Flagstaff Housing Initiatives Advance Amid Unprecedented Public Rejection of Flock Safety Surveillance Cameras

All right, we're ready. We're ready to get started. A reminder to please silence your phone. Today is Tuesday, December 16, 2025. It's the city council's regular meeting.

I am calling this to order and giving notice to members of the city council and to the general public that at this meeting, the city council may vote to go into executive session, which will not be open to the public, for discussion and consultation with the city's attorneys, for legal advice on any item listed on the following agenda. Can we have roll call? Mayor Daget here. Vice Mayor here. Council member Alen here. Council member Garcia present. Council member House here.

Council member Matthews here. Council member Spence here. Council member Garcia, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? It would be my honor. Please stand if you are able. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And council member Alen. Yes, Mayor. The mission of the city of Flagstaff is to protect and enhance the quality of life for all and council member Spence.

The Flagstaff City Council humbly acknowledges the ancestral homelands of this area's indigenous nations and original stewards. These lands still inhabited by native descendants border mountains sacred to indigenous peoples. We honor them, their legacies, their traditions, and their continued contributions. We celebrate their past, present, and future generations who will forever know this place as home. Thank you.

Next up, we have approval of minutes from previous meetings, and I believe Georganna is to thank for getting all of these typed up. Thank you. I'm not going to read um all of these, but I will uh consider a motion to approve. Mayor, I move to approve the minutes as posted. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Next up is open call to the public, which enables the public to address the council about any item that is not listed on tonight's agenda.

Forgive me, I had a momentary. There is a clock up here. You have three minutes each. You will need to fill out a comment card and give it to the city clerk and they will bring it down to me. And because whatever you're going to speak to us about is not on the printed agenda, we can't answer questions, ask you questions, and so forth. So, first up, we have Dennis Given. Thanks a lot, Mayor Daget, Vice Mayor, City Council, staff, good citizens of Flagstaff. I'm Dennis Given.

I'm just a regular dude living in town. I think we should have vending machines for the public. There's a lot of times I've been in here and I'm hungry and I'm the only person in here. I think we could bring more people into the uh chamber if we had some snacks. I don't watch Black Mirror television. So, this is my entertainment. I think we can really create some revenue for the city. You can learn a lot in these uh chamber walls. We'll have healthy snacks and smoothies.

And also support small businesses. Eat at Morning Glory Cafe. It's a vegan restaurant in town. There's a lot of fruits and vegetables there. They're organic. And mention this ad for 10% off. Go vegan for a day. You can save your health, animals, and the planet. Have a healthy day and say no to drugs. Thank you. Thank you, Colleen Mary. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council. My name is Colleen Mering.

I'm the chief people officer at Northern Arizona Healthcare, and today I have an update on our um emergency department renovation project um to improve service to our region. We spoke about this project uh here earlier this year um right before we started construction um which was a big challenge. So, thank you um to each of your constituents in the community for being patient with us while we had to shut down different areas and and move people around.

Um as the only level one trauma center in the region, we don't have another hospital to send people to. So, we are committed to keeping the emergency department and trauma bays open at all times. But right now on a daily basis, all of our adult inpatient beds or general inpatients are full um at FMC, which means if you come into the emergency department and you need a bed, you wait a long time.

And that means the person coming into the emergency department behind you doesn't have an area to be seen while you're waiting for your bed upstairs. So when that happens, as it does every day, these delays get longer and longer in our emergency department. Um we see it firsthand the impact on our patients and our staff. It's really challenging. It's frustrating. It's not the care we want to provide.

So earlier this year, we started a project to renovate the existing space to help with some of those challenge challenges. And we just finished phase one. And in that phase, we created an area of the emergency department for those who come in with lower acuity or non-life-threatening needs.

Um, this enables uh those with uh significant trauma or life-threatening emergencies or significant medical emergencies to be seen um in a bigger, more welle equipped area with patients who are lower acuity moving through smaller spaces with a different set of staff more rapidly. Um, we also converted as many of those areas with curtains to little vegetables with real walls, thin walls, but real walls. Um, as many as we could.

Um, and we updated the nurses station to make sure they can be more effective in managing this literal constant stream of patients. We can't add square footage to the emergency department because of the physical space constraints of the building. Um, but by renovating the space and adding different what are called tracks of care, uh, we're making the department more efficient and hoping to move people through more quickly with a better experience.

The next phase of this project begins in January and we'll be relocating our behavioral health emergency care area to a single space that's best suited for our behavioral health patients to ensure um, the most appropriate care and service for those patients as well as those around them. Um, so thank you to you and the community for your patience while we try to work through this project. As always, please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions. Thanks.

Thank you, Devana McLaclin. Sorry, it was a long walk up here. Um, good afternoon, um, mayor and members of council. My name is Davana Mclofflin and I serve as the CEO of Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona. I just wanted to take a quick minute to let you and the public know um that Housing Solutions has published its rental attainability report. A summary of that was in the Daily Sun today and I have some copies for council members and staff um to hand out. But just a quick update.

Um so, Housing Solutions does a rental attainability report in the fall every year. Um, we have called 55 market rate apartment complexes representing just under 10,000 rental units and nine incomerestricted complexes representing 822 units. And we do this every year to try and get a sense of what the rental market's looking like, what changes we've seen from year to year and any potential barriers there might be for folks who are trying to find a rental in our community.

Um, this year it's a kind of a mixed bag of outcomes. um some small increases in average rents, some small decreases in average rents. That's pretty consistent with your fair market rents as well, which are published annually by HUD. But those HUD um numbers take into account the entire county, not just Flagstaff. They also include utilities, and most rental complexes in town do not. Utilities are separately build to um tenants through APS or Unisource.

Um, so good news is that rents did not increase significantly year-over-year. We're seeing some stabilization. The bad news is that it's still unaffordable. So, they didn't drop dramatically. We didn't see um an influx of affordability. Um, what we're seeing right now is that the average two-bedroom apartment rents for $1,955 a month. Once again, that mostly does not include your your utilities. So, those would be in addition to that 1955.

In order for somebody to be able to rent that unit, um, a Flagstaff me renter must earn approximately $78,000 a year to make that affordable. I know a lot of people don't make $78,000 a year. So, folks that are under that would be housing cost burdened um working to try and um either pay more of their income for housing than they should or um working another job or having a second income earner for that two-bedroom house.

Um the other thing I do want to point out is that we have had an increase in lowincome or rent restricted in uh units in our town which is amazing. Um we saw that the number increase by 190 units even with the loss of 135 units as two of our former tax credit properties have gone through qualified contract and are no longer affordable. So even as we work to increase units here in town, we're seeing the loss of units.

And so that net is a positive this year, but overall it could have been higher without that loss. So thank you so much for the opportunity to present. Uh this is available on our website at housingnaz.org if anyone's interested in getting the the full story. Thank you. Thank you Heather Damlan. Good afternoon mayor and members of council Heather Dalan. I serve as the CEO and general manager for Mountain Line and I'm here today on behalf of the Mountain Line team.

We just wanted to thank the city team for going above and beyond to integrate transit improvements as part of the CE Cedar Avenue repaving project this past fall. The city was able to incorporate a revised striping plan which improved uh bus stop space at four bus stops along Cedar Avenue, improving safety and efficiency for our transit operations, our riders, and other vehicles on the roadway.

The city also supported the relocation of the Cedar West bus stop to make it closer to the crosswalk that actually occurs at that intersection. This stop is highly popular and often used by our Cookanino High School students. We want to acknowledge the extra time and effort to coordinate with a large group of stakeholders consultants and contractors to include these transit improvements with the city project.

Big shout out to capital improvements engineer Trevor Henry for his leadership to support the changes and accommodate them within the city's project budget. Multimmodal transportation planner Martin Ins continuously pushing for multimmodal improvements in city projects. Transportation planner Carlton Johnson for his creative efforts to restripe and find more space in the roadway.

Senior lead transportation engineer Steph Santana for facilitating the city's review process to include these improvements. And capital projects, sorry, capital improvements project manager Alex Latino for managing the design team and the contractors to make these changes and deliver the project. Mount Line looks forward to continued collaboration with our city partners on future projects. Thank you, Stephen Grubart. Hello. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Steven Grubard and uh I'm the owner or was the owner of the Pizza Patio uh restaurant that served Flagstaff for over eight years. Uh we had to close a couple weeks ago at the end of November due to police uh targeting and harassment of my business. Uh that was just phenomenal. I mean we had like two to six police officers there every single night. And then finally it resulted in um like I don't know seven to 10 police cars uh with a DPS along with the police there.

And um I've asked for a third party investigation. I've uh also asked to be put on the agenda for the city council. I've lost my livelihood and my investment and uh I'm not going to sit quietly while this happens. I assure you. And um I'm u uh the investigation I'm not very pleased with. They're trying to say that they're not involved.

The uh Flagstaff Police Department, even though an officer that was there who's investigated us and been involved in multiple police complaints, was with me the entire time. They're even uh disaging phone calls that were obviously made that certainly the police officer and I even discussed, but they won't give me the police body cam information. They've dismissed the investigations without even speaking with me. They've released absolutely zero records. Nothing. I have nothing.

