looking at more of
those larger open spaces and not
necessarily kind of the individual
street trees.
>> Great. Thank you.
>> Other questions of an informative
nature.
I don't see any. So
>> Oh, I'm sorry. I I was uh I was
channeling uh prior prior uh council
member Hall and just you know doing that
last minute thing.
>> Timing is everything.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um Stacy,
appreciate the presentation. When you're
talking about the dates, um is there a
deadline or anything that would urge us
to go sooner rather than later?
>> Not in my opinion. I think for us, we
would really like to have the final plan
in that direction before the end of July
as we advance our budget requests
internally to make sure what we're
requesting um aligns with the updated
climate plan.
>> Okay. And with that, you know, what are
you really looking to get out of us at a
future cow council or PTE committee that
we couldn't provide as feedback tonight
and that would be needed before a final
approval?
>> I think we would like to dig in a little
bit deeper to some of the targets that
we have made modifications like the tree
canopy target. Um, and then some of
those actions that I highlighted, I
think we feel having additional council
input would be valuable. We have not
with the PTE committee, we didn't
discuss the targets. We looked at
particular actions and kind of looking
at those big impactful actions. Um, so
having a little bit more of a dialogue
working session for that feedback. Um,
and then uh also being able to present
to you the full formatted plan. uh this
evening we just provided the
implementation plan which is our list of
actions but um you all haven't seen that
full formatted plan so making sure you
get eyes on that prior to to council.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Any other questions?
>> All right. And uh so with that uh we
will return to public comment if there's
public comment and I know there is
because we have a couple of people who
were who are at the top of the list
because they were held over from the
from the general public comment. Uh so
uh clerk if you'll walk us through that.
>> Sure. First we have Annne Fletcher.
>> [laughter]
>> Good evening. Good to see all of you. I
did send detailed comments already and
so I'm not going to go through all that
tonight. Um, but I did want to add a
couple of things that I thought of after
I sent those. You know how your mind
keeps going. Um,
the um the area of buildings and energy
is where I'd like to focus. uh number
one and that is
it's really hard to see how the actions
that we have will get us to our targets
um reducing the uh transferring
transitioning from to clean energy. If
you think about a heating system in a
house lasting about 20 years and if we
start transitioning people when they
need a new heating system, you could
estimate that approximately 20 years it
will take. And if we don't get in place
ways to do that that really work um that
are not just a choice that people makes
or maybe they happen to hear about it uh
then we aren't going to make those
targets even in in 20 years. Uh that's
why I feel like this plan needs to have
strong uh strong actions uh and some of
the actions around our commercial
buildings. How are they going to
transition? our small commercial
buildings. We have a state program for
the large ones. Uh residential, we have
a great program. How is that going to
expand enough uh for the energy smart
east side which is now has a new name I
think but uh how is that going to expand
enough uh to make this transition? Uh
and so I think we need to look at degree
of implementation
uh and that is that is where the proof
will come in. Um the um the critical
action uh number three in the people for
climate action uh uh
the critical actions that I sent to you
the um small commercial buildings I
mentioned uh home energy standards um or
something like that even if we can't do
that exact thing uh the state has tried
to pass that three times and it hasn't
gone through
uh something more I believe needs to be
done or we're not going to get there. Um
and so that's my my biggest concern. And
we didn't have a special committee that
worked on that. We didn't we don't we we
had a committee on natural systems. We
had committee on on a lot of these
things that are not our big emitters. We
really need to have something done in
that area. I believe some kind of think
tanker come together. Um and then the
only other comment I wanted to make was
on the one of the critical actions
called uh public engagement or public
education. People for climate action is
really really interested in this and has
uh worked on a um uh an outline of uh
what what need information and what are
some different ways we can do this? How
can we partner with cities each chapter
with each city? uh how can we partner
regionally like we've done with the
energy smart east side. Uh and we're uh
ready to um to go with that and want to
re-energize. I think climate needs to be
re-energized. If I could get as many
people as came tonight to come for
climate. Woohoo. That would be great. So
that's what we'd like to do and we're
raring to go to help and work with uh
Stacy and David to do that. So, thank
you.
>> Thank you,
clerk.
>> David Kappler.
>> Good evening. David Kappler, 255
Southeast Andrews Street.
Um, I hear all about climate by Ann
Fletcher constantly and uh amazed at the
amount of time and energy that she's
devoting to uh working on our climate
and she's got great partners. You have
great partners with the staff in working
on climate. Um I'm all for that. The
tree the tree initi in initiatives and
many other initiatives that the city is
working on is much appreciated.
My the one area I'm I keep getting
concerned is assuming climate is not
going to get better. It's going to get
drier uh warmer is fire. And we got a
lot of people on slopes that
uh fire travels much better uphill than
across the flats. And we have a lot of a
lot of fuel out there and we need to be
doing that. My personal experience with
fire and putting out fires was almost 50
years ago, but it was in Eastern
Washington and um it still can remember
those incidents where I was the uh a
first responder but unofficial
and um we need to we need to really be
working with with with that to uh make
sure we we do the best we can and thank
you for great work the council's doing
and the staff is doing on this effort.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. So, number of hands went up
on that comment
>> and a few went up on the previous
comment as well.
>> No one online's indicating a desire to
speak.
>> Does anyone else from the public who has
not signed up wish to speak uh on this
particular uh measure this evening
either in person or electronically?
All right. So, back to deliberation. We
have uh three options in front of us uh
as suggested paths uh to return to
council and I would be open to a
conversation about uh which of those
would we prefer.
>> Council member Walsh.
>> Thank you. Um just recognizing that this
uh first of all came through PD and we
had a good conversation and actually
held it back for another conversation on
what more we could do around greenhouse
gas reduction. So I appreciate working
with staff on that. Um my my first and
overarching
feeling on all of this is just
appreciation that we're taking it
seriously and that we're getting the
community input and the feedback. um on
the things that are important. Um I do
want to say I think we could tighten
things up just a little bit to really
focus on the climate areas. I appreciate
that there are community interests um
for some of the other areas. But as much
as that is the case, there's also
community interest and as was
demonstrated by the people for climate
action um report on like what more can
we do about the really serious stuff
like like the things that are causing
our world to burn. Um so
making sure that we devote the most
attention there is really important to
me. Um, I also appreciate you
highlighting, you know, some of the ways
that you are addressing and changing the
targets um, so that you're really
looking at the leading metrics, not just
the lagging metrics. I think on that
tree canopy one, that was a difficult
idea for us because it's like, well,
trees take a while to get to canopy
point. So recognizing that okay, if it's
not going to get to that point until a
future idea, the fact that we have to
work on a certain number of plantings
now um is a great recognition of that.
And so I'll be looking for um other
areas like that. Um, as far as the
dates, I guess I would express a slight
preference to wait until after the envir
environmental board's written approval
um is available in case there's going to
be any um you know comments from them
about particular areas of focus. Um if
we feel like we can get that another
way, I'm fine to do it earlier. Um,
so I don't have a strong preference on
date other than waiting beyond that June
10th and I would be interested to hear
from other council members if there are
any preferences.
>> Thank you. Other comment,
Deputy Council President Jay,
>> thank you and thank you staff for all
your work on this thus far. I actually
almost have kind of the opposite
reaction to the climate action versus
sustainability plan. Like I'm actually
totally okay with rebranding this as a
sustainability and climate action plan
so that we can incorporate some of these
other things that are also critically
important. I mean that's just my
personal opinion. Take it or leave it.
Um I also I think I really like the
focus on tree equity across census
tracks rather than just focusing on tree
canopy. Trees and cities are mostly
useful in so far as they provide
benefits to people, right? Like if
you're outside and it's really hot like
it was today, you're like, "Wow, I wish
there was a tree on the street to keep
me in the shade." And honestly, planting
a bunch of trees in Lake Sammer State
Park doesn't really do anything to
provide that benefit to people. Um,
which, you know, that doesn't mean we
shouldn't do it, but I do think that
tree equity metric is really important
to me. Um, I guess in so far as how this
should come back to us, I'm I'm kind of
agnostic. I think we had wanted to bring
this to the full council because you
know I think we'd had maybe one or two
touches in committee and wanted to bring
service this to the whole council given
that sustainability and climate action
is a huge priority for the city of
Isiqua. I think we're probably one of
the only cities that has sustainability
as one of our strategic priorities. Um
so want to make sure that you know we're
giving the attention that it deserves.
Um, so I'm I'm open to either reviewing
it in uh committee or in full counsel
again, but want to hear what other
council members have to say on that.
Thank you,
>> Council Member Adair.
>> Yeah, I think to throw in a vote for
something, I think I'm leaning towards
option one for the committee of the
whole in that I feel like there is
enough uh material in there that would
create a fair amount of discussion
amongst all of us. I know I personally
already have general questions about
some of the of thoughts about this
especially when we get into a lot of the
larger proposed actions and I'm not a
member of PTE. So like it feels like
this this uh plan has a lot of
discussion points for the whole council
and thus that seems like one of the
better uh options to get that level of
discussion and input from us as a whole
because I think there is enough here to
have a larger discussion. So, that would
be my vote for it.
>> Thank you, Council Member Nichols.
>> Yeah, I I will I'll first of all, thank
you for the presentation. That was great
as always. Um, I'll save my comments on
the the substance of it for a later
discussion, but just as for the specific
question, when do we want to talk about
it? Um, I agree with Council Member
Adair. I think this would be useful for
the committee the whole um there's a lot
of cross cutting stuff in here and uh
while I would be happy to see us address
it in PTE I and as a member of that
committee I would be happy to there I
think it would be more useful assuming
there's other interest by other council
members to bring it to the committee of
the whole as well or instead
>> any other comments
council member Boyd
>> thank you um I think I'm switching I was
initially
uh ready to let this um have the
environmental board um have their you
know final us to get the official
version and I'm really interested in
that. It sounds like they're doing a
call to action and I think that's
incredibly important because this is the
climate action plan but um
uh I think I'm being swayed. Um, so if
we get it before us to um another full
council, I am also not on PTE, then um I
would be interested in that discussion
as well.
>> Thank you, Council Member Walsh.
I will be willing to be swayed. Um, and
partially because I think we have better
discussions at committee of the whole
rather than a full council meeting. And
hearing that there are members of
council who are not on PD who want to
contribute to that, I think I will throw
my hat in the ring for option one.
I see a thumbs up from council member
Joe and uh I'm happy to decision as well
also from deputy council president Jang.
All right. So I think you have your
feedback. Uh any closing comments from
anybody on council? Council member Boyd.
>> Yes. Can I also just say I forgot to
mention that um thank you so much for
your work on this. um it passed through
when I was on the transportation
advisory board and I um know that some
of our feedback was to um just make sure
that we're crosswalking with what's
already in our existing plans and I can
see that um in uh the materials that we
got today and uh I also really
appreciate the response to you know
going in at first uh with more of a
light touch and then upon getting that
community feedback of want wanting to
like know let's do a real bigger
revision. I just really appreciate that
responsiveness.
Council member Adair.
>> Same. I did want to echo I didn't have a
thank you in my comment earlier and did
want to commend the work that went into
this the work that went into the pack
materials. There was a lot here since I
was not a part of the you know the 2021
plan and I could already kind of see so
many elements of what had changed. So
this was very informative for me and so
very good work on everything you've done
so far.
>> All right. I don't see any other
comments. So thank you very much. The
administration has what they were
looking for to be city administrator. We
do. Thank you.
>> All right. And with that, we will move
to COOM0262,
Isiqua Police Department Congressional
Community Appropriations Grant. We're
going to have a number of folks uh help
us on this this evening. Uh leading us
off and and as ring leader, Dale Marky
Crimp, assistant to the city
administrator. We're also going to hear
from Ryan Smith, prime analyst and
mobile friends exam examiner. And uh
remotely, we also have Phil Nef from the
University of Washington. So, uh, Dale,
take it away.
>> Thank you, Council President. Uh,
members of the city council, fresh back
from vacation, and it is so good to see
you all. Um, tonight, the administration
is reintroducing for your consideration
information related to a federal grant
focused primarily on replacing and
upgrading police department tasers along
with a small investment in an interview
room camera system. These are practical
tools that directly [clears throat]
support officer and community safety,
officer accountability, and effective
policing.
Acceptance of these grant dollars was
originally approved by the city council
more than a year ago. However, due to
changes in um and delays at the federal
level, appropriation of the grant
dollars did not move forward on that
original timeline.
And in that time since, circumstances
and community conversations here in
Isiqua as well have evolved.
The original grant proposal included uh
money for ALPR, automated license plate
reader technology. And since that time,
we've heard significant public concern
regarding privacy, data retention,
oversight related to that technology,
specifically flock camera technology.