Even the police reports that have been filed me some six, seven months ago, I can't get copies of the police reports. I don't know what they're doing with them. Are they amending them with them? How can we expect this wide spread of corruption involving all the way to the chief of police, Sean Connelly, to investigate themselves fairly? The people of Flagstaff are going to know about this and we're going to stand up and we're going to fight against this.

We're going to get a fair investigation of this. It will not be disregarded. It will not be ignored. I can guarantee you. My name is Steven Grubard. s t e v n g r u b a r t athotmail.com. My number is 928830810. Anybody wanting any more information on this, please feel free to reach out to me. We're going to end corruption in Flagstaff with the help of the city council and the mayor or we're going to do it on our own.

Most things happen from the ground up and if that's the way it needs to be, fine. But it'll be noted that you have not helped in any way whatsoever. You have all received my emails. You know what's going on. You know how unfair this is to a citizen. My goodness. You put the law you you stopped the noise party a noise uh violation. You voted five to four against it.

Yet you let these people who are bureaucrats who work underneath you determine the law and selective enforce against all the Southside independent retailers and businesses. Southside Tavern has a GoFundMe page with over $30,000 in legal fees. He's going to lose his business by January. I've already lost mine. Why are you targeting us? What is going on? It has to stop. Ariana Costarita. Hello, my name is Ariana Castrita. I am I'm in fourth grade at Kinsey Elementary.

I stand behind the name change of Agy Peaks. The current name supports a scientist that was racist. The name should be changed to Omaki. Omi is a Hopy name. It means place of the clouds. Thank you. Thank you, Daryl Mars. It's hard to follow that one. Yes.

Um, so back in I want to say March of 2020, students over at Flagstaff High School came together and asked for there to be a press conference or press release and they had the vice mayor at the time, Jamie Whan, come and be in attendance as long as well as some reporters from the Daily Sun.

In that they presented the history of Agassus and talked about how that was an inappropriate name not only for the peak here in on the San Francisco Peaks, but also the street that was passing through Flagstaff. Knowing that city council went through a process to get that name removed and changed for the street and now we have WC Ry, which is appropriate and appreciated, students continued to do that work to bring this matter forward. They were encouraged to bring it to the federal level.

They met with family from the Agus descendants as well as other folks that had that value. We even got a letter from city council in support of that. In October of 2023, um some of those youth from Flagstaff High School presented that before the Geographic Board of Names and they voted to approve that name change back in October of 23. They shared with us that it's important that the city of Flagstaff make that public decision to change that name so that the maps can reflect that name change.

So, we're encouraging all of you to consider putting forth whatever efforts are needed. Of course, the young people are going to come up here and speak to that and we'll continue to speak to that so that that name change can take place. And as the young lady was saying, Omaki is the original name for that peak as was given to it by the Hopi and that just means home of the clouds. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Didn't we do that? Um, we'll have to talk about that offline. Brent Elmer.

Good evening. Uh, Elmer Flagstaff High School. Brendan Elmeresto. Hello. I am Bren Elmer. Aiwa is my hopy name meaning useful. I am um from the village of Hope Villa, Arizona. A part of the spider clan. My hopy name. My other hopy names are Guan Hungva Lang Hungva and Bina meaning leading the pathway of life. I am here to talk about the second highest summit originally named Agassus. Agassus was a famous naturalist and professor who founded Harvard University's Museum of Cooperative Geology.

Agassus had never set foot in Arizona or even laid eyes on the mountain when he was alive. The person who named the mountain was William Jackson Palmer. Agus' peak got its name in 1873 during a survey expedition led by William Jackson Palmer an army general general said Robert Burring. Robert Burring was the former executive director of the museum of northern Arizona. The entire m the entire mountain range is sacred to at least 14 tribes.

Akoma, Apache, Da, Havasupi Halalupi Mojave Southern Pay, Zouri, and Hopi. These tribes all have their own unique name for the peaks way before Europeans arrived. Years later, on March 2020, students of Flagstaff High School Native American club soon realized when who Augustus was or Agassus. Agus has promoted a racist theory called polygenism. A theory where whites were at the top and blacks were at the bottom just below natives.

I am here today to change the name of the peak on the mountains to omaki. A hopey name hopey word meaning home of the clouds. The name umaki preceded a agassus nearly a thousand years. So I'm not here to give the peak a new name but rather restore the name. Go back to original. meaning we are giving life again and everyone needs to respect our beliefs. We must strengthen ourselves to create a positive future. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. All right.

I don't see any other um general comment. So we'll move down to council liaison reports. And I'll start with council member Spence. I have nothing this evening. Council member House. Thank you, Mayor. Just two quick things. Um, with the housing commission at their last meeting, they uh had recognition for the opening of the lantern. I know many of us were able to attend that housewarming and welcoming event and it was a a wonderful time.

Um, with KOD, I just wanted to share a reminder of the upcoming Martin Luther King Day 2026 celebration in partnership with NAU on January 19th, which will feature a breakfast, celebration, keynote speaker, and more. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Nothing tonight. Thank you, Council Member Alen. No, Commissioner, committee reports for me. Council member Garcia, I'll save it for when you come back from break. Council member Matthews, nothing tonight. Thank you. Nothing from me this evening.

We're moving down to appointments. First up, we have appointments to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Uh we have two council members making appointments. First is Council Member Spence. I'm sorry, my notes uh seem to have disappeared. Um could I defer to uh uh Council Member Garcia while I find my note? Certainly, Council Member Garcia. Thank you very much, Madame Mayor. Um thank you for the deferral. I hope I don't choose your person.

[laughter] Um, as as as typical for for the appointments and the uh and the applicants, we were very proud to see that we had quite an excessive amount of applicants putting turning in their applications and um all of which were very good candidates. I would like to remind those who don't get chosen tonight that we will keep those on file for a year and also remind the public that anybody who wants to join a commission, there's over 25 of them, uh you can sign up.

All you got to do is be a resident in most cases and over the age of 18. But in lie of all that, it would be my honor to appoint Sharp to a continued term to the planning and zoning committee. Congratulations. Thank you for your service. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Are you ready? Thank you, mayor, for that moment to find my uh review of the candidates. And I am pleased to uh appoint Christine Shehy to a reappoint to planning and zoning.

I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Moving down to B. Heritage Preservation Commission. Council member Alen. Thank you, Madame Mayor.

Um, while I'm generally reluctant to move nominations forward when there's only one nominee for a a slot, um, I have no problem with doing that today for Duffy West Meyer, who is uh, currently serving on the commission in her capacity and is doing a great job and is one of the foremost authorities in town uh, who has credentials to belong there. So, I would like to uh reappoint her to the uh given term. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Okay.

We're moving down to consent agenda. All matters under the consent agenda are considered by the city council to be routine. Unless a member of the city council expresses a desire at the meeting to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion, the consent agenda will be enacted by one motion approving the recommendations listed on the agenda. Unless otherwise indicated, expenditures approved by council are budgeted items. And I know there are at least two items that we'd like to pull.

Vice Mayor, there was an item you wanted to pull. Yes, Mayor. I would like to pull 8E. 8E. Anyone else? I just want to confirm that we're not discussing the the sweeper today. Was that pulled from the agenda? Yes. Um, and I'm assuming it will be on a future agenda. Correct, Mayor Council. It'll be on a future agenda. Mayor, I'd like to pull item 8 C. I was going to pull that one, too. All right. So, can I get a motion to approve 8 B D Mayor F? [laughter] Yes, those three.

Mayor, I move that we approve on the consent consent agenda B. Um D and F. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Vice Mayor, thank you and thank you for giving me this opportunity. Um, I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who has worked to bring the Habitat for Humanity project at Timber Sky forward.

This has been years in the making and reflects an extraordinary amount of coordination between Habitat for Humanity, city staff, our development partners, and several individuals who came together to make this happen, including city council and city leadership. As someone who has been closely involved in shaping this effort, I believe this represents an innovative approach to tackling our workforce housing needs in Flagstaff.

I'm proud of this partnership, grateful to everyone who helped get us here, and I strongly support and approve this item. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments from council? I do have a public commenter, uh, Eric Wolverton. Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council members, city staff. Um, thank you. This is a momentous time.

I'm very very excited to be able to have the legal opportunity to be able to sell these first 10 of 40 starter homes um to Flagstaff citizens that I know are very very excited to be homeowners and to be able to call Flag Staff their permanent home. And so thanks to you, thanks to the city staff, the city leadership, uh the legal team, everybody involved to getting an innovative product across the finish line. Um it's a great holiday gift to be able to provide these families.

So that's my message is just like Vice Mayor, thank you so much. Thank you, Eric. All right. I had a question for the speaker. Certainly. Um Eric, I First of all, thank you very much for the presentation. I have a serious question and then a a very not serious question.

But sure, uh serious question is just um I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit more about this uh model that um that's been developed just because I know it's very innovative through um through your organization and um has has become or has begun to kind of take shape in in other communities as well. Is is that correct? Yep. Um so if you could just share a little bit about um the framework and the model that uh you're developing starting at this um with this project.

Yeah, thank you very much for that question. So, a 30,000 foot view of what starter homes are all about is uh an opportunity so that way we can get lowincome families into home ownership so that way they can experience equity savings just like privileged families that have high credit scores and good financial balances, if you will, that traditional banks like to lend to. Um, this leaves a big population out of that equity savings opportunity.

And so, um, Habitat of Northern Arizona actually created the starter home model right here in Flagstaff. Um, it is now been adopted by six other Habitat affiliates across the country and continues to expand. Um, we are very excited because we do have neighboring municipalities here in Northern Arizona that are soliciting us for our starter home program.

Um, and the reasons behind it are very simple and we kept the program mathematically simple for those folks that want to enter a starter home program. It's a $1,000 down payment and you are a homeowner. That's it. That's all it takes. No first, no last, no pet deposit. After that, we have mortgages ranging uh between a,000 to $1,100 depending on the neighborhood that it resides in with $833 of those dollars going to the homeowner's equity savings thanks to Habitat's 0% interest financing.

That $833 times 12 months is a $10,000 equity savings every year that a Habitat homeowner owns their home. Now, there is a minimum requirement of three years of home ownership to be um fully vested to be able to cash out your equity. And we do that because we're not only just supplying shelter, we're supplying economic development and we're also supplying workforce. Now, there is a difference with starter homes from the traditional habitat model and that these are not forever homes.

So there is a maximum time frame you can own a starter home and that is 10 years. Now that homeowner can sell their home deed restricted only to Habitat for Humanity between three and 10 years. That is completely up to them. And uh if they cash out at three years, they're going to get a check for $30,000. Uh five years $50,000. 10 years $100,000 just for simply paying a mortgage and enjoying their home. Um we do feel that this is a transformational uh innovative housing model.

We are very excited to be able to help any municipality help any community um that wants to incorporate that into their systems. Um because this isn't something that only Habitat should be able to take advantage of and we're just really excited to expand it out. I hope that answered your question. It did. Thank you so much. And I I hope you have an idea of what my non-serious question is. It's when are you bringing Hobbit homes?

[laughter] Well, Hobbit homes sound like fun and they're certainly insulative, [laughter] but um you know, this is in all seriousness, starter homes are exactly what emerging and stay in place generations need. They need an opportunity so that way they can actually have a starting point in home ownership. And most importantly, this is going to be one of their very few opportunities to have a savings account that is associated with a mortgage payment.

Um, and so rather than investing $1,600 a month on rent to someone else's dwelling, I'd much rather see that person be able to invest in themselves. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you all. Thank you, Eric. All right. I um am guessing that vice mayor would like to make the motion to um approve this item. I would. Thank you.

So, I move to approve the nine documents listed in agenda item 8E subject to a partial release of the Arizona Department of Housing lean upon the land, delegating authority to the city attorney to approve minor modifications to the foregoing documents upon approval of the city housing division and authorizing the city manager to execute the documents. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I All right, moving um back up to C.

Consideration and approval of contract the loan documents for Western Hills Apartments by Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona. Um both council member House and I wanted to pull this. I just wanted the public to have an opportunity to hear about this cool project. And you same. Yes, very much the same. Mayor, I was just hoping that we could hear a little bit more about the project and um give the community an opportunity to hear uh what these funds are going towards.

We do have Devon Mclofflin in the house. So um I'll let her talk about her project because she can do it way better than anybody else. Um and if you have other questions, I'm here. Thanks, Jen. And thanks um to council. My name is Devana. I am here representing Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona and we are excited about this item and the loan that is being considered here tonight.

Um we had an opportunity to purchase another motel which I swear once you start buying motel people just call you because they think you want them. Um and so this is a really exciting opportunity um to use the adaptive reuse bond funds for a couple of different reasons. The first is that this is unique for our organization. We have historically purchased two motel that needed some love and care and renovation. Pretty extensive renovation, right?

Adding kitchens, sprinkler systems, on-site laundry, ADA accessibility. When you start digging into buildings, you find things and then it's more expensive and it's more timely and it just becomes a labor of love because it is not economically viable. Um, in this case, the adaptive reuse portion is being done before our purchase. So, um, we're excited that we're looking to close on the property, um, in early 2026 and the units will be ready for lease up immediately.

So, there's no delay where I'm promising you all that we're going to get construction done in a timely manner and then we find something. Um, the sellers are working already to add kitchens, to add a sprinkler system, to do new roofing, electrical, plumbing. We've been talking to them for nine months now about what would you do and what color paint would you use and all of that stuff.

Um so we can come to terms to be able to purchase the property and have it turnkeyed to us ready to go which is super exciting. So that's the first part of this project that's amazing. The second part is that it'll be workforce housing. So thanks to y'all for recognizing that folks above 60% area median income are struggling with um rental prices in our community. Uh the bond funds are targeted to that 80% AMI household. So that's kind of who we're looking to serve.

On average 80% AMI, we can go up a little bit or down a little bit um to have that average, but to be able to help our workforce is exciting for us. Um it allows us to continue to grow and expand our inventory here in Flagstaff. We currently own and operate 100 rental units in Flagstaff. So, with the addition of this property, we'll have 129 units. Um, we're also with your help looking to purchase two additional properties in January. January is going to be a busy month.

Um, uh, with CDBG money, so that'll be an 31 units coming on board that we'll be looking to lease up uh to folks under 80% AMI. So, really exciting um, and fun use. The property will once again provide workforce housing. It'll be permanent rental units, so folks can lease with us and um have really nice new units and stay with us as long as they pay rent and are good tenants and continue to meet income guidelines.

So excited to have this opportunity and I'm happy to answer whatever questions you want to throw at me. Council, any questions? Well, you're making it a little easy, so thank you. Yes, thank you. We just wanted people to um hear this is wonderful. Yeah. So, and thanks to the voters for the bond funds. This is truly an exciting investment in affordable workforce housing in Flagstaff. So, thanks to council for putting it forward. We could not do this project without the investment from the city.

Let me just say numbers don't work. Financing is expensive. Um your money is key to making this project be successful. We will carry a mortgage. It is a big one. Um, but we couldn't get the mortgage that we needed without your additional funding coming into play. So, thank you for that loan. Um, we're excited and committed to meeting the 15 years of compliance to make sure that we serve low-income households in Flagstaff. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member House.

Did you want to make the motion? It would be my honor, mayor. Thank you. I move to approve the loan documents totaling1,160,000 for the Western Hills property by Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona using adaptive reuse bond program funds. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. All right. So, moving down to routine items. First up is 9A consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2025-30. This is our second time considering this.

We've had a um previous presentation. Staff, do you have anything additional to add? Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, and council. Ryan G, airport director, joined up here by Rick Tatter, management services director. We did have one uh brief clarification that we wanted to uh share with the team today just for um making sure that we clarified one of the changes we discussed two weeks ago. Bear with me one second here.

So, as we talked about um in the presentation two weeks ago, one of the fees we were considering asking for your consideration for adding to the airport was the security badging fees.

Uh we did discuss uh a minor clarification to the draft of the ordinance that was in the packet which included the highlighted language uh in this slide um clarifying that both city employees and contractors working for the city on Flagstaff airport projects would be exempt from the initial and renewal badge fees listed above, but that they would still be required to pay any lost badge fees.

Um we discussed that, but I don't know that it was uh ever stated when we talked about the ordinance itself. So, just to clarify, as long as there were no other concerns or questions, uh, we would just ask for your consideration and approval of that ordinance with the clarification that those city employees would also be exempted from those badge fees in addition to the contractors. And Rick and I are here for you. Have any other questions? Thank you, council. Any questions?

I'll entertain a motion. Mayor, I'd like to move that we read ordinance number 2025-30 by title only for the final time. A second. Any discussion? All those in Wait, wait, before you go, mayor, we will need uh to have that clarification added. So, if we want either a withdrawal of the motion in the second or amend, I'll withdraw the motion and then and I will draw the second and then I'd like to again move that with the clarification of the badging. How do you want me to say it?

So with the with the amended language as shown on the screen that city employees and contractors working for the city are exempt from the fees. That I move that. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Next up, mayor. Oh, we need to read and adopt. I'm sorry. I'm getting way ahead of myself.

City clerk, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff, amending the Flagstaff City Code, Title 3, Business Regulations, Chapter 3-10, User Fes, to establish airport rates and fees by amending Title 8, Public Ways and Property. Chapter 8-06, Airport Rules and Regulations, to add definitions of secured areas of the airport, providing for penalties, repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, providing for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date as amended.

Thank you. And a motion to adopt. So move. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Now, we're moving down to B. Consideration and adoption of ordinance number 2025-29. This also has been previously discussed. Oh, and you just appeared. No new information. Is that what you said? Correct. Happy to address any questions you may have. All right. Council, any questions? All right. I will entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'd like to read ordinance number 2025-29 by title only for the fi final time. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? City clerk. An ordinance of the city council of the city of Flagstaff authorizing the acquisition of real property from FSL Holdings Properties LLC in order to provide parking, providing for delegation of authority, providing for severability, authority for clerical corrections, and establishing an effective date. Thank you. And a motion to adopt.