Given those concerns and recognizing
that thoughtful policy development and
strong data safeguards need to preede
any tool, uh the administration is not
moving forward with that portion of the
proposal at this time. Additionally, as
you'll learn this evening, uh the price
of tasers, like almost everything else
in our world, has gone up significantly
in the last year. And given that taser
replacement was the primary need, this
update updated cost precludes
consideration of using any of the grant
dollars for ALPR technologies.
And lastly, the city is currently in the
process of recruiting and selecting a
new police chief. Um, and the
administration believes it's important
to have any future chief um in place
before we have any further discussion of
ALPR technology.
Instead, we're bringing a more focused
request centered on the immediate
operational and safety needs uh of our
police department while allowing for
additional time and community
discussion. And I think most
importantly,
policy work regarding any future
consideration of any automated license
plate reader technology or system. This
evening, you're going to hear from
several, as Coun pres as Council
President Mart said, several um public
safety and uh professionals and uh a
researcher or expert as he was referred
to. Um I've had the pleasure of reading
the work uh today. First, we'll hear
from our city crime analyst and mobile
forensic examiner. What a cool title.
Ryan Smith, who will provide more
information about the grant and
application process. One of our police
sergeants, Sergeant Asbel, who will
discuss current taser technology and its
role in offering officer and community
safety. And Commander Bava from the city
of Kent will share information about how
their jurisdiction has implemented and
used ALPR technology. We'll also hear
from researcher Phil Nef from the
University of Washington Center for
Human Rights, which has done research
into how border patrol has accessed
flock necks network within Washington
state in different ways to pursue civil
immigration enforcement with and without
the cooperation or knowledge of the
owners of those flock systems. So with
that, I will turn it over to Ryan Smith
for the presentation and discussion.
>> Thank you.
I'm going connect my commu computer
here.
[clears throat]
I'm going to share my screen here so you
guys can see everything.
All right. So, hello everyone. My name
is uh Ryan Smith and I am your local
civilian crime analyst and mobile
forensic examiner with the Isiqua Police
Department. I'm here to talk to you all
about uh all of the work that our our
police department has done in putting
into this congressional community
appropriations grant, how we began the
work on this and what it currently is,
which Dale has uh spoken to quite well
actually. Thank you, Dale. I also want
to take a moment. I think this is very
important that I do this right now. I
want to take a moment to fully
acknowledge each and every one of you
guys who have spoken. It took a lot of
courage to speak your peace to all of us
very publicly. um not everyone is able
to share those those concerns and they
may have some fears and I want to say
thank you each of you for sharing what
you have all of you I've heard that uh I
I truly do hope that when you hear what
I have to say that may hopefully assuage
some of your some of your fears a little
it.
All right, let's move forward. And I do
apologize everybody. Public speaking is
not my forte. So sorry.
Okay.
So the purpose of this discussion, the
information that I'm going to be
bringing you is to provide a background
surrounding the application for and the
recent award of the 2026 Washington
State Community Appropriations Grant for
the Isiqua Police Department. The
rationale behind this is that uh you
know this is brought before council as
the amount of funding is over $100,000
and requires the additional approval for
the acceptance of the funding as the
funds are used on safety technology
specifically conducted energy devices
only. Uh these are more commonly known
as tasers as Dale had just mentioned.
I'll be referring to them as conducted
energy devices. Um
I do want to understand and and point
out though that originally the first
iteration of the grant did include ALPR
cameras uh at our freeway entrances for
investigative follow-up at the time. But
this is perfect timing to you know kind
of discuss information regarding such
technology again and what it can and
cannot do publicly. But before we dive
into the history of the grant and the
process locally, it's important to
discuss what the grant is and where
we're at currently as it stands.
So, the grant funding source, the grant
application was submitted to the
community appropriations request for
funding from the Department of Justice's
burn discretionary community project
funding or the burn discretionary grants
program. The burn discretionary grants
program, which is a mouthful to say, uh
allocates funding for discretionary
grants to improve the functioning of the
criminal justice system, to prevent or
combat juvenile delinquency, and to
assist victims of crime other than
compensation. uh which shall be made
available for the Office of Justice
programs, burn projects and in spec uh
specified amounts for community project
funding or congressionally directed
spending. And it is under the community
project funding and congressionally
directed spending uh portion to which
the police department submitted a
project request via the state
representatives uh representatives
community appropriations funding
requests.
And before I continue forward, I really
do want to uh emphasize that the process
to even apply for the grant is highly
competitive and a selective process.
Once approvals for securing the funding
locally were achieved last year, we then
had to go through a review and approval
process for the eighth congressional
district, state review and approvals,
and then a final federal review for
congressional funds to be allocated to
us.
And to be fair, there is still more
process for that. Um, but all of that is
for applying for funding. We were one
of, I believe, 15 chosen to be moved
forward locally. And I believe we're all
aware that in the highly politicized
atmosphere that is the federal landscape
right now, uh, honestly then and now,
uh, securing these funds was no small
feat.
All right.
So the grant project presently as it
currently stands,
the grant title is the Isiqua Police
Department bodywn cameras project uh
equipment project and they bless you and
the amount requested is $452,477.
The summary is as listed and I apologize
this will sound very boring. Uh the city
of Isiziqua police bodywn cameras
equipment project would help obtain
necessary bodywn camera incorporated
conducted energy devices CED for law
enforcement officers of the department.
The project seeks to enhance community
and officer safety, promote
transparency, and collect evidence
through the use of bodywn camera
equipment that would enable officers to
use less lethal means and introduce
deescalation in use of force through the
introduction of conducted energy
devices.
The outcomes and expectations are as
fourth. The uh the outcomes expected
include a greater ability to document
law enforcement interactions and collect
evidence for trial with CEDs that allow
for the bodywn camera to automatically
turn on when conducted energy when the
conducted energy device is pulled out as
well as the increased deescalation
through the use of less lethal means to
reduce risk to both law enforcement and
potential suspects. The city of
Isiziqua, its population, and its law
enforcement will jointly benefit from
the implementation of the project, as
well as other entities such as the
prosecutor's office and other law
enforcement agencies with whom the
department engages in the course of
serving the public. And our federal
nexus for this grant was section 501 of
the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe
Streets Act of 1968.
So in short, the police department's
grant is requesting funds to purchase
non-lethal conducted energy devices
which include the integration with our
body cam system.
So now let's dive into this is the the
whole timeline of what we're working
with. So, we'll dive into this process
of the grant submission. Starting at the
very beginning, uh this is the first
section here in blue. Uh is where we're
going to start off. This is prior to
March 17th, 2025.
Uh where the Isqua Police Department
began with drafting two separate grants
prior to the submission process. One was
for CEDs, the conducted energy devices,
and the other was for the use of ALPR
cameras. So, we'll start there. I also
think this is where the most interest
is. So, to be respectful of my uh
co-presenters here, uh we're going to
start there, but I have one slide before
I call on you guys.
So, the two separate, if I can hold just
one second, Council Member Walsh.
>> Yeah. Can you go back a slide? Oh, yes.
I'm just waiting for it to come up.
Great. So, this suggests that the city
had a draft of two separate grants
before coming to the city council in
March of 2025 to seek approval for
funding. Is that correct? That is
correct. we never move forward with the
grants and so that's why they never
actually uh were submitted because we
didn't actually submit two separate
grants. [snorts] Uh it was drafted
because we wanted to look at both the
CEDs and also ALPRS in the process uh
which I'll address in uh a couple of
slides so you'll hear it again there. Um
we had actually received feedback from
the panel uh with the 8th congressional
district who suggested that after
looking through justifications and
everything they really thought it made
more sense to have only one grant
combined and then with that feedback
then we said okay let's work on this and
then let's bring this to city council.
So when that was brought to city council
on March 17th, 2025 or to the services,
safety, and parks committee before that,
was it ever mentioned to either of those
groups that the city was seeking outside
funding or grants for these areas?
>> Uh, yes, to my knowledge, it was.
>> Okay. I was not on the services, safety,
and parks committee, but
>> I was told that there was no funding for
this and that thus our approval of
receiving that services, safety, and
parks report was going to result in no
action.
Um I don't know if there is any other
deputy city administrator. Do you know
if that was Oh,
>> sorry. You go ahead. You
>> if the grant was mentioned.
>> So I was going to say that uh before and
I apologize for for interrupting uh the
video and I re-reviewed the the video
from the first one and we can go back. I
can go fast forward to that slide if
you'd like to. Um there so there were
two meetings. There was actually one in
February and then there was another on
March 17th and the meeting in February
had noted that we did not actually you
know we didn't have the funding itself
but we could move forward for getting
the funding
and then at the March 17th meeting is
when everyone had appro gone through and
voted for approval to do it which was
unanimous
>> clarifying that was a consent agenda
vote, including several other areas. We
were not voting specifically on
accepting that or suggesting that we
move forward.
>> Deputy City Administrator,
>> thank you. Uh we're going to have to go
back and just make sure we review all of
those meetings and understand exactly
what the asks were. So, it's difficult
to reconstruct that timeline right here.
Um, but we're going to need a little bit
of time just to make sure that we're
providing council accurate information.
>> We can definitely go back through that.
I do have a slide though um listing the
outcomes from both of those meetings
which I will be happy to go through when
we get to that slide.
>> So,
>> oh, another question.
>> Yes, Council Member Nichols.
>> Okay. my question. So you've got up here
that this is a draft of two separate
grants and then the next slide which is
really what my question is on so you can
go one forward as well.
>> Yes, let's move forward.
>> I guess why are we discussing that it
was two separate grants because what
we'll be asked to vote on is a single
grant and that single
what we'll be asked to vote on is a
single grant and that single grant
includes both of these items in it.
>> No, it doesn't.
>> The grant does.
>> No. So the uh the grant actually only
has funds for the conducted energy
devices.
>> I'm sorry. The grant application, let's
be clear, the grant application includes
both of these both of these. It's not
two separate grants, right? Because we
are going
>> No, it is not two separate grants.
>> So we are going to be asked to vote on a
single grant and that single grant
includes both of these items.
>> No. So uh and that's something that
>> Were they removed from?
Yes, it was removed from the grant.
>> So, I know this sounds a little
confusing. Um, my next slides do address
this.
>> So, I have read this. I do want to be
very clear. So, it was it removed from
the grant or is it removed from the
currently proposed purchase plan?
>> That's an excellent question. I would
say probably from the currently
proposed. Uh we did go back and discuss
it with the uh with the panel and they
said that they were more than fine with
just paying for the tasers. In fact,
tasers since I haven't gotten to the
slides yet uh I want it to be known the
tasers actually or the conducted energy
devices those uh account for 99% of the
entire grant. So it is
>> well depending on how we decide to spend
it. And the the the reason I'm asking
this is it it is important from a timing
perspective. We will potentially have
multiple votes about this topic and
related topics including council
guardrails on it. So I wanted to be very
clear about
>> what this grant even there we have
statements about what we would like to
do with it. But for clarity
>> the grant did include both and I think
that's that's clear.
>> Originally the grant included both CEDs
and ALPR cameras.
>> Yes.
>> And I will originally Yes. Okay.
>> So, and then now it is it is just CEDs.
>> Our proposal is I I we are voting on a
thing. I want to be very clear. So, we
we are voting on a grant that had both.
So, we I I'm going to I'm going to try
to insist on the last word on that
unless it's someone else wants to chime
in and say that that's not true, that
the grant did not does not include both.
>> Council Nichols, your interpretation is
correct. The grant would allow us to
purchase those things, but we get to
make the decision on what we purchase at
this point.
>> Yes. And the thought was tasers or
conducted energy devices. The police
department I would like to move forward
with this very clearly. We we really
need conducted energy devices
[clears throat]
and that is a priority and in the rest
of the slides I'm hoping that that will
be very clear.
Okay. So really quickly quick summary on
the two separate so that it's what you
see here for full disclosure cuz we're
trying to be transparent of what this
actual process included.
This is where we started. Originally the
police department had two forms of
public safety technology both serving
very different purposes that would
benefit the community uh that we wanted
to explore funding options for CEDs and
LA ALPRs. The grant itself included all
forms of public safety technology and so
we originally wanted to submit them
separately. As will be mentioned later,
it was suggested during the submission
process that we combine both into one as
both were considered worthy in our
justifications.
This here is a high-level review of
both, but we have asked a few subject
matter uh experts to come and take a
moment to share information regarding
both subjects a bit more in depth with
you. For the CEDs, we requested Axon
Taser 10s to cover all current patrol
and correctional officers on staff.
Uh, presently, we have outdated CEDs
that cover only patrol staffing levels
from uh over a decade ago. Current
models have many features, including
double the range of previous CEDs,
allowing safer distance between officers
and subjects, improved accuracy, and
even more importantly, the integration
with standardized body cam technology to
manage event firing logs uh with
increased uh transparency, additional
training to enhance use of force
decision-making confidence and
accuracy under stress for all officers
both on patrol and in our correctional
facility, which not everyone knows, we
do have actually a jail downstairs in
the police department. Uh, and this is a
huge benefit to both the safety of our
officers and to the community we
interact with. Additionally,
uh, the use of bodywn camera CEDs allows
for greater transparency in our
interactions with the community. The
ability to record incidents as they
unfold provides an unbiased account of
events, helping to resolve disputes and
build public trust in law enforcement
procedures. The estimated quote uh
issued to replace all CEDs was at the
time that we received the quote
$378,976.38.
Uh this represents 84% of the total
amount requested.
The second grant was for the
installation and one-year lease fee for
12 AL ALPR cameras to be placed on the
perimeters of town on freeway entrances
and exits prioritizing the exits that we
see the most criminal activity uh
exiting on to be exclusively used for
investigations of criminal offenses
locally. in particular both commercial
and residential burglaries as well as
for other property crimes for which
traditionally about 70% of our local
crime consists of. The estimated quote
for this was 70, excuse me, $73,500,
bringing the total to $452,000
uh and $452,477,
representing only 16% of the total
amount requested. And that is why the
grant was originally for $452,477,
which I think
speaks a bit to your original question,
uh Nicholls.
So,
let's go quickly into CEDs.
>> M, Miss Smith, I actually have one
question before you move on.
>> So, um, I believe that on the 15th, um,
we're going to see a proposal from the
administration that goes 99% for CEDs,
1% for interview cameras.
>> Yes.
>> Um, were interview cameras part of the
original grants? And if not, can we use
that money for interview cameras?
>> The original uh grant did not include
the interview cameras, but we are
allowed to use that as a camera
technology and that enhances public
safety.
>> Thank you.
>> Yes.
All right. So, I would like to ask uh
our esteemed Sergeant Asell to come up
and uh discuss. Okay. What are CEDs?
Sergeant, thank you for joining us this
evening.
>> Hi, members of the council, members of
the community. Thank you for the
opportunity to come and talk to you
today. Uh, I do just want to take a
brief moment. Um,
thank you for being engaged in the
community and being willing to come and
speak. uh worked here for 18 years. A
lot of you spoke um passionately, which
I deeply appreciate, and a lot of you
also expressed your trust in our local
police department. Um that is what makes
our police department successful and
makes our community successful. So, I
just wanted to take a minute to express
my appreciation for that. So, uh I'm
here to talk about tasers, CEDs, uh or
CEWs. I'm going to refer to them as
tasers because, uh it's the easiest for
it to come out of my mouth. So, um, like
I said, I've worked here for 18 years.
We have had tasers since I started. We
started with, uh, the X26, which is the
model prior to the one that we have
currently. Um, and it's out of
commission. It's not used anymore. Uh,
the the CEDs, they're used by us.
They're a less lethal tool uh that we
use to um subdue um potentially
dangerous um individuals and provides us
basically the opportunity to use
something other than what would
potentially be lethal lethal force. Just
briefly about kind of how it actually
works. Um so if we draw our our taser
weapon, we'll arm it. Um and then if you
pull the trigger, it sends out it sends
two probes out. So, the way our X2s
work, um, basically the top probe will
go out and the bottom probe will come
out at an angle that is, um, slightly
lower. Um, it's a fixed distance between
the two probes as they come out that
gets larger as it goes further away. Um
the darts, if you have successful
contact, they'll make two points of
entry into an individual and it
basically delivers a high voltage but
low electrical p pulse that basically
just co causes all the muscles to to
tense up and it makes them have to cease
whatever action they're doing. As long
as you have a good spread between where
the two probes are, uh
the it um each time that you pull the
trigger, the taser runs for a 5-second
cycle and then automatically shuts off.
And during that 5-second cycle, when
somebody is under the power of the
taser, it's uh provides us an
opportunity to go and get and get them
into what we would call a position of
disadvantage. Basically, where we're
able to make it so that they can't keep
accessing the weapon they were trying to
access. they can't continue fighting.
Um, and it just uh basically gives us an
opportunity to be able to take somebody
into custody or detain them in a in a
much safer manner.
The uh I'm going to talk quickly about
what we have currently. Um, so as you
can see on the screen, um, we have X2s.
X2s came out in 2011. It took us a
couple years to get them. After that,
um, we phased them in. So, initially our
uh just our patrol had them and our um
corrections officers had the old style
of taser still, which um we don't like
to see because we like to have one
consistent weapon among anybody who's um
potentially going to be using or within
the police department. Also, it makes it
a lot simpler for training. So, we can
make sure that everybody is getting the
same training on the same um type of
less lethal weapon that we're using.
Again, the X2s are
it's not reflected on here because this
is sort of like decreased, but in
between the 2011 and the 2023 release of
the Taser 10, there's actually two other
weapons that were that were included.
So, there's a an X26P and then also a
Taser 7. So, we're at least two
generations behind. Um, I know for
example, we had uh one of our one of our
corrections officers just recently went
through training and usually they have
about 30 seats in the training classes
and we were one of two in the in the
class that still had these old style
weapons and basically taser's not even
didn't even really cover it at all
during the training. So, um, again,
pretty antiquated. Um, and there's a
just a lot better technology out there.
um a lot better transparency uh a lot
better access to um you know the data
that would come from it. There's a lot
better um
basically it gives a a loud warning
alert anytime that you activate it which
is something these don't have. And then
also the activation of our body cameras.
We all have the body cameras now. Um and
it basically if you were to pull the new
TAS 10 it activates any body camera
within a certain radius around um the
incident that's occurring.
So this is a quick we'll see if this
video plays about neuromuscular
incapacitation and it's basically what
we talked about where the two probes
make impact with an individual and what
that um what that effect is.
>> Oh thank you
If you've read about taser technology,
no doubt you've come across these three
letters, NMI. NMI stands for
neuromuscular incapacitation.
NMI is simple. Basically, we send a
signal to your muscles telling them to
flex. This is the same technology you
see in off-the-shelf muscle stimulators
used for rehab and muscle therapy.
Everyone has electric signals that
travel throughout their nervous system.
It connects all the sensors in your
body, your eyes, your ears, your nose,
the touch sensors in your skin. And all
these signals are converted to electric
signals sent through your nerves up into
your brain. It's an insanely complex
symphony. And your brain is a conductor
moving all elements of your body with
these electrical impulses. These
electric pulses have a low current and
they're really quite safe, but they're
very effective at incapacitating a
subject and stopping threats quickly.
Now, depending on how far apart the two
electrodes are, NMI may be partial if
the probes are close together or it can
affect the entire body.
Now, the greater the distance between
the two probes, the greater the
likelihood of total NMI.
With Taser 10, we introduced a new
concept of single trigger, single probe
deployment. This means users can deploy
one probe at a time to create exactly
the spread that will give you the
greatest opportunity to induce NMI.
Awesome.
Um, so as you saw in the video, um, the
Taser 10s, they have, um, 10 cartridges
in there, and it allows us to, um, fire
probes and and target them specifically,
which
is great because basically for it to be
impactful, we need that spread distance
on an individual so that it actually
gets the neuromuscular incapacitation as
opposed to just something localized
where it might just impact the small
area where it's uh, where it's affected.
And then also the other um big
difference for us is the 45 ft range
that it just allows us um a less lethal
option at a further distance. 25 ft is
not that far away. And also since the
probes that come out on our current
tasers are fixed, it's a it's really
easy to miss because the as the spread
gets gets larger and larger, you can't
control that bottom probe. And if we
have the the Taser 10s, um it just
allows us for a lot more accuracy and
for use in situations that we would
potentially not have access to a less a
less lethal tool and we would only have
access to a lethal weapon. And this just
provides another um safer uh tool for
our community and also for the officers.
It's fully integrated with Axon
Evidence, which is what we have for our
body cameras. Um, in terms of usage at
the police department, I just looked it
up today. In the last 5 years, we've had
12 taser deployments. Um, so, and then
in the last three years, we've had about
seven. So, we're just averaging about um
just over two per year. Um, and they are
I've been tased. It hurts. It's
unfortunate for the five seconds and
then you you feel you feel okay
afterwards. I've watched numerous people
get tased in training. It hurts, but I
would take that over pepper spray or any
other less lethal tool in a heartbeat.
Um, and it just it it's a lot safer for
our officers and it's a lot safer for
the community. and having them uh the
the new technology with the taser tens
will allow for more transparency and uh
and it'll keep our officers safer and
it'll it'll keep our community safer and
the X2s that we have are at the end of
their life and we will need to replace
them in the very near future um one way
or another. So um that's all I have.
Again, thank you for your time and
consideration of of this issue.
Any
uh council member Adair?
>> Uh in terms of the volume, um I mean is
>> in ter uh I was trying to figure out a
question in terms of like how many are
you getting for how many officers in
terms of
>> one per officer? Oh, good question.
Yeah. So one single one single um we so
we carry them uh like each officer would
carry one on their person and then each
of our corrections officers would have
one as well. Um and then we would need
some spares. So I would say you know a
certain number of spares sometimes if
one goes down you have to send it back.
>> Okay. So this plan covers enough for all
of the officers currently that you have.
Okay.
>> Yes.
>> Council member Boyd.
>> Does it cover I don't know if we have uh
vacancies. Would it cover any like all
officers currently assigned plus if we
have if there are vacancies? Are you?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Yeah. All all of the all of the
allotted spots that we have filled or
not, we would it would have enough for
all of them.
>> Okay. Thank you. I have a few more
questions. Um, does the current taser
certification the officers have, would
it still be, if we get these upgraded
ones, would they have to undergo
training again to use them or it's
covered by the current certification?
>> Yeah, great question. Uh the Taser
instructor certification covers all of
the Taser models and then internally as
an agency our instructors would conduct
the transition course to move from the
X2s to the to the Taser 10s. So there
would be a a training process internally
within there especially just because of
how different the the two tools are that
that it would be a robust transition
process for everyone to get really
comfortable. Can I ask a specific
question within that? Would you have to
undergo being tasered again?
>> Would say that one more time.
>> Would you have to Would you have to
undergo being tasered again in order to
get the new model?
>> No. And thank you. [laughter]
>> Just wanted to thanks for checking.
>> And I had one more question about the
interaction with the body cams. If you
are coming to a scene and you turn your
just out of instinct you turn your
camera on and if a taser is being
deployed in that instance
um what is the interaction? What if you
already have your camera on and you are
does it then undo that? Okay.
>> No. Okay.
>> No, it would just be if you're if your
camera was off or if somebody in the in
the
>> kind of like around the vicinity I don't
remember exactly what the space is, but
it activates all of them.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
[clears throat] Council member Boyd, I I
I love the idea of questions that
presuppose we get to our full staff of
uniformed officers. Those are always
great questions to have. Hope springs a
turn.
>> Uh other questions uh for Sergeant
Aspel.
>> Nope. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
>> All right.
So for the second speaking point, I uh
am asking Commander Baba with the Kent
Police Department to come up and speak
to how they are utilizing uh ALPR.
>> Commander, thank you for joining us
today.
>> You bet. Good evening, council president
and council members. Thank you for
having me.
As noted, I was asked to come and speak
about the city of Kent's ALPR program,
the automated license plate technology
program. I'm our operational technology
commander, which means I oversee our
ALPR ALPR program as well as another uh
a number of other technology
initiatives. So, briefly, I want to talk
about the history of ALPR in the city of
Kent. We began using mobile ALPR
technology in Kent in 2008. These were
cameras that were affixed to patrol cars
and they were primarily used to look for
stolen vehicles. Not listed on this
slide is that we added stationary
automated traffic safety cameras in
2013. Many people know these as red
light cameras or school zone speed
cameras, but they are using ALPR
technology. Those were authorized by the
state legislature in 2005. So, we've had
those for about 20 years in our state
and the city of Kent began using those
in 2013.
In 2023, we added stationary ALPR
cameras that are not used for
enforcement in the term in terms of
tickets. So, these are cameras that
capture license plates that pass the
vehicles and then store that data for a
temporary amount of time and then can be
used in investigations. They also
receive alerts from databases such as
the uh previously it was NCIC which is
the federal database where stolen
vehicles are listed, wanted fugitives
are listed, missing persons, amber
alerts, things like that. So when those
cars would pass the camera, an alert
could go out to any officer that within
our city, within our system that had
chosen to receive those alerts, they
would receive that alert in almost real
time that the uh that car featuring that
missing person or that wanted fugitive
or that stolen vehicle had just passed
the camera.
So some of the differences that we
implemented in 2023
was the deployment plan. So, previously
I mentioned we used mobile ALPR cameras
on patrol cars and then we added
stationary cameras. So, the deployment
plan that really changed things for us
was installing them at entrances to the
city primarily along with a couple that
were on some of our highest traffic
volume roadways.