So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? All right, moving down to C, consideration and approval of our 2026 state and federal legislative priorities. Thank you, mayor, and good afternoon, everyone. Sarah Langley, uh the city's public affairs director. So, we're back in front of you this afternoon to ask for your formal approval of the final version of the city's 2026 federal and state legislative priorities.

We do have Bob and Brian on the line in case we have any questions. Uh so last week we heard your feedback and then we made uh edits and additions accordingly. So we can first look at the uh federal priorities. Here based on your comments we made three additions. The first was we added a line under uh forest health. This is uh focusing on engaging with national organizations and learning from other states and that was to touch on the uh insurance issue that we heard from several council members.

We also added a clause at the end of our housing priority to focus on uh advocating for the preservation of HUD and continuum of care funding to provide affordable homes for those in need.

And then lastly, and this was not included in the version of the agenda packet, but we uh recently received a request from the mayor to add a priority on protecting the SNAP program, highlighting that cuts to that program and other similar programs uh would have a significant impact on our local nonprofit sector here in town and could also uh have an impact on um state and local budgets. So, those are the the edits made to the federal priorities.

Looking at the state priorities, we did not make any um official changes to the document, but we did hear your comments on the importance of the LITC program and uh paying special attention to short-term rentals as that's an important issue for our residents here. So, we'll be sure to keep that in mind throughout the session. That's all I have. I'll pass it back to you, Mayor. Council, do you have any questions or comments? All right, then.

Um, I will entertain a motion to approve um both the state and federal priorities. Mayor, I move to approve the 2026 state and federal legislative priorities. I'll second that. And also want to say hi Bob. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right, we're moving down to our regular agenda 10A, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025- 63. Uh, Mayor and Council Jessica Vigorito is um presenting this item and Shannon's gonna find her.

I may just go ahead and reorder. Let's see. Unless she's we can move to item C. All right, let's do that. Consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-65. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, community, and colleagues. Charles Hernandez, deputy chief, Flagstaff Police Department.

Uh this item is a resolution approving cost sharing addendum number one to the intergovernmental agreement between the city of Flagstaff Flagstaff Police Department and the Cooko Community College for operation of the High Country Training Academy.

This agreement allows the FISAP police department in partnership with the user group agencies and Cooko Community College to continue providing Arizona Post certified police academy training locally which saves money, keeps training dollars in the community and ensures priority placement for Flagstaff Police officers or recruits. This is a continuation of an existing council approved partnership that has been operating successfully since 2022.

Uh to date, the High Country Training Academy has graduated 59 regional police officers with an additional 13 set to graduate from the current class. Uh, one point of emphasis I'd like to highlight with the new with the approved bond recently, we're looking to uh have a new training facility uh on Fourth Street uh with the partnership that we have with the college and I'd be happy to answer questions. Council, do you have any questions? Council member House. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much, Deputy Chief. Um, so you already answered one of mine, which was just about the success rates of the the program and how many graduates you've had. Um, are you looking, especially with the expansion to Fourth Street potentially? Um, are you looking at opportunities to expand the program and and grow the uh, class participants? and what does that look like for um the number of officers that we've retained as part of uh Flag Staff's department?

Thank you, Council uh Member House for that question. Um we are a regional academy, so we service uh officers from or agencies from the northern region uh to help offset some of the costs for training with travel, uh housing and things like that. associated with the training. Uh when we look at expanding the program, the program is specific to Arizona Postcertification, which is the statewide uh certifying body.

So the curriculum would stay the same, but we are looking to enhance the program with housing options. We partner with uh the uh northern I think it's the Army Depot in Belmont to offset some of the housing costs. The agencies make agreements with them directly to offset those housing costs. So we try and recruit or offer a curriculum that's equal or even better to other state uhmies in the across the uh state. But um to your point, I think the curriculum will be good.

I think the facility just being in the Sunnyside neighborhood will enhance some of the um presence in that area, especially with the library coming and the Mount Elden School and some of the other traffic related issues we have in that area. It will enhance our community uh presence, but then it'll also continue to bolster our presence as far as an academy in our region to be one of the top in this state. Thank you very much, council. Additional questions or comments? Council member Garcia.

Thank you very much, Madame Mayor. Um, thank you for the presentation, Mr. Hernandez. I'm very happy to see that this is uh moving forward. Um now my question is u since the program has kind of shifted to our region have you can you speak to u the differences or the nuances um in the graduates that we're obtaining now that we have a hand in training them as opposed to prior and how has that benefited the community? So with our uh primary focus, thank you for that question, Council Member Garcia.

Um with our presence in the um from the Flagstaff Police Department perspective being in the community and knowing uh how the residents expect us to police in the community, we have a thumb on the curriculum and the way we police in the community to incorporate that into the training. So it um not only enhances our service from the police department perspective, but also it uh it in transparency when you look at it from a community expectation purpose.

Having our own academy here in the region only enhances the type of recruit that we're going to come to expect in the community policing the way we um do. And to Council Member House's point, retention, having people already in the community with roots, uh, and being able to continue to train them locally, uh, will hopefully get those roots deeper and keep them for a longer period of time. Thank you for very much.

My nephew told me the other day that he is looking forward to applying to the police department. So, I'll send him your way when that time is coming. And uh last little question is are you guys currently hiring? We do have some openings. We have some people in background lo from local uh recruitments, but yeah, we're always looking for good quality um homegrown people such as myself. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. All right. If there are no additional questions, I will entertain a motion.

Mayor, I move to read resolution number 2025-65 by title only. I second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City clerk. A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving addendum number one of an intergovernmental agreement between Cookanino County Community College District, Cookanino County, and the city of Flagstaff for High Country Training Academy cost sharing. And a motion to adopt. Mayor, I move to adopt resolution number 2025-65. Second. Any discussion?

All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right, we're going to hop back to B. Consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-64. Welcome. Good afternoon, Mayor, [clears throat] members of the council. Mark Wilson, deputy chief over administration with the Flagstaff Fire Department. Today, what we're looking at is a res resolution between the city of Flagstaff and Cookanino Community College. Much like what you just heard, this is ongoing. It's been in process for over a decade now.

What we're looking at doing is just modifying some of the efficiencies associated with how we share some of our different uses within the facilities with the city for the fire training facility and Cookanino Community College and what they have for resources. So, we're looking to re-up it timed out. We changed a few minor things that just made it meet more of our needs along with theirs.

And so we're requesting the consideration of this resolution to move forward to continue the agreement between City of Flag staff, our fire training facility, and CCC. You can open for any questions. Questions? Council comments? Uh, Council Member House. Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I'll just ask you a similar question to uh the last one in terms of what this program means for um uh retention and and recruitment for our local u department and um what you're hoping to see in the maybe just in the coming year as far as that program goes. Yeah, that's a fair question. So up until next year, all of our prerequisites were designed on somebody having firefighter one and two and EMT as a requirement to test for the city of Flagstaff.

CCC was our primary partner to be able to provide that locally to give them that training and they used our facility to train those students through that process. So that was the partnership on one side of it. ongoing. We will still continue to require EMT moving forward in 2026, but we will no longer require one and two. We'll still have shared resources and we'll still use our resources for all those additional trainings in ourmies.

But the other thing that's important is that we also partner with CCC for the use of their facility. So in this agreement, it allows us to use their locations because because we have limited space for training classrooms and some of the different areas that we will continue to use in the years to come. If that answers your question. Thank you very much. Thank you. If there are no additional questions, I will entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'd like to move that we read resolution number 2025-63 by title only. I'll second. here. Just to clarify, we're on 10B. Yeah. 64. 64. And your second was on 2025-64. Yes, ma'am. All right. Uh, any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, we'll need to Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Would you please read the resolution by title only, please?

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement between the Cookanino County Community College District and the city of Flagstaff for sharing of resources. Thank you. Can we have a motion to adopt? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? All right. Now we are moving down to D, consideration and approval of contract. Mayor, just to be clear, we haven't gone back to 10A yet. I'm not sure if you wanted to finish that first.

Yes. Yes, that would be good. I'm sorry. I was thinking that that's what I hopped back to. All this jumping around. 10A, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-63. Mayor and Council, very sorry for the reordering. I'm here to talk about the um intergovernmental agreement or IGA for fire and medical services for the area of Lockett Ranches. Um we have been providing this service to the area since 2006. Their contract is set to expire June 30th of 2026.

So we are a bit ahead of the game. um but for their kind of board purposes and and um insurance purposes would like to get ahead of schedule. Uh the rate is determined in the city ordinance and has been um provided to the neighborhood and HOA and is set to increase 2% each year, which is also part of the city ordinance. This is a five-year agreement with the option for a five-year extension similar to the current one we just we're in and we're about to finish. And that's all I had for you.

If you have any questions, council, do you have any questions, comments? All right. I will entertain a motion on 10A. Mayor, I move to read resolution number 2025-63 by title only. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? City Clerk, a resolution of the Flagstaff City Council approving an intergovernmental agreement between Lockett Ranch Fire District and the city of Flagstaff on behalf of the Flagstaff Fire Department for Fire Services. Thank you. And a motion to adopt?

So moved. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I Any opposed? All right. So 10 A B C. Now we're down to D. Consideration and approval of contract. Sorry for the confusion. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Colin C with the Flagstaff Police Department. Uh, today will be our third presentation on the flock safety program.