This allowed the city to have a good
awareness of cars that were coming into
the city and passing those cameras at
all our major entrances to the city.
and this aided in investigations as I'll
get into in just a moment. Uh the second
difference is that these cameras allowed
us to do vehicle descriptor searches as
opposed to just strictly a full license
plate search. So, as you may imagine,
it's very common for a crime to occur, a
citizen who reports the crime to see a
vehicle and have a description of the
vehicle, but not the full license plate.
So, they might tell us it was a blue
Toyota Corolla or something like that.
or maybe they saw one letter in the
license plate but not the entire license
plate. These cameras allowed us to do a
search so we could look for all blue
Toyota Corollas that began with the
letters ABC for example and then have
wild cards for the remaining digits.
What this allowed us to do was what we
call engage in precision policing. So,
previously when we might have a vehicle
description, a blue Toyota Corolla for
example, it was not uncommon for
officers to begin looking for blue
Toyota Corollas and suddenly when you're
looking for a blue Toyota Corolla, you
find them everywhere. And then officers
begin stopping blue Toyota Corollas and
engaging with members of the public who
may or may not be the suspect.
As you can imagine, this also sometimes
leads to negative perceptions of the
police department. uh whether the
accusation is we're engaging in
profiling or perhaps because the crime
was a reported crime of violence, the
initial engagement between the officer
and the citizen might be heightened uh
because of a concern that a weapon might
be involved or something like that. By
knowing the exact vehicle we're looking
for through a, for example, a vehicle
description search or a partial license
plate search where we can now get a
photo of the one and only blue Toyota
Corolla that was in that area within
that time frame of the crime down to
maybe several minutes. Now we know the
exact vehicle and oftentimes we can get
the full license plate from that photo.
And now we're engaged in precision
policing. We're just searching for one
car and not stopping maybe 20 cars.
The other thing that these cameras
really changed for us was that we were
able to solve crimes that cross
jurisdictional borders. So if our
neighboring city had a crime that
occurred in their city and the car fled
into our city, we would be able to find
that photo. And vice versa, crimes that
happen and then our our vehicle leaves
our city and goes to another city. that
information sharing across those city
boundaries was crucial to solving cases
because crime doesn't respect those city
limits.
So, uh, briefly before I get into that,
I do just want to talk about information
sharing a little bit.
Um, you've heard a lot of concern in the
media and even in uh, public comment
today about information sharing. Uh,
what I do want to reiterate is that uh,
tech is changing very rapidly. So the
tools that our technology offered just a
month ago, those things changed so
rapidly. In addition to Senate Bill 602,
which changed a lot of auditing and
transparency requirements for us, uh
it's also important to note that there
are multiple ALPR vendors, not just one
that you may have heard mentioned very
frequently today. So that's one thing to
be aware of. Uh, Senate Bill 602, I do
want to point out, has sign significant
penalties for not only government
agencies that improperly use ALPR, but
it also has significant penalties for
the vendor itself. So, it really
motivates the vendors to comply with
Washington state law if they want to
continue engaging in business in our
state.
to uh I briefly mentioned traffic
automated traffic safety programs
previously, but it's also important to
note that in 2005, the legislature
implemented rules right out of the gate
in RCW for those cameras, how they could
be used, what they could be used for. We
didn't have that in our state for the
last 10 years or so uh for ALPRs or I'm
sorry, the last 20 years or so since
we've seen that technology used in our
state. But now we do through Senate Bill
602.
Uh, as an example, if you're not
familiar with Senate Bill 602, the
information sharing requirements in
there, all agencies that wish to
continue using ALPR in the state will
have to abide by the attorney general's
model policy, which will be published
soon. And then agencies can only share
information to other Washington state
agencies that have a system that has
been approved by the attorney general's
office. So if two Washington state
agencies are both approved by the
attorney general's office to operate an
ALPR system, they can communicate with
one another and share. Another
Washington state agency that has not
been approved may not receive any ALPR
data from any other Washington state
agency. And that obviously includes
federal agencies and outofstate
agencies. So there's a number of
safeguards in place in Senate Bill 602
that really tightens the ALPR data
sharing within our state and keeps that
data housed internally within the agency
so that they cannot share it outside.
This is just a brief summary of two
about roughly two and a half years of
data in the city of Kent. And the
numbers that I'm listing here are
verified cases where the ALPR
information led directly to an arrest in
these cases. So we have many many other
cases where crimes either have been
unsolved, have not led to an arrest, or
where the ALPR data was not instrumental
to solving the case because there was a
plethora of other evidence or maybe the
suspect was immediately apprehended at
the scene, for example. So some of the
significant cases in here you can see
where in uh we've used them to solve
everything from at least two murders
over the last two years to a number of
other crimes such as sexual assaults and
armed robberies.
Some of the significant cases I do just
want to briefly mention
uh is the one of those that is listed at
the bottom which was a missing
endangered adult. This was actually in
the very first week of our ALPR
deployment within our city where a
patrol officer received an ALPR alert
for a car that was associated to a
missing endangered adult who is subject
of a statewide silver alert. And
actually within minutes of receiving
that alert, the officer was able to
locate the car driving and reunite that
person with their family within 18 hours
of them having been reported missing.
And this was an elderly person that had
dementia. So, had that person not been
immediately located and had continued to
go missing,
it's obviously we can't know, but very
likely could have led to that person's
uh an injury or death, for example. A
second case I want to talk about uh has
to do with information sharing. This was
an officer from a neighboring agency
that asked for our for our assistance in
helping to identify a vehicle because
that agency did not have ALPR.
And in their city, they had a case where
a car had struck a wheelchairbound
pedestrian in a crosswalk and then fled
the scene. So, we had a hit and run
involving injuries to a pedestrian. A
search of our ALPR cameras found
multiple photos of the same make and
model vehicle and only one that had the
very distinctive characteristics of this
vehicle. So, they did not have a license
plate. They only had a a description of
the vehicle with very distinct
characteristics.
We found hundreds of photos of various
makes and models of that same vehicle
and color, but only one that actually
had the unique roof racks and the uh
aftermarket hub caps and some of the
other distinctive characteristics. So,
we were able to get them a license plate
within hours of this crime having
occurred.
Traditional police work might have
involved them getting a date a statewide
list of all the makes and models of that
vehicle that maybe were in the county or
in the region and then have and then
having to visit each of those registered
owners homes to look at the vehicle and
try to determine if it was the one that
matched the description that they had
and also a blurry surveillance video
that they had.
And then the last case I want to talk
about was a fleeing fugitive from
another jurisdiction that was wanted for
sexual assault, had fled. He was on the
run. He was thought to possibly have
ties to our city. A detective conducted
an ALPR search for that fugitive's car
and located multiple photos that showed
it driving around in our city. Uh I
believe it was a sex crime against
children. Detectives were able to locate
that suspect and make an arrest very
quickly based on that information
provided by another agency and we were
able to now determine that this person
on the run for this crime was now freely
driving around our city.
So that's a very brief overview of how
we have used ALPRs in our city and I'm
happy to take any questions that you may
have.
Council member Rudier.
Um I have a couple questions uh kind of
somewhat related. Um so we heard a
comment a while back during this
discussion of someone bringing up about
you know SB 60002 and that the
requirements in it were contractual
versus architectural and that it's you
have to abide by these rules but there's
nothing in the system that requires it.
And I'm curious with, you know, you
having this system, how are you dealing
with that to make sure you are following
these rules or there aren't accidental
shares or someone just decides to do it
on, you know, an officer just decides to
do it on their own when their friend at
another precinct calls them. Um, how are
you handling that since the system
itself has been a lot of what the issues
have been brought up of the trust in the
system, not necessarily the officers?
>> Sure, that's a great question. Thank
you. And something I intended to touch
on and spaced on it. So, I can only
speak to the vendor that we use. We use
a major vendor that operates in our
state and I mentioned how the technology
changes so rapidly. This vendor has been
moving quickly to adapt to Senate Bill
602. So, some of the changes that are in
the system that didn't exist previously,
which you may hear concerns about
possibly by another presenter after me,
I can confidently say do not currently
exist in our system. So, for example, uh
we cannot share. where it is physically
impossible for an agency outside of
Washington state to see our photos. That
feature is turned off. The it's
impossible for me with administrator
powers within the system to change it. I
have no power to do that. There's also a
number of safeguards in place where
search terms that might
implement or indicate a prohibited
search under Washington state law would
be blocked within the system and that
would be flagged in a in our audit for
the administrator such as myself to see
that that improper search was run or
attempted by an officer. Uh every search
has to be now uh tied to a a police case
number with the specific crime type
listed. So it cannot be a general vague
term or lacking a case number for
example and that uh data is now
restricted down to 21 days to comply
with RCW. Um I'll also add that the
audits now are fairly u transparent with
officer's name, the exact time they
searched, what exactly they searched
for, the case number, the crime type,
and in compliance with RCW, we will be
uh collecting all those audits. will be
publishing an annual report that shows
each and every search that our officer
ran, what it was run for, what they did
with the data after they ran it, if they
shared it to another agency, what agency
was that, and then if they downloaded
it, that will be noted to. So almost any
action that the officer takes with ALPR
data will now be reflected in our annual
report, published online, and also
submitted to the legislature. Is your
system since it is you say it's a
different system than ones I often hear
about is it still cloud-based and this
while this is the how you access the
data does the data actually exist
elsewhere outside of Kent basically so
again another great question
contractually our contract with this
company requires them to be housed all
the data to be housed within the United
States it cannot be housed outside the
United States as well as a number of
technical
safeguards I'm not techy enough to
understand it, but our IT department
weighed in on that contract to list
exact uh encryption requirements that
that company has to abide by how they
store our data. And um also to reiterate
that the data belongs to the city. It is
not the vendor's data. They have no
power to do anything with that data
absent our consent which again under RCW
they would not be allowed to do anyways.
>> Okay. And my last thing was which may be
beyond you because this might go into
city policy stuff. So you mentioned how
there are penalties for failure to
follow this thing. So could would the
city of Kent be penalized were there a
failure and following these guidelines
severely? So like the city would be
forced to pay a great deal should the
officers fail in some capacity under
these rules.
>> Right. I can only speculate as to what a
court would rule, but uh officers can be
held personally liable for a crime now
for misuse of data under RCW. So, it's a
gross misdemeanor crime for an officer
to misuse an ALPR system in almost a
variety of ways. So, if an officer were,
for example, to download data and share
it improperly with an agency outside of
our state or with the federal
government, that would be a gross
misdemeanor crime for which the officer
could be prosecuted and theoretically
lose certification and be uh jailed. Uh
there's also penalties for the vendors
themselves. It would be a violation, I
believe it's of the Consumer Protection
Act, where the attorney general could
then open a suit against the vendor for
violation of Washington state law and
subject them to civil penalties.
>> Council member Nichols,
>> thank you. I just wanted to clarify one
thing that you said. You said that it's
physically impossible to share um data
with uh entities that you have not
granted access to. Um my understanding
is that many of the previously reported
problems in in flock systems and I I
believe Kant is using flock um were run
by officer were searches uh run on
behalf of officers in other
jurisdictions um that were then emailed
to those officers in other jurisdictions
um that was previously illegal under
many circum under some circumstances in
Washington state um though physically
possible. Do you believe that that it is
now no longer physically possible to
email searches to others or is that
still a a potential risk?
>> So when I say the physical impossibility
was for those for agencies outside of
Washington to access our data u even if
I wanted to give it to them within the
system itself. So if you have a sharing
relationship within the system. So, for
example, if the city of Isqua had a
attorney general approved system and the
city of Kent had a system that was also
approved by the AG's office, we would be
able to communicate and share data
within the system itself. Now, nothing
prevents an officer from choosing to
break the law and take data out of the
system and give it to whomever they
choose to, which would be a crime. Um,
but within the system itself, I cannot
establish a sharing relationship with
any agency outside of Washington state.
So, it does not allow them to have a
sharing relationship with us to see our
data, and it doesn't allow them to uh
see anything through like a nationwide
search. You've heard that term used a
few times tonight. Um, Washington state
agencies cannot participate in
nationwide searches anymore. U within
the at least our vendor.
>> Thank you.
>> Other questions for the commander?
>> Not seeing any. Thank you very much for
joining us this evening.
>> Thank you, council.
>> All right.
So, now that we know a little bit more
about CEDs and ALPRs, let's move forward
move forward in the process. Uh, so
following Oh, make sure my slide moves
forward.
All right. So following the request to
see if we could possibly procure
funding, the police department was
informed we need to go to city council
to share uh the justifications and
information about such.
So on uh in the beginning on the
February 25th, 2025, staff sought input
from the services, safety, and parks
committee SSP regarding purchasing ALPR
uh cameras as a supplement to aid law
enforcement in keeping citizens safe. No
public no public comment was received at
this meeting and per the minutes per the
minutes committee members were generally
in favor of this me uh of the proposed
camera system and urged staff to be
sensitive regarding potential privacy
issues some of the similar things that
were mentioned earlier. Uh it was
already noted at the meeting that there
would be no access granted to um these
resources and we were not going to be uh
using them for tracking or uh
surveillance and there is no biometric
tracking features
uh and that we would also be working
with uh legal and appropriate data
management procedures. The committee
recommended the staff move forward with
developing uh a purchase and
implementation plan. And there was
discussion as to whether this item
needed to go to before full uh council
for approval and it was subsequently
decided at that meeting to bring the
item to the March 17th, 2025 regular
council meeting.
on March 17th, 2025. The item was placed
on the consent calendar and approved
unanimously. Uh the agenda bill informed
the community that in that community
engagement occurred previously um and
that this proposal was developed after
multiple discussions with local
homeowners associations and
businesses.
So now let's go into the rest of this
process.
All right. Now after receiving uh
approval for seeking funding, the grants
were finalized and combi and submitted
to the community appropriations portal.
It was suggested by the panel that we
condense into one grant. And note the
majority of funding was primarily going
towards CEDs. And uh let it be of note
with the original original attached
quote, the majority share of the 84% of
the grant covered the CEDs and that was
submitted officially on May 2nd, 2025.
So fast forward to a lot of things
happened politically. there's a lot of
things happened and we a lot of new
information came out as well. And so
fast forward to uh January 8th of this
year, we received notice of the award of
the grant funding. Uh originally it was
thought that we would receive notice
earlier, but uh it's hard moving
Congress fast. So there's that. Um we
received notice of award of the grant
funding on uh the 8th of January this
year. But however in that time period
there were concerns raised on ALPR data
access and privacy rights uh that came
up and and honestly understandably so.
The Isqua Police Department takes the
public safety and privacy protections
extremely seriously. Uh and we made sure
we were in full compliance of this new
law. And as it turns out, we do not have
any ALPR cameras of our own. Uh, but the
very first iteration of the grant had
asked for access to them. And so the
department decided with guidance from
our newly elected mayor, Mark Mullet,
uh, to evaluate what were the most
important priorities for our public
safety at this present time. And it was
decided that the purchase of CEDs is the
most important priority for the
department and has the highest potential
cost savings uh that having grant
funding would help alleviate.
uh also in that time period. I just want
to make note then state uh state bill
6002 was introduced to Washington Senate
in regard in regard excuse me
in regard to uh driver protections. And
this was finalized and signed into law
effective uh March 30th, 2026. And with
this bill, um there are many things with
this bill, but commonly used companies
for ALPRs would need to ensure driver
information protections from federal
access as well as from jurisdictions
with differing legal policies among
other protections.
So following all of this, it came to our
attention and uh I will I personally
will claim uh responsibility for this
one. Uh, it came to our attention that
the original CED quote used for the
grant was now outdated and needed
updating for the new year if we were
even going to consider making our
purchase of new CEDs. So, we requested
uh this on April 6th, 2026,
and we did not actually receive the new
quote until May 1st, 2026.
which I'm going to show you right now.
So, a reminder here,
uh, as stated, the police department
reached out to Axon
B me, uh, the company who manages our
body camera equipment and requested an
updated quote for the same number of
CEDs as originally requested to cover
both patrol and our correctional
officers. The original grant quote from
2025 estimated the total cost of CEDs at
378,976.38.
The newly updated quote received for
this year estimated the total cost to
447,95968
which is just over 99%
of all total funds granted to the police
department. the granter was contacted
and we were notified that this was fine
to use the funding for CEDs exclusively
and that was uh that's what's reflected
on the website as well.
Uh there is now I say 99% so there is
$4,517.32
that is left over and that money will go
towards updating the interview room. uh
camera system in the police department.
No ALPRs.
So our proposal timing and next steps.
So our proposal right now we have no
actions presently and we are asking
council to uh consider benefits of
approval of the grant funding for
conducted energy devices. Next steps. Uh
the department will formally request
approval of grant funding at a future
city council meeting which will require
decision by council members. And I
believe we are hoping that this would be
the next June 15th meeting.
If approval is granted, then the
department will move forward with
applying to formally accept and receive
the funds to purchase the CEDs per the
appropriate federal process. And then
following this, the department will
submit um a purchase order for the new
energy devices and purchase the cameras
for the interview room.
And that's it actually. Any questions?
>> So, uh just process at this point, we're
still going to hear from Mr. Nef before
we move to public comment and uh uh
deliberation, but I want to ask if
anybody has any questions for Miss Miss
Smith at this point.
>> Council member Adair,
>> I believe this would be covered. I'm
just going to ask it so it's very clear
cuz there was a noted earlier that
council this was brought to council
originally because it was 100,000 or
more and thus it needed our approval to
proceed and in the original quote ALPR
were 78,000. So just to confirm there's
not a secondary grant request or
purchase request for ALPRs even though
it would be under the threshold to
require our approval.
>> That's correct. We are I am not this
grant is for CEDs.
>> Got it. Thank you.
>> Yes,
>> C. Council member Walsh.
>> So, does that mean that the police
department could with our own money, not
grant money, pursue
ALPR cameras that cost less than
$100,000 without coming to council?
Well, that's a good question. Uh, I want
to say no.
>> I'm committ
uh I I don't actually know the process
for that. I do not work in finance. I'm
the crime analyst, but uh I think that
would be an excellent question for our
finance. Uh Andrea, do you have any
thoughts on that one?
>> I'm going to hand things to our deputy
city administrator. Hi, thank you for
that question. So, I have the purchasing
policies pulled up here and we look at
um uh what uh who can approve what per
our purchasing policies. And so, um
council approval is required for
anything that's $300,000 and up. Um
below that amount, we would need to get
bids, etc. Um and the mayor's approval
might be required. That said, we don't
have any budget set aside for this
purchase. So, um we would need to
identify budget, which um at this point
we don't believe that we have um which
is why we had applied for grants in the
first place. So, um so that's another
reason why we would need to return to
council for the purchase of the uh
tasers as well to approve that purchase.
So, not just approve the grant, but then
approve the purchase for that equipment
because it's above 300,000.
>> Let me take that a little bit further. I
believe
the mayor can make a purchase under
$100,000
without
requiring council approval. Correct.
Okay. So without a policy from the city
council, we could see
a future purchase from the mayor, which
I hear you saying there is not an
intention nor there any
sense of money going forward. I'm just
trying to understand that if this grant
um money no longer has uh availability,
what
we need to do as council responding to
the community and the information we've
received, etc. And I believe I see city
administrator Bob Quitz up there.
>> City administrator Bob Quitz.
>> Yes. Good evening, uh, Mayor, mayor, uh,
council president and council members,
uh, Mayor Mullet has indicated that
there are no plans to move forward with
the purchase of ALPR cameras without
coming back to the council. Um, so I
just want to regardless what the
policies say on dollar amounts, uh,
there are no plans to move forward with
purchase of ALPR cameras at this time
and should those plans change, we will
come back to the city council.
Thank you, city administrator.
>> Thank you.
>> There we go.
>> Other questions right now from Miss
Smith.
>> All right. Thank you so much for your
presentation this evening.
>> Yes, of course.
>> Appreciate it. Did a great job.
>> Thank you.
And with that, um, I think we will move
at this point to, uh, bring Phil Phil
Nef in for his approximately a 10-minute
presentation on, uh, material on
research that has been done on, uh, use
of ALPR data. Is that right, city clerk?
>> Hello. Can you hear me?
>> Yes, we can.
>> Welcome. Thank you for joining us this
evening. and fresh freshly back from
from a long plane flight. So, appreciate
you being here this evening.
>> Yeah, thank you. Um, so I'll try to make
this brief, not take up a lot of your
time and then uh allow room for
questions. Um, so you can move to the
next slide. Um, my name is Phil Nef. I'm
the research coordinator at the
University of Washington Center for
Human Rights um in Seattle. Um, our
center was established by initiative of
the Washington State Legislature in 2009
and our mission is to uh inform the
public and policy makers about issues
relating to human rights and to advance
uh real world change for human rights in
partnership with um community groups
both locally and globally. So you can
move to the next slide please. Um we did
a first report about ALPR use in
Washington state in 2022. That report
was titled who's watching Washington? Um
and we found a number of instances at
that time of um information sharing with
federal immigration enforcement agencies
um through various means um by various
uh agencies using different vendors um
including Vancouver Police Department
which shared information with ICE and
Customs and Border Protection through
vigilant um ALPR systems and Okonogan
County Sheriff's Office which allowed
Customs and Border Protection
officers direct user accounts on their
LPR system uh via Leonardo and Vigilant.
Um and uh you can move to the next slide
please.
We revisited this topic uh last year um
with a focus on uh flock systems because
those had become by far the most common
system used in Washington state um
during the intervening few years uh with
reportedly more than 80 public agencies
in Washington state using flock um ALPR
cameras um although there's no
definitive um listing of of the agencies
which use those um and so our full
report is available on our website um
and via the short URL um on that slide.
Um you can move to the next slide
please.
Um the information that we analyzed um
through that report was primarily flocks
audit records. um three specific types
of audit records provided by the system
including a shared networks report which
lists all the networks with a which
agencies have um
authorized sharing of their data with
organization audits which list uh
searches of the local network by local
users and network audits which list
searches um by non-local users of the
local network. Um, and both of those
latter two audits include information
like the uh time of the search, the
number of networks or devices queried um
but not details on their location. Um,
and uh keywords related to the search
including uh the license plate or
partial license plate or um vehicle
descriptor filters applied to the
search. um and then the uh
the agency or officer responsible for
the search and um a a reason uh for the
search.
Um you can move to the uh I should
actually stay there. Um a number of
agencies uh declined to release those
audits to us under Washington State
Public Record Act. um including the city
of Cedra, Woolly denied requests for
both organizational and network audits
and the cities of Arlington, Everett,
Kent, Madina, and Tquila denied our
requests for the network audits, stating
that they had never reviewed those
audits and therefore they did not
constitute public records. Um so we
weren't able to gather full information
about a number of of jurisdictions.
Um our findings uh in that report that
was published in um September of last
year were that a number of agencies in
Washington state had enabled direct
one-on-one sharing of their networks
with US Border Protection and ICE
Homeland Security investigations.
Um and that in addition, a number of
agencies had their networks searched by
US Border Protection and ICE Homeland
Security investigations despite not
having directly um engaged sharing with
those agencies. Um because those
agencies were added by Flock to its
national lookup feature um during May
through August 2025 in an undisclosed
quote unquote pilot program. Um, so
Flock had always told um
stated publicly that it had no contracts
with federal immigration enforcement
agencies to use its uh service. Um, but
they initiated this uh pilot program
that gave um US Border Protection and
ICE Homeland Security Investigations
access to uh the system during May
through August 2025. Um and they uh
didn't disclose that until it was
revealed by uh
press reporting. Um and uh they have
since indicated that that pilot program
was paused.
Um and then in addition to those um
methods of information sharing, we found
uh many many cases of what we termed for
the purposes of the report side door
searches um
by agencies on behalf of federal
immigration enforcement agencies using
um keywords like immigration or uh ICE
or border patrol or um illegal alien,
things like that. uh those were
primarily outofstate agencies um and
Washington state networks were exposed
to searches by those agencies if um they
had shared their networks with those
agencies or if they had enabled
nationwide lookup.
Um the next slide uh presents just a
overview of some of the jurisdictions
where we identified some of those issues
across Washington state. Um this is not
comprehensive. if we didn't have access
to um data from every agency across the
state that that used those
uh that that used flock systems. Um so
you can go to the next slide.
Um other issues uh for human and civil
rights raised by um ALPR issues include
uh potential
surveillance of people from out of state
seeking um protected reproductive and
gender affirming care in Washington
state. Um those rights are uh enshrined
in Washington state under the the shield
law. Um there is at least one case of um
a sheriff's office in Texas which um
initiated searches in flock ALPR
networks for um a woman who uh had self-
administered an abortion. Um and the key
that was part of the keyword for the
search um and it was reported that that
Texas Sheriff's Office had had um
considered prosecuting that that person
for uh um death of a fe death death of a
fetus. um and that those searches uh
were present in a number of uh agencies
in Washington state. Um in addition to
those issues, there are other privacy
and civil liberties concerns which other
commenters um have brought up and which
I won't um uh reiterate um and which
were not specifically the subject of our
research. Um I mentioned uh some of the
public records issues that we ran into
in the course of our research. Um since
our research
um
the uh state legislature has passed uh
state bill uh 602 as discussed which um
implements additional restrictions on
sharing of uh ALPR data um as well as um
establishing that on one hand raw images
and hits from APR cameras are not public
records So, I can't, you know, request
all the ALPR hits for my neighbor's car.