Uh, I just want to remind everybody of our mission of why we do what we do, and it's to protect and preserve life and property and public order through at least service to our community. Everything we do is about victims of crime in Flagstaff. Um, we're committed to leveraging technology and the usage of modern technology to best serve our community while also being cognizant, respect the community's right to privacy. Uh, stand by.

So, I'll give a little bit of an overview of of the journey and how we got to where we are today here on December 16th. Uh, our first contract was assigned signed on June 18th of 2024. Uh, it aided aided in bringing justice to many victims in our community and we had no incidents of misuse uh of the ALPR system with our first year of the contract. Uh, we brought an amendment of the contract back to council on September 2nd of 2025 to renew the contract.

And there was also a citizen petition that the council heard during that meeting. Uh the council voted to have a community discussion on the meeting on October 28th. Uh in between that time, uh Chief Connelly and I and numerous staff members had multiple community meetings, uh interviews with media outlets, uh in-house meetings to try to inform the community as best as we could and and listen to the community about our automated license plate reader program.

So on October 28th, we had the community discussion here at the council. Uh staff direct or council staff directed us to bring the amended contract back to this December 16th meeting. So that's how we're here today. So I want to first start by saying we we listen to input from community from all members of the community over this multimonth journey um to make this the best automated license plate reader reader program for the city of Flagstaff.

Uh the first thing we did is we removed ourselves from the national lookup. So what that was is if we entered a plate, we could search the 90,000 or so cameras in the flock system to have access to the entire nation. And we shared our data with the rest of the nation to build, you know, a resiliency amongst uh police agencies around the around the country. But we did learn that that could create some vulnerabilities.

you know, if if our data got into the hands of somebody wanting to help, you know, for a purpose that was not within the policy of the Flagstaff Police Department, we went ahead and we listened and we removed ourselves from that national lookup tool. Uh we also, for the same reasons, removed ourselves from the statewide sharing tool.

Uh the only agencies that we share our data with uh is with the Cookino County Sheriff's Office and the Northern Arizona University Police Department who we work very closely with. And then you know we are moving towards sharing with the our tribal partners once their network is up and running. Uh we work very closely with Cookino County Sheriff's Office. Our policies are very similar to each other and u we also share a building with the sheriff's office.

Uh so we did make some updates to our automated license plate reader program. Our our journey our our mission is to serve victims of crime in our community. Uh it's not for immigration enforcement. Uh we made it part of our policy that our our camera systems will not be used for federal immigration enforcement as we enforce state and local laws. Um we changed our data retention.

We heard the community say, you know, us having the data for 30 days, you know, was too much, you know, so we found, you know, hopefully a middle ground that we're trying and we we had it changed through with lock safety to 14 days. Now, with that comes some challenges. Some crimes are often late reported, but I think to best serve our community and listen to our community and meet our community in the middle, we changed our retention period to 14 days.

Uh we work closely with city IT and our CIO CJ Perry. Uh we have created and selected a citywide technology oversight committee uh that CJ will talk about here shortly. Um, we also committed to a six-month check-in uh to bring this topic back to council in six months and provide an update of the program. Uh, as always, our transparency portal is up and running. It's it's active. It does provide, you know, a forward- facing uh audit list of our internal audits.

And so far to date, there's been no misuses of our system. has been solely used for uh victims of crime in our community. So, I'll bring up CJ. Not as tall as you, Colin. Um Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, um CJ Perry, your uh chief information, uh sorry, chief information officer. Sorry, I was trying to fix this the slides. Um yeah, as we just discussed, uh we're doing a technology privacy task force.

Um and this really helps us get a lot more community input into um all technologies, not just related to license plate readers, but all technologies that could have a perceived um impact on privacy or concerns from the community. So we have uh we we had an application for that. We received a lot of input from that application, which is really exciting.

Um, I'll go into that in just a second, but just to kind of show uh on this screen sort of how that interacts is, you know, divisions within the organization are looking to do their job better. They're looking to implement technology that um makes them more efficient and and provides better service uh to the community.

um the IT division what our job is is to focus on things like cyber security and our application baselines that that technology meets our cyber security standards that meets our application baselines and we do an audit based off of that.

Um so then we're implementing this privacy task force that really captures the core values from the community in relation to privacy ensuring that the data that we're capturing that we're um using it in a way that's appropriate um from the core values of the community. Um we're holding on to that data for the period of time that is is uh responsible. Um really trying to take that community input and uh insert that into all of these discussions as we start to implement more technologies.

Technology moves very very fast. And so um as these technologies come up, the idea will be to have a privacy policy in relation to every single um uh piece of technology that that we use that could have that that you know privacy impact. it'll really state here's how long we hold on to the data, here's the type of data that we hold, the type of data we do not hold. Um, you know, all of those types of of concerns.

So, we're really excited to get uh more of that community in uh input into this process as well. So, as I mentioned, um we took applications through December 5th. Um we have selected 10 individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, expertise, and lived experiences. Um, I have sent out notices to all of them. I have heard back from most of them on acceptance on as part of this. Um, but I'm still waiting on a couple more.

So, I don't have a list of names for you yet until I have that that final list. Um, our first meeting is going to be scheduled for January. We do have the holidays coming up and I unfortunately I will be out on vacation for the next couple of weeks. So, our first meeting will be in January.

We'll we'll be talking about the overarching privacy policy as well as specific privacy policies in relation to each of this these technologies with license plate readers being one of the the first things on the agenda. Um but again I want to stress that this isn't just uh for license play readers. It's it's holistically we're kind of looking at this um from that holistic point of view to make sure that we do have good broad community input um as we implement technology.

So we're really trying to kind of build this framework on how we can balance being cutting edge. you know, government oftentimes is a little behind on on some of the technology um sometimes. So, we're we're trying to allow ourselves to be a little more cutting edge while still getting that community input and um ensuring that we're using the data in in ways that represent the core values of our community. So, I will hand it back over to Deputy Chief C. Thanks, CJ.

Um, so tonight we do have the first amendment uh of the contract in front of you uh for 2526. It is for 36 flock cameras. 32 of those are permanently mounted cameras in the city of Flagstaff and four of those are portable devices. It's the same exact number of cameras that we had in 2024. Uh the contracts for $112,000 plus uh taxes and other fees. Uh, and we do have uh, funding through our fiscal year 2026 budget.

Also, I know you probably have to take public comment, but just to let you know, Mike Solomon and Hector from Flock Safety are on the call if there are any technical questions that you need from Flock tonight. Thank you. All right. Uh, we have a question from Council Member Garcia. Thank you so much, Madame Mayor. And um thank you, Chief and Deputy Chief, for coming up and getting ready to announce.

Um my question is now that you have removed yourself from the national database and and those state partners that you mentioned um how is that working for you? Have you what is the data? Have you have you guys been able to anal analyze the data as you know before as to opposed to now? How is that working out for you? And then I'll have a followup after that. Um it's it's a it's a little early to totally analyze that data. Uh we did have a couple cases.

There was a kidnapping type case where not being able to share with our some of our statewide partners, it did affect uh the case and we were able to neither prove nor disprove portions of that case. But you know, right now, you know, it's still working.

We did have a string of auto burglaries at uh local businesses uh two weeks ago and we were able to successfully locate the person who victimized you know eight community members kind of it was somebody not from the community who stopped in through Flag Staff and was smashing windows and stealing property and you know fortunately we were able to work uh you know with uh other partners and we were able to make you know arrest and return some property to some victims.

So, it is such a valuable piece of technology that has worked and yeah, but we're we're collecting that data going forward. Thank you. And this will piggyback off that question a bit. Um, I'm curious since you're no longer sharing the data nationally and with the other communities, not that you specified, are you able to receive data uh from those communities? And how is that working out for you? Yeah, thank you, Council Member Garcia. Um, yes, we still can.

If the agencies choose to share with the Flagstaff Police Department, we can still access their data for up to 30 days or whatever their retention period is. However, they cannot access our data unless it's the Cookino County Sheriff's Office or NAU Police Department. Thank you. And one last uh question likely maybe for now at least. Um everybody is concerned because of the you know the the flock system takes pictures of the back of your car and the license plate.

Um, I was too when I first heard about it and I and I still am to a certain extent. But then I started thinking about it and I started realizing that once you register your vehicle, whatever information you give them at the time of registration, they already know that stuff.

So my question to the you guys is is all the information that is behind you know on that license plate already in the system and is there other ways to achieve that even if they didn't read the license plate if they were for instance immigration's a big issue? Um couldn't they just go to the national database for immigration immigrants in the community and go straight to the person's house where they registered and and stuff like that? Yeah.

Federal authorities would have, you know, access to the National Crime Information Center, which would have motor vehicle division registration to vehicles.

If the plate is lawfully displayed on the vehicle, now some people can put a fictitious plate on their vehicle, and that would that would alter the reading, but if it is lawfully displayed on a vehicle, yes, the motor vehicle division would have that information, and police agencies to include federal, state, and local agencies would have access to that data. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just a couple of questions for right now.