Um, but, uh, it maintains that all audit
logs, um, are public records. So,
agencies that had previously denied
requests like ours for audit logs, um,
should not be able to do that in the
future. Um, so that's a very brief
summary of our findings. I'd be happy to
address any questions or, um, you know,
speak further on any topics um, if if
there's interest.
Thank you, Mr. Nef. And in fact, uh
there's at least one council member
Adair.
>> Uh just because I, you know, not fully
understanding. So my understanding is of
the systems was you know, you know,
you're searching by vehicle, by license
plate, by vehicle characteristics. So
I'm curious, how do these searches work
when they're you're saying that there
are search terms for abortion and
immigration and things like that? Like
how does that work with the system
exactly in terms of a search?
>> Yeah, that's right. So each uh search
has to be justified with a reason for
the search. Um and it's just a single
field um in the system or the audit and
it's a free text field. So by far the
most common reason input there is
investigation which as a independent
auditor gives you absolutely zero you
know context for the purpose of the
search. Um
uh some agencies have policies that they
have to include you know a case number
or or things like that um which would
then allow uh you know you to cross
reference with uh the agency's records
about what case the search was um
related to but that's entirely at the
level of an individual agency. Um and so
Flock has since the release of our
report um said that they restricted
searches in Washington state for terms
such as immigration or ICE. Um, but
that's a very minimal safeguard when you
can just put in investigation.
>> Council member Joe,
Mr. Nev, thank you for your presentation
this evening. Um, I noted that you
indicated that the audit records are now
open to the public records uh law. Is
that going to be the next area of study
for you? and what are the things on the
horizon that we as policy makers should
be aware of as we consider implementing
or not implementing block cameras in the
future. Thank you.
>> Yes, thank you. Um I I do imagine that
our center will probably revisit this
topic. Um we're giving it a little bit
of time to let the implementation of the
you know law take effect and for the um
attorney general offices model policies
to come out. For example, um we had done
some additional research um for uh audit
records from early 2026 and those showed
that um that those those did not
contradict Flock's statement that US
Border Patrol and ICE HSI no longer had
access to networks. We didn't find any
evidence of ongoing access by those
agencies in the more recent audits we
reviewed. Um I I do think that a a
number of the um aspects of SB 602 will
be very difficult for independent
investigators to reliably audit. um
given the um
relatively scant information which is
provided for um each search in the audit
logs. Um and so there would need to be a
I think significant role for other
public entities with uh oversight over
um you know agencies that uh that use uh
you know LPRs. Um, I I hope it won't be
only our center um doing that doing that
oversight.
>> Thank you, Mr. Nef. You've given us a
lot to think about.
>> Council member Nichols.
>> Briefly on the absence of findings uh
for the the first few months of the year
in terms of data showing um uh searches
deliberately done by Washington state
law enforcement agencies on behalf of uh
federal entities. um would there have
been any way for you to know if they had
given that they are now restricted from
entering terms like immigration etc. How
would you have actually figured out if
they were versus this is a absence of
evidence is not abs evidence of absence
type of question. I think I'm misquing
that but you're getting getting the
basic point like how how would you know?
That's right. And I should qualify what
I said was um we did not see direct
access by US Border Patrol or ICE HSI to
the networks. So searches of the
networks identified as being directly by
those agencies. We did not see further
evidence of that. Um we didn't have the
wherewithal to search for any possible
um searches on behalf of those agencies.
Um, so I would not say that that we have
evidence that that that changed in any
way from 2025 to 2026. Um, we did
continue to see uh searches by
outofstate law enforcement agencies on
behalf seemingly on behalf of
immigration enforcement agencies uh
based on um
uh some of the reason keywords in
searches.
>> Other questions for Mr. Nef.
Well, Mr. Nef, thank you again very much
for being with us this evening. We
really appreciate it.
>> Yeah, thank you. You're welcome.
So with that
um we are at the point where um uh I
will ask Dale Marky Crimp if we are have
completed theformational section uh on
this item and if we are ready to move to
uh uh deliberation given that we're not
taking any action this evening.
>> Yes, that concludes the presentations.
>> Great. Thank you. So, this is the point
where I will offer up public comment
again. Um, knowing what we've heard this
evening, um, I see there are some folks
who want to speak. Um, so we will reopen
public comment at this point if you uh,
if folks want to come one at a time to
the microphone again, restate your name,
address, and your relationship to the
city and any comments you want to have
for us. Again, five minute limit per per
speaker.
So ma'am
>> I'm sitting in the front, so I guess
I'll go first. [laughter] My name is
Shandra Ryder. I live in the Talis
neighborhood. Um, first of all, I wanted
to thank Isqua PD for coming out and
giving a fantastic presentation. Um, I
want to reiterate for my personal um
beliefs, my issues are not with Isqua
PD. I've never had any reason to doubt
Isqua PD. I've worked with many law
enforcement agencies in Washington over
the years and every agency individually
has a reputation and ISQA has one of the
best that I've ever heard of. So, thank
you for that. I want to reiterate that.
Um, I don't want to go too much into
flock cuz it feels a little bit like
beating a dead horse. I did want to make
a couple of comments on what was
presented tonight. Um, I am for the
tasers. Um, I've been trained in how to
use pepper spray. I would personally
rather have a taser used on me than ever
have pepper spray. Um, so I'm all for
that part of the presentation. Um, I did
want to, um, reiterate and go back to a
couple of things that Kent presented on,
um, you may remember that last time I
spoke about how
one of Flock's selling points, and like
you, um, Council Member Nichols, I I
believe they use Flock from what I've
heard from people who live in the area.
Um something that he mentioned was that
he's an administrator. So he has
administrator access and he commented on
it having input. What he didn't mention
was that they had any influence or
ability to install and maintain the
systems themselves which I think brings
it back to that backdoor side access
that we keep reiterating and that we're
so concerned about as a community. We're
not concerned about our local police
officers in Isiqua misusing or abusing
these systems. We're concerned about
federal agencies improperly accessing
these. And uh SP 60002, it was a great
start. Um we were very excited when this
bill came out. A lot of us supported it,
including our local senator, Victoria
Hunt. Um but you may notice, as I did,
that her name is missing from the final
bill. she revoked her name and her
support of that bill as a sponsor when
the final language came out because some
of these protections were taken away. Uh
data retention at 21 days is very scary
if you're an impacted community member.
Um the stats that Isaqua and Kent gave
tonight about how helpful these systems
have been. um they gave a relatively
small percentage of how helpful it was
in uh in addressing serious crime
compared to the amount of data that it's
taking in every single day. We have tens
of thousands of people who commute in
and out of Isakqua every single day. And
um I would just implore the council to
think about how much data we're
collecting for a return on that
investment, not just in money, but also
in data. Um, one of the other things
that I noted um when Kent was presenting
is they said that their contract is to
keep data within the US. Well, as we
know in our current climate, that's a
very scary thing. Um, having Flock is a
Georgia based company. A lot of their um
data centers are based in Georgia and
Arizona. I personally don't want my data
going anywhere near those two states.
So, for me as a Washingtonian, um me as
a progressive, um I I am concerned about
where that data is going. Um so, I would
implore you guys to consider um
releasing a city ordinance before you
vote on this grant. Um I understand
there's no plans to to add ALPR systems
in outside of this grant, but that could
change. It's a fluid thing. And so I
think for the protection of the
community, we want to be assured that
these systems aren't going to be
installed in our city um without us
having a say. Um so I would implore you
to consider a city ordinance that that
bans for the time being or severely
limits these technologies within our
city. Um and if we do proceed forward,
let's um work as a community to
implement a closed loop system um that's
going to keep the data in isqua or here
locally on the east side um partnering
with partners that we know are safer or
some of the best in class at um
retaining and collecting data. Thank
you.
>> Thank you very much. And a lot of hands
went up uh of the folks who are still
here with us this evening. Uh, next
ma'am on the right side of the audience.
My name is Janice Matila Smith. I have
grown up in Isiqua.
Uh my
family has been here multiple
generations.
Um my daughters were raised on the
family farm that
uh I was raised on that my father was
raised on. They were dairy farmers.
Um I have a unique perspective among
a lot of people. I think uh I don't know
how many people can honestly say they
have the history that I have with
Isiziqua.
Uh I have seen Isiziqua change and morph
and some of it's good and some of it is
not good. Um there are a lot of things
that I really love and cherish about
this beautiful place and I have chosen
to raise my children here and um
and continue to stay here because of the
beauty of this place.
I am
so grateful to
our police department.
I'm so grateful to the people that
um took their time
to try to get uh
this grant for us.
It was a lot of work and and it wasn't
easy to do. So, um I respect the
professionalism and the work of our
police department and I think that they
need every opportunity
to
protect
the citizens of this beautiful city.
Um,
I'm fully supportive of getting them new
equipment,
whatever that may be. What we're talking
about, tasers tonight, fully support
that.
Um, I've also heard I'm not 100% sure
why we're talking about the flock system
when that isn't part of the grant, but
if we're just talking about it because
in the eventuality that it should
happen,
yes, I agree with the people that have
said not supportive of having that
system where data is uncontrolled.
controlled and accessible by other
entities that are not in the isqua
system. Um, but I've also seen a lot
more crime.
I was shopping and I had I was at
Sephora and I had people come and they
were shoplifting right in front of me. I
was arms length away from the guy
putting stuff into his bag. Like
shocking to me what kind of a place
honestly
what is happening. So if it if it takes
putting up some cameras,
I'm okay with that. I'm okay because it
makes my family safer.
I want our children safe. I want our
children to feel safe.
Anyway, that's about all I have to say.
Thank you for hearing me out.
Thank you very much. Would anyone else
like to speak this evening?
>> Uh, thank you, city council, for giving
me the time to speak tonight and thank
you to Isqua PD for a wonderful
presentation. Um, my name is Robin
Blotbot. I've been living in 1st Avenue
Northwest for about 3 years now in the
city of Isiqua and I love it here. Uh,
prior to living in Isiqua, I used to
live in Hawaii and I come from a family
of immigrants. My father when he came to
the US from the Philippines in middle
school and then when I was born, uh, he
became a police officer. He served the
city and county of Honolulu for about 15
years. And, uh, he told me many, many
stories growing up. Um, and I know how
hard the job of public safety and law
enforcement can be. But while I am
deeply sympathetic to the plights our
officers face, um, I do not believe that
ALPR systems like Flock are worth the
cost. My fellow residents have already
expressed their concerns with regards to
data security, uh, economic concerns,
and the dangers ALPR systems present to
the most vulnerable in our communities,
immigrants, people seeking reproductive
care, uh, queer people and people of
color, and more. Uh, I don't need to
really rehash these concerns, but I
would like to leave with a reminder that
the road to hell is paved with good
intentions, and injustice can be more
convenient than doing the right thing.
And I foresee in the future that there
will be more convenient solutions like
Flock uh private companies with quick
and easy systems that prepare to pro
protect the public. But if and when they
fall into the wrong hands uh only will
oppress them even more. So I urge the
council to implement an ordinance
ordinance that bans Flock and other ALPR
systems like Flock. uh to be wary and
look out for these quick and easy
solutions and to find something that
sign find actual solutions that will
make the jobs of our officers safer
while not eroding the trust of our
communities and our residents. Thank you
for your time.
>> Number of hands raised in support of
that statement.
Would anyone else like to speak this
evening?
>> Hi there. Um, again, my name is Nicholas
Herang and I've lived in Isaakiqua for
over 25 years. Um, I am not an expert in
public policy or flot cameras. Uh, but
my education and career are in computer
science. And so, um, from what the Kent
police officer was talking about, I do
want to raise an issue with the specific
point where he said there was a physical
impossibility
of that data being used outside of Kent.
Um,
even if the data was in Kent, that would
not be true just because of how software
works and how breaches happen. But
specifically with the data being stored
out of Ken and out of state,
it is impossible for that to make that
statement to to make to state that as an
impossibility. Um data can be taken onto
a flash drive. It can be stored on a
server with other data and it can
accidentally be allowed access. Uh it
can intentionally be allowed access. it
can have federal
um
requisition of that data. Sorry, it's
like a couple hours past my bedtime. Um
[laughter]
but
but essentially that once that data is
there especially if it is not you know
on premises where you are using that
data
it is not secure especially when it is
such wanted and used and valuable data.
We're pursuing people that are generally
considered
um targeted minorities right now such as
immigrants, trans people, reproductive
care seekers. Um and again, I just
really urge Isiqua to
stay a place that is safer for these
individuals and these groups. um rather
than kind of going into this network of
surveillance and letting that data and
these people's uh privacy become
uh compromised in that way. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Lots of uh hands up in
support.
Anyone else wishing to speak this
evening?
Second call. Anyone else wishing to
speak? Clerk, do we have any indication
that anyone online wishes to speak?
Uh, so thank you all and I will
reiterate what you have heard uh from
the city and from the IPD. Uh, it is
always challenging to speak truth to
power. Um, and coming to speak on issues
like public safety uh is very
challenging. So I want to thank everyone
from the public who came to speak this
evening and uh ask my fellow council
members. This is the point where we are
at deliberations, but I don't believe
the administration is necessarily uh and
I see microphones up, so I'm just going
to stop talking and uh I believe Council
Member uh Walsh had her mic up first.
>> Thank you.
Um
so, first I want to say thank you to the
community for coming out. This is
obviously a passion area and an area
that there is both fear and concern. Um
but also I would say great hope for um
being heard and so I want to say that
you are heard. Um second I want to say
that I very appreciate very much
appreciate um Sergeant Aspel's uh
presentation on CEDs. I will also refer
to them as tasers because that flows off
my lips easier. Um, this really seems
like a reasonable and necessary upgrade
to our safety technology that will keep
our residents and our officers sake
safe. Um, I appreciate the details
provided there um that give the
justification for having 15-year-old
technology and um the ways that this
will ensure um the safety of people much
more. Um, I also very much appreciate
Ryan Smith and the department's um,
proactive search for outside funding via
federal grants. We always know that our
funding is limited and um, there is not
half a million dollars sitting around
um, to upgrade this technology, which is
why it's 15 years old. Um, regarding
ALPR cameras, you know, I think what
I've heard from the community is that
they've asked for strict guard rails
about what um, data could be collected,
where it could be stored, whether that's
the cloud, third party or private, how
long it could be stored, who could
access it, and what would be required to
do a search such as a case number. I
would add um I think important policy
considerations are which databases could
be used for alerting and what our
policies are related to police responses
for those alerts. One of my main fears
is that criminals are very smart and the
idea of someone rather than stealing a
car just stealing a license plate and
switching it out gives the criminals the
ability to come in even if we have ALPR
technology. But it also means that that
person whose license plate was stolen
and then replaced with a stolen plate um
a potential safety uh situation
especially if
officers are using that data um and
believing that that is complete 100%
evidence um of a crime and treating
someone in that way. So I I think there
are a lot of policy questions there. Um
based on some of our initial
information, I believe that uh state
bill or Senate bill 6002 does not
provide enough limits to ensure safety
of our residents and visitors. And so I
really think it's important that we look
at ways that we can use policy to
protect our residents. and toward that
idea. I know the administration isn't
necessarily asking for um specific
feedback at this time, but I would like
to point out two um upcoming points of
engagement. Um June 15th, uh the
administration is asking us to accept
the grant. Um what I will be looking for
as a decision decision maker at this
point um is a specific statement in that
grant acceptance that provides clarity
that we are accepting CED and interview
room cameras and not ALPR technology. It
is not enough for me for the
administration to just say here accept
this money and here's what our intention
is in it. Um I think it is very
important that we have uh strict
guidelines. However, I will also note
that uh June 15th is a committee of the
whole, so I don't know how we are making
decisions at that point, but I will
leave that up to council leadership to
decide.
Yeah. And then um July 20th, um the
mayor has a plan discussion on a draft
policy
um for city ALPR use. Um, I think there
are a lot of policy questions here and I
will be looking for ways to enrage the
protections that the community is
seeking. I don't know what those are
yet. Um, but I would be interested to
make sure that we are able to put those
protections into policy and ordinance
language and not leave it open at that
time.
>> Deputy city administrator, did you wish
to
>> Thank you. I just wanted to it's it's a
late hour, but I wanted to just make
sure we had the correct information out
there. June 15th is a regular city
council meeting. June 13th is the
committee of the whole I'm sorry, June
8th. There we go. But June 15th is a
regular city council meeting.
>> Thank you, Deputy City Administrator,
Deputy Council President Jang.
>> Great. Well, first of all, um I want to
reiterate Council Member Walsh's thanks
for all the community members who have
come here to speak up about their
concerns and for sticking with us to
this late hour. It's been over 3 hours.
[laughter] Um I also want to thank
Sergeant Aswell for her great
presentation on tasers. And I want to
recognize and thank IPD for seeking
outside funding. Given our challenging
budget environment, I think, you know,
taking the initiative to do that is
fantastic. And for getting information
about potential grant flexibility on
short notice. I know that this, you
know, we uh put this on the agenda in uh
I believe it was good of the order 3
weeks ago. Um I'm fully in support of
the proposed spending plan for the grant
which does not include ALPRs, but like
council member Walsh, I would like to
see some provision about that when we do
the grant acceptance that this, you
know, this is the spending plan and it
can't be used for things outside of what
has been identified. Um I also want to
um be clear about what happened in the
fee February 25th and March 17th
meetings from last year which were
brought up. So on February 25th it was a
services safety and parks committee
meeting to discuss ALPRS um and then the
report from that meeting was on the
consent agenda on the March 17th council
meeting. Basically, in the March 17th
council meeting, we approved the report
essentially. And in that report, the
staff noted the staff report noted that
the committee urged staff to be
sensitive regarding potential privacy
issues. And the staff uh report asked
staff to perform outreach to groups that
may have concerns and get ahead of any
rumors about the system. Since then, we
have heard loud and clear from the
community about many uh potential
privacy issues and concerns. And
ultimately, you know, this is a very
clear case of policy trade-offs.
Obviously, there are legitimate uses of
ALPRs to help with cases like stolen
vehicles, theft, burglaries, or even
worse. But as Detective uh Werwitzky
said in her public comment, we do need
to balance civil liberties with keeping
community safe. That means we can't have
cameras that upload data to a shared
national database where there are side
doors and back doors for out of state
agencies, side doors and back doors for
federal agencies. That means we need to
have clear internal policies about using
case numbers in ALPR searches and clear
accountability measures when officers
are found out of compliance with those
policies. I would strongly support a
local ordinance around data sharing
protections for any ALPRs or other
cameras. And I'd like us to consider
some pretty wide ranging data
protections. So, first of all, you know,
ensuring all data is stored on local
servers rather than national cloud-based
centralized servers. Um, we can also
look at what other cities around the
country have adopted with regards to
ordinances. So, um, for example,
Phoenix, um, which is not a particularly
progressive jurisdiction, unanimously
adopted an ALPR ordinance recently that
requires all data requests from federal
agencies to be escalated to the level of
their city manager. There are cases when
there are legitimate requests from
federal agencies for, you know, DEA or
things like that, but it does need to be
escalated so that it's, you know, at the
level of city manager rather than
individual officers. Um,
and, you know, as we're currently in the
interview process for our new police
chief, um, our new police chief is going
to be in charge of, you know,
implementing any of these data
protections as well as, um, internal
policies. So, that's something that we
want to be very clear about. Um, our
officers are doing the best they can
with the tools that they have and we
want to make sure that, you know, we
have clear instructions for them on what
uh they can and can't do. As officer
Bais said, um, community members want
assurances that their data will not be
misused. Community safety works best
when communities and officers work
together. So, I'm looking forward to our
upcoming discussions about ordinances to
ensure data security and protections for
any ALPRs or other cameras that may be
installed within the city of Isqua.
Thank you.
>> Thank you, Council Member Nichols.
Okay. So, uh first off, thank you again
to all of the community members who have
shown up uh all of the community members
who have emailed uh all of the members
community members who have called uh and
stopped us in the streets to talk to us
about this topic many many times. Um
it's hard to stick around uh show up and
make your voice heard, but it is really
one of the most important parts of
keeping our democracy honest and
accountable. So, thank you. Um I'll
[clears throat] also thank the
administration for putting this
presentation together. Um, and I also
want to go back and also thank the
police department for applying for this
grant. Uh, and I'm sincere in that.
Having written many federal grants
myself, I appreciate how hard these are
to get. Um, February 2025 was in many
ways a different time and I don't think
we should fault anyone for trying to
save the city money and go out and get
some additional funding for us. Um, so
thank you for all the good intentions
that were clearly placed in this
proposal. um I brought up in other
meetings, so I won't repeat myself uh
too much as far as my overall comments
and thoughts on ALPR systems in general,
except to just say to the public that uh
I will be 100% against any ALPR system
that doesn't have security guarantees
that our residents can feel comfortable
with. Um I do appreciate the public
potential public safety benefits of
these devices, but without the right
guard rails, there there is
demonstrabably and we heard so much
about this tonight, clear potential for
them to be used in ways that none of us
want. Um, and I'm really hoping we can
get to clarity on what our guard rails
are and that we can do that quickly. Um,
as to the grant itself, I'll reiterate
that I would want to see something in
writing in part for clarity for us, but
also for clarity for the public, but I I
do have a concern as far as our ability
to be clear with the public here because
this is a confusing topic at the moment.
Um,
as as was stated, this is a single grant
and I wanted to get the clarity on that
since flock cameras are a part of that
grant and it's in originally intended
purpose at least. Um, and given that
context, I think we're at severe risk of
communicating in a muddled and confusing
way about what our intentions are. Um,
even to folks that are paying wrapped
attention, as I understand all of you
are. Um, so all I really want to talk
about now is timing. Um, the
administration has proposed that we vote
to accept or decline this grant on June
15th. Uh, and like I said, if I were a
member of the public, I would be very
confused about what we're voting on the
15th. Um, as a single example, as was
brought up in comments, uh, we had a
invited speaker discussing the benefits
of lock cameras. Um, if we're not
considering purchasing them as part of
this grant, this is at a minimum a
confusing time to be discussing that.
Um, and I really think we owe the public
clarity on this very important topic and
that we can do that better with better
sequencing. Uh, so the administration
has suggested that several of us jointly
draft several options for ordinances
that could place guardrails of varying
degrees on ALPR cameras. Um, but with
the proposed schedule, we won't get to
that until July 20th, which is a full
month after we vote on this grant. Um,
we also have our ongoing internal
studies of our own use of these systems
that you're aware of and those won't
report out until even after that based
on the most recent emails we have on the
topic. So, if staff time is too limited
to work on council with council to
develop those guardrails, uh, I
appreciate that. That's understandable.
Um, but since we can set our own
calendar, I think we should consider
just moving our vote on this grant back
a month until after we have these
guardrails in place. uh or move the
guardrails discussion up a month if we
are not staff constrained. Um it it was
only a couple weeks ago that we were
proposing not even to discuss this until
the fall. So with even let's say 10%
inflation, we're talking about a like a
half a percent price increase or so with
a new quote. I don't think it's worth
risking miscommunication for that small
potential difference in increased cost
for tasers, which I I glossed over this,
but I am also in support of the the
taser part of this proposal. and I will
also call them tasers because I already
forgot what the other acronym is. Um, so
I would like to hear a little bit more
from my fellow council members how we
feel about aligning those two votes um,
in many different way. There's lots of
ways we could do this. Um, but really
just for the sole purpose of giving
clarity to the voters on what our
intentions are um, so that people don't
have to be paying perfect attention and
they can tune in and understand what
what our what everyone's intentions are,
councils and the administrations. Um,
and I really do think they should be
co-terminist. So, I would welcome
further discussion on that topic at some
point. Council, Council Member Nichols,
I do not understand your concern. Can
you restate it?
Uh, we have presented information that I
think could be easily confused to by the
public given that our a good chunk of
our discussion tonight was on the
benefits of lock cameras. Even though we
are at the moment
the administration is not propose
proposing having flock cameras as a part
of a purchase agreement whatever
purchasing is resulting from those the
grant that we received. Given that
confusion and given the fact that a mere
month later we already have a proposed
time to discuss guardrails that we would
put on AOPR systems in general, I think
we could communicate much more clearly
to the public what our what our
intentions are and what the
administration's intentions are by first
discussing what guardrails we want to
place on ALPRs and then discussing the
grant that still does technically cover
ALPRs in it.
I mean, we're discussing ALPRs today
because a majority of the council
insisted that we discuss ALPRs tonight.
>> Uh, we are discussing ALPRs tonight
because we disc because we insisted that
the majority of the council discussed
the grant tonight. The the insertion of
the of a presentation by the Kent Police
Department on the benefits of flaw
cameras was, I believe, a request from
the administration, but please correct
me if I'm wrong on that.