Um, I've read a couple of comments that um, you know, the the victims and the crimes don't um outweigh the the risk of privacy loss. Uh, do you have a number to share with us of how many crimes we've been able to solve or address with the flock camera technology? Uh, without a specific number, I know we're in the dozens. And, you know, it's it's not a tool to solve every single crime, but it is a tool to solve crimes involving vehicles when the suspect has potentially left the scene.

So, does it work 100% of the time? No, it doesn't. But it's it's a tool that goes along with multiple other tools that we have in our in our to our availability that's aided, you know, in in locating a vehicle was potentially used in the commission of a crime. There's still a lot more investigative work that has to go into that to determine, okay, who was driving that?

Because our flock scans and our flock pictures of license plates shows no information or no photographs of people that are inside the vehicle. So, there's still a lot of investigative work that has to go into it, but I could confidently say, you know, we're in the dozens of crimes, if not more. Colin, if I could, and uh, Council Member Matthews, Mayor and Council, thank you for this conversation. In a a recent um pull of data, Lori Spencer is our data analyst, and she does an amazing job.

She does a ton of work. Um, we saw flock referenced 319 times uh in those in those reports as providing a um increased access to viability and support of those um victims. Um to Colin's point, there's so much more um a license plate in the back of a car does not afford us success in prosecution and sending that over, but um we saw that referenced 319 times over the last 12 months. Thank you.

And um once um data is obtained from flock because uh cars on a hot list because it's been reported in a crime or other what can you just briefly go over what next steps because that's just not the end all to oh we found this license plate in this car we we're going to go pull this person over and arrest them. Correct. Yeah thank you council member.

Yeah, we we might get a a hot list alert, whether that's come coming from NCIC, which is the National Crime Information Center, or it might be a hot list vehicle that was entered in that was involved in a local crime after supervisor approval. You know, the next thing we'd have to do would be to locate that vehicle in the community and then actually visually see that vehicle and confirm that's the exact same vehicle that was involved in that created the hot list alert from Flock Safety.

And then from there, you know, we have to ensure that there, you know, there is, you know, reasonable suspicion or probable cause to, you know, detain that vehicle or stop that vehicle and continue the investigation. We probably use uh, you know, our NCIC system to confirm that plate and make sure everything is what it says it is. You know, the vehicle, it may be listed as, you know, a hot list.

We want to make sure it's still involved in crime and still actively wanted before we initiated a contact. So, that's something we train our officers to do. you know, prior to taking any enforcement based on a flock safety alert. Thank you. And then one for CJ. Where did he go on the technology side? Um, if someone wanted to I've I've read emails and post about um hacking into a a flaw camera. Can you speak to um like what what benefit would that do?

And um I think you've mentioned that there's new upgrades to the cameras that we use. Can you just kind of summarize um that risk and what's um a real risk and what is mitigated by that? Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Um so when we talk real specific details in relation to cyber security that's not something I can necessarily answer from the dis but from the perspective of what they would gain should they hack into a camera.

What I can say is they would gain pictures of the back of people's vehicles. Uh and from that perspective it would be easier for them just to buy an off-the-shelf webcam, set it up on the side of the road and take those same pictures. That's the data that they would receive. um you could use a you could use your own iPhone and and capture effectively the same data.

So when we're talking about the camera itself um in relation to the database that's a whole different story and a whole different uh discussion but but just in relation to um if you're talking about the camera itself that's all that the uh information you would get. Again I I can't uh discuss super specifics in relation to cyber security from from the podium here. Thank you. That's all I have for right now. Mayor, thank you.

Any additional questions, council, you're you can always ask after um public comment. All right. And um as I always do when we have something that's of big interest to the community is just um to say that we want to hear from each and every one of you and to please show um respect to each other and um let us all hear what each other has to say. and no showing of public support or opposition while someone is speaking or after. Uh, first up we have Jen Rangi.

Good afternoon, mayor and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak again. I thought it would be good to clarify a little bit um from my comments at the first meeting and oh I guess I should back up and say that I am the executive director of victim witness services for Northern Arizona and then also a recent edition of NASA. So I found it interesting that a couple of days ago we had a case in Tuba City where a girl around the age of 14 went missing. They were searching all over.

They had the FBI involved to try to find her. And my first reaction when they asked me what we should do was like, you know what, we should contact the Cookanino um county sheriff's office because they have those flock cameras and we could at least determine if she had left Tuba City and had entered into Flagstaff. So right there, I found it interesting that that's become an an easy way to be able to identify um in an in a case where there's uh possible movement.

There's no avoiding technology, right? this kind of technology is around us everywhere. I do support the flock cameras. I think that if it isn't a flock camera, it's some other sort of technology. I remember when there was a lot of drama when they got um the cameras, right? That was kind of a new thing at that time as well.

And but we have to be able to have it be publicly available to be able to have a strong trust that it is not just the police department that is uh seeing that is doing these audits. to be able to maintain trust is critical with victims. We have victims that, you know, they try to go off-rid. We had one that was a domestic violence victim and she wanted to move out of the community and restart.

She had um applied for the address confidentiality program, had gone through great lengths to change her social media and do all these things to be able to kind of survive, to be able to move away and start fresh because her asalent in her community was a law enforcement officer. So right there is the understanding that victims come from any sort of uh demographic. It can be from any sort of abuser.

And so we have to protect our victims not only with by providing this type of technology that has become standard across the country but also by being able to show them that we are taking every sort of step at every sort of level to provide uh strong support and strong oversight of this sort of technology now and in the future. Um that's all I have for today. Thank you so much. Thank you, Brendan Trashel. Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I stand before you today for the ninth month in defiance of this AI powered surveillance system tracking our daily movements and violating our liberties. When I first spoke to you all in March, I focused on the inherent privacy violations Flock brings. In June, I focused on the rampant nationwide abuse of Flock systems. In September, I covered how Flock shared our data to federal agencies without our consent and how cities are responding by cancing their contracts.

And in October, I recap that the city is liable for all Flock mishaps, how Flock CEO has lied to the public and its customers, and much more. Today, I speak to you about how this contract is a raw deal for Flag Staff, particularly that this council's attempts to maintain this system with guard rails are moot.

This is because in this contract, the city grants to Flock a quote limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free irrevocable worldwide license to use the customer data and perform all acts as may be necessary for Flock to provide the Flock services to customer. Under this provision, our data is being shared with overseas contractors based in the Philippines who are training Flock's AI. There is no oversight on these workers, the company, or the applications they are using with our data.

This is because council assigned an irrevocable worldwide license to Flock specifically for this purpose. Furthermore, Flock has instructed these contractors to identify human beings in Flock Photos. In combination with the fact that we know Flock cameras do capture people and that Flock has a patent to identify and classify people based on protected characteristics. This goes against what the CEO company and its representatives have all publicly stated.

It is clear that Flock does not share interest with our community. We should have been clear when their CEO called Deflock a terrorist organization. Should we not expect more of our contractors as a city? All of this is before mentioning that there is a significant chance, if not likelihood, that flock images are public records, as is now the case in Washington state. This makes sense because flock data is collected with no investigative purpose.

It is dragnet surveillance with the hope it may later be useful. This means that not just the government has access to our daily movements, but that everyone likely does. This is a great deal for stalkers. And this means that your movements are public, too. You and I both know the general public will use this data to track elected officials if you vote yes. To conclude, I wanted to make sure that you knew there is a typo in this amendment. Please vote now. Thank you. Oxanna Dresser.

Good afternoon everybody. My name is Oxanna. I've lived in Flagstaff for almost 30 years and I urge the city council to not renew or to revoke the contract with Flock. And I do this for two reasons. Number one, and we've heard some talking, but I'm really not sure about the custody of the data. And just knowing what Flock's relationship is, financial relationship is with Palentar and the PayPal mafia, it makes me very nervous.

And the second thing is I haven't I was really glad to hear that um there are 319 times that flock was cited in uh you know criminal investigations and stuff but we have had flock in Flagstaff for 18 months. So I'm a little bit surprised that we haven't seen any hard data saying with flock for 18 months versus without flock for the previous 18 months. Can we compare and contrast types of crimes, reduction in crime rates, apprehension of criminals? Like why isn't that data available to us?

And if there's no difference, then why would we have flock? And if there is a difference, why hasn't that been clearly articulated to us? And those are my two reasons. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Michelle Frankot. [clears throat] Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here today to give an unbiased mathematical review of the crime statistics reported by Flock using my expertise as a well-published senior data scientist with a PhD.

I've already shared my work with all of you via email, but to briefly summarize, I uncovered gross data manipulations and ethical violations. Flagstaff's contract with Flock states that there's a 60% reduction in crime in excuse me in in flock cities, but the real data tells a very different story. First, the data comes from one single county in Georgia in 2019. And while a few crime categories did decrease there, we also saw similar reductions in Cookanino County.

and we didn't have a single flock camera at that point. Despite their claims, there's no evidence that flock reduced crimes. Even the deputy police chief of that Georgia county stated that they are not sure if flock made any difference in crime. The second issue is how that 60% number was created. Statistics are not immune to bias and so if you're trying to sell a story, you can shape the numbers to fit your narrative.