Do you think that the public is not
aware that 99 that the administration's
proposal is that 99% of the money go to
tasers and 1% of the money go to
interview cameras? I mean, that seems
like that got said about 20 times
tonight. I think we have a small group
of people who are able and uh have the
time to pay very close attention and
otherwise they will have heard many
times that the city is considering flock
cameras. They will have if even if they
downloaded our packet tonight, they will
have seen a presentation from an invited
speaker on the benefits of flock
cameras. I think given those
circumstances,
clarity is a benefit that we everyone
would benefit from clarity and we can
benefit from clarity by simply stating
our guard rails first before we vote on
a grant that was originally intended to
purchase cameras. But wouldn't we be
giving clarity if we vote on a very
straightforward funding of tasers and an
interview camera and then at a later
date have a conversation about uh ALPRs?
I mean to continue to conflate the two
topics together does not seem to
achieve the thing that you're asking
for. I I feel like we should have a
straightup vote on tasers and interview
cameras and then have a conversation
about ALPR.
>> I think we disagree. Um there are
there's lots of different ways that we
could potentially get the clarity. Um
since we are voting on a grant and we
will see what comes back as far as what
language is possible to be added to that
grant to clarify either intentions or
limitations. I don't know at the moment
what that will look like. Um, given that
given the history of this, given the
even the confusing nature of the
presentation tonight, which did include
substantial content on flock, um, I
think it would be reasonable for many in
the public to not fully understand where
we are at the moment and that we could
get to better clarity by simp if we want
to pass an ordinance a month later
that's going to put guard rails on it,
we can we could make them coterist
coerminist and then there's no cl
there's no confusion at all.
I see. Thank you for clarifying your
concern.
Uh I believe next up is Council Member
Adair. Um I have a few thoughts. One,
I'll I'll address that part directly and
that I think I see council member
Nichols point in that for those that are
not here today that did not see the full
presentation. What has been shared in
social media throughout the community
has simply been city is considering a
grant to buy ALPRs. They're going to
talk about it and then the month later
they'll say, "Oh, the city has approved
this grant." and the details of what how
the grant has changed may not be get out
amongst the populace other than to hear
the words the grant was approved. And so
I though I'm not sure that the swapping
of dates will do that because I also
have concerns that ordinances on ALPRs
will not be a single meeting topic. Uh
it feels like there's a lot to discuss
there and I'm not sure we're going to
come to a consensus and have an
ordinance all figured out by that date.
So [snorts] I would propose a solution
to that problem is simply be some level
of administrative public announcement to
really make it clear to the public of
hey we discussed it alprs are no longer
on this grant and just have some level
of a public com you know public outreach
or social media posts I'm not sure the
equivalent of that to just clarify this
issue because right now I can see many
of the public hear the word grant and
they think it's alprs and just to make
that clear before we vote on the grant
would be helpful for that clarity. So I
think that's my understanding that's my
thoughts on it of whether that's an
alternative to address that concern. Um
my secondary thoughts is to in terms of
the general topic is also to reiterate
what has been said about how much the
public has been heard from here. I was a
council member that was okay with the
delay in this discussion initially and
it was the public outreach that changed
my opinion to have the discussion now
and I very much appreciate all that
outreach and it I reiterate that it was
heard and great job in our public and
coming out. Uh I equally approve the use
of this for CEDs. I love the idea of
non-lethal options. I you know in terms
of law enforcement and think this is a
very good use of these funds.
Uh the fact that you're getting money
out of the federal government is amazing
to me. Uh cuz I that's just not
something I expect to see at all
anymore. Um and then as far as the
actual ALP ordinances to be discussed,
yeah, I agree that I do not think
SB60002
is enough and think there is more that
would have to be done in order to accept
them in this community. um to the point
that you know made earlier of tech moves
fast you know equally government moves
slow and I think that's on purpose
because I think we need to take our time
with make you know doing these things
making these decisions um you know I
will say like I have you know I love the
idea of guardrails but I I have a just
fundamental question of do we need these
at all like I'm a big believer in you
know build a longer table not a taller
fence and these to me feel like building
a fence around the city and do we need a
digital fence around the city? So even
in terms of ordinance talks, my
questions are is this even necessary or
what we want for our community? Hence
why I'm not sure that we'll have a
solution to that discussion right away.
So um you know those are my thoughts and
that I you know prove the CD usage, but
I would say you know if we could get
some sort of public outreach out to make
it clear that the grant had is no longer
going to be used for these devices would
be helpful.
>> Thank you. Council member Joe. Oh,
>> did what?
>> Uh, city administrator Bob Kitz was on
camera. I didn't know if he wanted to
make a comment or not.
>> City
administrator, you have the mic.
>> Yeah.
>> Yes. Thank you very much, council
president. Um, as I said a few moments
ago, uh, the mayor has no intention
moving forward with this. And I think
the suggestion was made by Deputy
Council President Jen, uh, and I think
also Council Member Walsh that we can
make a clear statement when the grant
comes back. Um, we have the money
available to us. We don't want to see
another price increase for Tasers. So,
we would like to move forward. We will
make it very clear uh what the grant is
purchasing, what the grant is not
purchasing and then work uh with
bringing back an ordinance with the
prescribed time frame that we've given.
But we can do that. We have a very smart
community. They'll understand. And
again, I don't want to wait any longer
to see another price increase uh for
this equipment.
>> Thank you, city administrator. Council
member Joe, did you have comments?
>> Yeah, just briefly. Um, my comments were
very similar to
uh, city administrator Bobitz's uh,
comments right there. Um, the way the
federal dollars are being put out,
withdrawn,
given out, taken away, I think we need
to seize on this as soon as we possibly
can. The policy for ALRPS uh, is going
to take a little bit of time to to wade
through. Um, our citizens are smart.
There are a number of groups that are
following our conversation and uh I got
stopped at the market a couple of weeks
ago and one of the members said, you
know, we're following the conversation.
I spread what happened at the council
meeting to all of the members in the
group and um they know what's going on
and if we're clearly stating that this
is only a grant acceptance for CEDs or
tasers um we'll be okay there. Um, and
if there is an issue or a problem and
it's not clear to our our public, we can
of course table the issue to a date
certain as per Robert's rules of order
and go from there. But I think it should
be on the agenda for uh approval as soon
as uh practical. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Council Member Boy.
>> Thank you. Um, I will also reiterate
that uh deep thanks for the community on
um showing up at every turn of this
conversation. Uh it's uh helped shape my
thinking for sure as has this uh great
presentation um and all the hard work
from staff and these outside presenters.
I really appreciate it. Um I'm in favor
of the I I will also call them taser
upgrades. Um I uh think I've some of you
may know I've shared that uh in my uh
vacancy application my mother is a
police officer and when I was you know
looking through these and the specific
model this is quite literally not my
mother's taser. Um uh I appreciate
especially the just safety aspect of the
distance that it can put between um and
um uh I guess I'm getting into the
weeds. I know it eliminates the warning
arc and is now a warning um alert and uh
yeah interesting. Um
uh I think the question that's been in
my throughout this conversation um
I I've had something in my mind and I
think that it's very um
in our equity framework uh
question or framework nine really gets
at this of have we sacrificed the
experience of marginalized people for
the comfort and safety
of other residents. That's just kind of
a it's not exactly what it says, but and
so I think that really that's what's
grounding my thinking of this. Um and so
I echo I would also I would potentially
be in favor of an ordinance that puts
some guardrails on things. I want to be
wary of um uh you know making clear
carveouts for we have traffic cameras in
town right for various in a few
different spots and uh there are private
businesses that I think already do use
these and so um just [snorts] not
wanting us to get ourselves in any kind
of legal trouble with things that are
already existing that's outside of the
city's scope but uh
um as far as the timing of it uh I
certainly would want clarity on the
grant for both the community uh aspect
how they've been tracking this issue and
for my own how I'm voting on it. Um I
want to be very clear on what I am
either approving or disapproving.
[snorts]
>> Thank you for your comments. Before I go
to Deputy Council President Jang, I'm
going to take a chance to do finish the
first round of comments on this. Uh yay
tasers. Um that's fine. So, on the
subject of, you know, ALPRs, right? If
you've got a spectrum that runs from one
end to the other, um, if you've got a
Yay ALPRS,
uh, that that has been a small, uh, and
really exclusively IPD, uh, uh, group
thus far, every everybody else has been
sort of someplace else. And there's
people who are who are basically saying,
"No, it's a terrible idea just in
general." And we've heard some of that
tonight. We've heard some of that
historically. There's folks who have
said if you can guarantee that there's
no possible way that this data will ever
be misused, um that is a hard and I'm
not entirely sure uh uh genuine position
to take because um if you have laws that
say it's a gross misdemeanor for a
police officer to take data and do
something with it, um that to me is a
pretty good uh standard. So, so I I I'm
not there. That's not the position I'm
at. Um I hear time and time again that
there's a lot of folks that are super
concerned about local data. And I'm I'm
of the school of thought that it's worth
having a conversation when there are
technologies available that would keep
the data local and in the control of the
IPD, then it's worth having a
conversation. You know, 15 years ago, I
wanted the IPD to get body cameras
because I thought body cameras would
make the public safer. And they couldn't
do it at the time because at the time,
um, there were just all these issues
about data, right? And what would happen
if somebody did a public records request
and they just said, you know, for
instance, I want to see all the people
arrested for prostitution. And then they
put up a website that shows everybody
who's arrested for prostitution, right?
As an example of the kinds of issues you
get into when you deal with public data.
And so the technology just wasn't ready
15 years ago. And it and the ACLU
eventually came around to it and then
the Washington ACLU eventually came
around to it and civil liberty issues
got addressed by how they handled body
cameras. And I see a lot of parallels
today in the conversations about ALPRs.
I mean, I will note that England has
13,000 A&PRs. um and we go to visit
England and we don't feel like we're
being trampled. So, um I also think that
there's DEI arguments. Um Council Member
Boyd, I I really appreciate you bringing
up um uh the the equity lens. You know,
there's an argument that says that ALPRs
are actually positive for DEI because
they're colorblind, right? And
historically speaking, one of the areas
that police forces get into trouble is
when they pull people over and they pull
people over disproportionately people of
color in upper underrepresented
communities, right? ALPR's
um address that um by being rigorously
colorblind. So I look forward to a
conversation at some point um when the
technology
addresses you know my personal my
personal point where I'm willing to have
a conversation is when I know the data
is going to be local then I'm willing to
have the conversation and say how do
these technologies meet the needs of the
community. Um so that's sort of where I
come to on on the guardrail question. Um
so that's where I'm at um this a this
evening. I'm I'm excited about spending
99% of this grant on uh tasers and 1% on
uh interview cameras. And with that,
we'll go to round two with Deputy
Council President Chang.
>> Um okay, I just have one really quick
question. Uh so when does the current
quote for the tasers expire just in
terms of, you know, the timing that
we're looking at?
I I can't tell you the the quote
expiration, but I do think it's
important to note that that we do have a
date by which we have to accept the
grant, which I believe is the end of
September
>> of 2026,
and Miss Smith will look up the quote
expiration, but I think the potential
nearer term concern for me um is
thinking about that that September 30th
date.
>> Great. Thank you.
I don't I don't have anything to add
beyond what I already said.
>> Anybody else want to go to round two?
Council member Nichols,
just briefly on Council Member Ver's
point, um, as far as do we have
guardrails or do we just say none at
all, I think that's that's a very good
discussion and I don't think we have to
necessarily limit ourselves to guard
rails only. I think we could certainly
have a discussion of do we want anything
like this technology in the community
and uh that's that's a conversation I
would also support. Any
other closing comments?
Is there anything the administration
would like us uh Oh, I'm sorry, Council
Member Boyd. I didn't see your mic. I
think just to address the issue of color
blindness,
I'm asking myself if the impact of uh
installing ALPRs
if that impact would be felt in a
colorblind way um by who is being
policed.
So I think I understand what you're
saying.
I just want to I have a very not
poignant uh followup to what the
question you just posed which is an
answer to the question that you asked um
which is that the current quote um is is
good until the end of June. So then we
would seek another quote.
>> Great. That's super helpful to know
because I was wondering what the urgency
was for accepting the grant and quote in
June and you know if we have to go out
and get another grant if we're already
at 99% of the federal grant if you know
it goes up by even one more percent
we're really kind of pushing it. So
thank you.
>> Any other comments, questions?
>> Deputy state administrator. Uh do you
need anything else from us this evening?
>> No. Thank you council for um all of your
feedback on this issue tonight.
>> Great. Thank you. Thanks staff. We are
at good of the order. Is there anything
uh for good of the order? Council member
Joe,
>> just a quick reminder, the
Asian-American Pacific Islander event is
this Sunday, starts at 2 p.m. till 4
p.m. at the community center if you'd
like to join us. Registration is
required, so go to the website and sign
up. Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. Anything else for the
good of the order?
Seeing nothing else with the order, we
are adjourned at 10:08 p.m. Thank you
all.