For example, a salesperson could brag that 80% of customers loved their product while failing to mention that the remaining 20% died from using it. Now, most real world data manipulations are far more subtle and can take a trained eye to be able to spot. Imagine a school district has no overall improvement in test scores.

But if one tiny subgroup, let's say second graders with perfect attendance, goes from four students meeting the benchmark to eight, they can very misleadingly claim that there was a 100% improvement in performance. And no one would know better unless they analyze the data themselves, which is what I've done. This is exactly what Flock does in the Georgia study. They only share the numbers that make them look good and they hide everything else.

They did find a 60% reduction in a very specific crime in one single county, but they acted as though that were representative of all of their crime data. In reality, in that same Georgia county, rape, murder, and aggravated assault all increased after flot cameras were installed by up to 250%. Now, I found many serious problems in other Flock reports, and I'm more than happy to discuss that further.

In the meantime, approving this contract with Flock entrusts our private data to a company that will sacrifice honesty and integrity for profit. Thank you. Thank you, Jan Carile. And then David Carile. Good afternoon. Thank you for letting me speak. Um, I admire and respect the efforts of our police department to try to do the very best they can to protect our safety.

And until the advancement of AI and frankly the troubling efforts by our current national administration, both of those can potentially very seriously undercut our privacy as citizens. I would not likely have been concerned about the use of cameras as a tool for public safety. But we are in a new era as you have heard the concerns of citizens about how this flock data could potentially be used.

You have heard um the police chief offered a guardrail by changing the hold time for data from 30 to 14 days. But I see several potentially big problems that negate this or really any guard rail. First of all, three or I guess three other entities currently share the city's data and we don't really have control over what they do with the data once they have it.

Secondly, if this data is considered public record, which has yet to be established in Arizona, anyone else who wants it can have access to the data and any efforts to limit how long the information is held are negated. Thirdly, the data is retained by flock and we really have no control over any changes they might make as to how they handle the data.

For instance, if the Trump administration ordered them ordered them to release some or all of the data to the feds, would or could flock successfully refuse. While they recently said they would pause cooperation with federal law enforcement, the government can just ask other flock customers to share the information. It seems that there are so many questions that need answers before the city should seriously consider a contract renewal with Flock.

Just for starters, is there any real independent research that shows that these readers do substantially reduce crime? Does Flock have robust security practices? And to what extent has flock data been misused, such as for tracking immigrants? And really, are we as a community truly comfortable with Flock tracking and recording the movements of ordinary people in Flagstaff, even though the vast majority are not connected to a crime?

While I am personally convinced that I do not want flock in Flagstaff, I am here urging you to please at least table the contract renewal decision until you have a more complete picture of Flock and the downsides of allowing this technology in Flagstaff. Something with this kind of huge potential impact deserves careful study and public input. There is no pressing need to act quickly to renew. Let's give this kind of attention. Let's give this the kind of attention it deserves before we renew.

Thank you, David Carile. And then Steven Poor. Thank you, Mayor Daget and council members for giving me the opportunity to speak here. Um, I'm just going to jump right into this uh with some comments and then uh uh recommendation or request uh with respect to the guard rail of a 14-day uh data retention period that may be illegal if it's determined that public record law will require the data to be kept for a longer period.

In Arizona, law enforcement data retention requirements vary significantly by record type, but generally range from one year for transitory messages to potentially 99 to 100 years or permanently for critical case files or historical records. The legality of the 14-day retention period is just one of many pertinent unanswered questions about the use of flock system and data in Flagstaff.

Even if the uh Flagstaff Police Department can legally adhere to a data retention period of 14 days, the fact that flock data are shared with a limited number of law other law enforcement agencies means uh Flagstaff Police Department to an unknown extent loses control of the data. With what other agencies or individuals might Flagstaff Police Department's partner agencies share the data? ICE, CBP, Customs and Border Protection.

Once the data are collected and despite what I believe are the Flagstaff Police Departments and cooperating agency's best intentions, what if some other agency, for example, ICE or CBP, subpoenas the data? Merely collecting the data, having the data available, no matter the duration the retention period or the intended limited sharing with other agencies, essentially opens a Pandora's box.

Once collected, the data are available to use, but also potentially to misuse and abuse, as has happened in many well-documented instances around the country where flock systems are in use. Again, I don't doubt the best intentions of the Flagstaff Police Department, but they have a relatively narrow focus to provide for the safety and law enforcement, safety of Flagstaff residents and visitors.

As Flagstaff City Council, I think you must take a broader view, including supporting broader values of the community. Safety being only one of many values. Among community values and rights to which the council, I believe, must be attentive and protective are the right to privacy and fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches. There is currently a federal lawsuit pending in Northfor, Virginia claiming that the camera violates the Fourth Amendment protection.

To me, the flock system s system is intrusive and an invasion of privacy. So, I urge the city council. Thank you. Okay. Steven Poor and then Caleb Alexander. Good evening, Mayor Council. I'm not in favor of the flock cameras because I just don't see the need. And I'm going to use the reports from the Flagstaff Police Department annual report from 2023 that showed a seven-year trend in felonies down. The last three years are lower than the prior five years. for example.

And then if we want to take a look at the 2023 Flagstaff Comprehensive Financial Report, page 168, in there you have court cases. The criminal cases and you also have traffic filings. The criminal cases in 2014 and 2015 were 8, excuse me, 7,273. In in 8 2018 and 2019, it dropped to 5,819. In 2324, it dropped to 4,133. Quite a decline, almost 50%, probably around 40. The traffic filings in 2014 2015 were 8,428 dropping in 18 to 19 to 5,315 in 2023 cutting more than half from that number. 2513.

Where's the fire? We're the CL crimes are going down. The court cases are going down. What do we need the the cameras for? One unanswered question that I haven't heard. I heard the cost of the contract, but I'm pretty sure you might need somebody on those database 24/7. And I look at the recent advertisement for police officers and starting pay and assume about a 30% extra for benefits. Uh you're looking for what? Three more officers at 24/7 8 hour shifts.

Now you're talking about a $400,000 contract you're about to approve or I I'm open maybe the police chief can explain that they're going to take people off the street or what are you going to do to to have to man that uh database? I'm not sure they have to do 247 but I leave that up to chief to explain to us. And then the last thing I would say is what was mentioned earlier. Scadget County, Washington. Superior Court judge ruled that these are public records.

Anybody can file for a public record request on anybody else. How long? Don't know. The gentleman had raised a very good point on how long you have to keep records, but anybody can keep records if that ruling is of course held up in this state. Thank you very much. Caleb Alexander and then Marcales Childs. Thank you, Mayor, Council, and thank you, city staff, for all the work you've done in regarding this contract. I encourage our city councilors to vote against this contract.

We've talked already tonight, this afternoon, about core values for the city of Flagstaff. And I think it's important to ask, does this contract, does Flock represent the core values of our community and where we want our dollars to go? Flock is interested in surveilling across this country. They are interested in a variety of ways in which they would report on target marginalized populations and uh target demographics.

It is very clear that our local law enforcement is taking the concerns seriously as we address those, but I do not believe that is adequate. In May of 2025, 404 media reported on ICE using flock to uh identify people uh um to identify um uh people using flock cameras. uh while there was no contract for that that was using the that Met's uh infrastructure from June to 20 uh June to October 2025.

404 media also reported on the use of flock cameras by police officers to identify someone suspected of an abortion in the state of Texas. This was when this was examined, when this was uh investigated, it appears that the complainant came from an abuser of that person suspected of an abortion. In addition, despite all the precautions that have been discussed, Flock has been the subject to malware attacks as reported by 404 media just last month that exposed login credentials.

Now, whatever we do locally, if those login credentials for our police officers, for others with access uh in our neighboring communities and participating communities have access, that includes surveillance uh by unknown people using this infrastructure. In addition, this company uses in overseas workforces to develop its uh its AI infrastructure to surveil and examine this data.

And I know that our voters and our uh have supported uh uh ecologically supportive um um [gasps] ecologically supportive legislation and action as well as working wages. And I believe that overseas workforces for AI and a deeply energyintensive uh industry uh does not represent those values. By committing these dollars, you're committing city of Flagstaff to a national surveillance program that targets marginalized populations, um, uh, presents safety issues and fuels environmental harm.

Thank you. Thank you, Marcales Childs. And then Patty Hansen. Hello, Mayor Council. Um, I am here to talk about a firsthand experience I have had with the use of flock earlier this year. Um, as I said before earlier this April, my car has been stolen within the community of Flagstaff. Um, when this happened, I employed police assistance to track an Air Tag that I hid in my car around town.

I know that this Apple is not the best in that, but as my strategies um as my success wavered, um, I made a police report to help locate it instead. When the police report was made, the flock system was implemented. Uh that day, whatever information that officer pulled, he came to a conclusion of me simply either misplacing my car and possibly being under the influence when I did. Um was I able to later locate my car? Yes. Um was Flock helpful in coming to this conclusion at all? No.

Um thankfully it came to just a baseless judgment call. Uh calls like these leave the drivers powerless to these conclusions. My suggestion is in the re-evaluation of the contract. Um we're bringing up something as we've talked about before, the case in Washington, calling to question whether the surveillance of public roads is public data. Usually in speeding tickets, the images taken of the violation is presented to the person.

Finding a way um to allow for this information to be publicized is something that I would want to look forward to. um to publicize the data that Flock retains of us or the driver uh profile that is apparently made um through either their transparency portal and or either through the FPD uh portal themselves.

I have changed my views on the system um through conversations and concerns I have heard throughout the community about the community being under patrolled and I don't think that complete removal of the system would be beneficial in the police mission to protect the community. However, I believe that the community should have the opportunity to see how they are being protected by this system. Thank you. Thank you, Patty Hansen and the Michelle James.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, members of the council, city leadership, and the city team members here, and of course the residents who have come out tonight. Um, I'm here to ask you to um not approve the contract at this time. Um, I you've heard several people bring up the public records question and just to make you aware if you don't know, I had the honor of serving as county recorder for 12 years.

So, I'm familiar with the public records law and um I think there's several questions to be had that need to be looked into in regards to the public records. public records can get you in trouble not only for maintaining them but destroying them too soon. So I would ask you know your tra task force is in place for the next six months. I would ask them to look really carefully into the questions of are these public records and if so, how does the state retention schedule affected?

And um if there needs to be some other protections like we have state laws in place that people can have their information on property records redacted off so that nobody could look at them because they're victims of crime or they're judges or they're police officers and that's to protect their privacy. Um also um I think those kind of things need to be looked at.

Anytime you bring technology in the technology moves faster than the guidelines on how that technology needs to be implemented and I think it really needs to be looked into. The majority of the people I've talked to now I haven't talked to everybody but are very uncomfortable about this and have questions.

So, if your task force could get more information, you could table the um contract for six months till they're done until you have more information on this and turn the cameras off, I think, would be a really good thing to do for the residents of our city to feel comfortable on how you're addressing the issue. Thank you very much and have happy holidays. Thank you, Michelle James. And then Patrick Gerrard. Hello, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council. My name is Michelle James.

I'm the executive director of Friends of Flagstaff's Future. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important agenda item. FCubed urges you to vote no on the First Amendment to the cooperative purchase contract with Flock Safety. This is not a question of trusting our police chief. It's much bigger than Flag Staff. We do not support AI mass surveillance at the as the current federal administration is gathering and weaponizing data.

The so-called guard rails that are described in the staff report do not provide meaningful protection against the abuse of data. The question of whether the city of FL Flagstaff considers flock data a public record under state law is a critical one. You've heard a lot thought lot about that tonight. But we the public don't know because the city hasn't answered this question for us.

If the answer is yes, then it's very likely that you'll have to keep the data for longer than the 14 days that were part of the guard rails from the police chief. Um, and that would undermine that that guard rail. We know that a court in Washington state has said the flock data is public record. While this decision is not binding in an Arizona court, it could be persuasive and it doesn't uh but it doesn't provide a definitive answer.

The city of Surprise recently refused to release flock data of a retired firefighter. Because of this lack of clarity, we are asking city council to request that the Arizona attorney's general's office render an opinion on this question for the sake of Flag Staff and the other jurisdictions in Arizona.

While we appreciate the city staff has agreed to set up a task force to look at the technology um technology privacy, um the reality is the tax task force will be meeting after you vote on the contract today. In other words, the train has left the station. Further, this task force should be making recommendations to city council like all other city commissions and be bound by the open meeting law and all of its requirements.

For years, the ACLU has been warning of the dangers of this mass AI surveillance technology. The Norfolk, Virginia case, which you've heard about a bit, um challenges the constitutionality of the FLA flock safety's mass surveillance camera, claiming they're a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that case is still pending. There are compelling reasons to question the trustworthiness of this company. Flock Safety is a private held company.

It has lied about its data sharing pra practices, misrepresented facts to the public and downplayed harm. This company, whose values are antithetical to those of city of Flagstaff and the council should not council should not be spending money tax dollars to support it. For the above reasons and others we do not have time to speak of here, we urge you to vote no on the flock flock contract and turn off the cameras immediately. Thank you for your consideration.

Patrick Gerrard and then Jennifer Yazy. Hello everybody. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Patrick Gerard. Um I'm here today to discuss the flock camera system and potential consequences and implications of their existence. I understand the argument that you are protecting us, but is nonetheless. Who [clears throat] here has ever read the book 1984 by George Orwell and was frightened by it.

Well, I am here to tell you that 1984 is no longer a work of fiction and is now very much a reality in the United States. Tracing the roots of the idea of the surveillance state will ultimately lead you back to the English philosopher Jerry Bentham's idea of the panopticon which was widely criticized over time and is seen by many to be where totalitarianism has its roots.

Totalitarianism is a form of government ruled by a dictator whose only interest is power and control who prohibits criticism of the party in control and ultimately outlaws any criticism and dissent and is seen as a threat. Paranoia is its lifeblood. Fast forward to today, we are here. 1984 is now.

I believe the Patriot Act and its trade-off of certain personal liberties uh for protection of national security began the erosion of our fourth amendment rights under the Constitution of the United States. Flock represents the natural evolution of the ideas laid out in the Patriot Act and is big brother cosplaying as protectionism. It's not. It's a violation of privacy. Full stop. [clears throat] I don't believe we got to vote on the establishment of Flock and Flagstaff.

This feels like a betrayal all too common in our country today and a violation of our fourth amendment rights. Protection from reasonable searches and seizures of our homes, papers, and property, which in the digital world translates to our data that has become a reflection of our digital selves. The legal basis and arguments on this topic are debatable. But I I am here to tell you it is morally and ethically questionable at best.

Laws are not static and the rule of law is currently under attack. Who is to say new laws will not be weaponized against civilians? That is ourselves and our children. Protect our privacy. Abolish flock and flag staff. That is a that is it is a favorite tool of ICE used for surveillance. Protect our immigrants which is all of us. Um or we will see you at the ballot box. Thank you, Jennifer Yazy. And then Jill Stevenson, Jennifer.

Um, my name is Jennifer Yoy and I've been living here in Flaxa for almost 40 um 30 years. Oh my gosh, I just almost aged myself. 10 years. But um thank you for the opportunity to speak mayor, vice mayor, council members. I've worked in the court system in the uh criminal justice system for many years. I currently work at the Koken County Attorney's Office, but I'm speaking tonight in my own personal capacity.

I'm also as a Navajo woman, I carry a deep concern for missing and murdered indigenous people. For many families, including people in my own community, the search for missing val relatives is not theoretical. It is a live reality. Time matters and access to reliable information can mean the difference between finding someone or never getting answers. I strongly believe in privacy and civil liberties.

I understand why people are cautious about new technology, but I also know that tools like a ALPRS can be critical in investigating kidnappings, human trafficking, and [snorts] serious violent crimes, especially after harm has already occurred. My concern is for victim and victims and for the families waiting for justice. Without tools like this, I believe we will see more more unsolved cases, more offenders who aren't held accountable, and ultimately more crime.

The cost of us not using available tools is born by victims, not by systems. I also trust our local law enforcement. I have seen firsthand the professionalism and care they bring to their work. and I believe they can use this technology responsibly with appropriate safeguards. I ask the council to view this not as a question of surveillance but as a question of public safety and victim support for families searching for loved ones. Tools like this can matter.

Thank you for time and consideration. Thank you Jill Stevenson and then Laura Wthman. Hello, council and everyone else here. My name is Jill Stevenson. I am not a long-term resident of Flagstaff. I've only been here four years, but I've had the privilege of attending many council meetings, and I appreciate the fact that you listen to what the community is saying. because you are our representatives.

I think the police department has made some good changes in uh their indicated use of flock cameras, but I also think the majority of the population certainly as represented here tonight do not feel that these are safe ways to handle problems in our community. They are flock cameras are too open to misuse and abuse and I think that far outweighs the positive helps that they might serve us.

So I would hope that you would in your decisionmaking take into consideration all the facts and feelings that you have heard here tonight and not go along with a company that is obviously in this for a profit like most big companies are. I would hope that you would not re-up the contract. Thank you very much for your consideration and time. Thank you, Laura Wthman.

and then Sean Parson, Council members, Madame Mayor, as an enthusiastic investor in the companies developing these remarkable flock cameras, I must admit I've been deeply disheartened by the growing reluctance of so many of the major cities across the us to fully embrace modern surveillance solutions. Each time a city delays or rejects flock, my stock portfolio takes a hit. And I've lost more than a few sleepless nights worrying about the long-term health of my investments.

So, I urge this council to vote yes on flap cameras because we owe it to our budget and frankly to my investment strategy to modernize completely. Just imagine the efficiencies. With every camera installed, we move closer to a world where policing can be thoroughly streamlined. Why continue funding human officers when sophisticated technology can do so much of the work for us? We've already seen promising steps in this direction with other automated enforcement tools.

Imagine extending it all the way. We could phase out human officers entirely and replace them with robo police capable of making split-second use of force decisions with flawless algorithmic precision. Of course, there may be occasional unintended harms or misidentifications, but those are inevitable growing pains when you automate authority. What's a few unfortunate outcomes uh to compared to hyper security, reduced liability, and optimized returns?

And while we're modernizing, why not eliminate the inefficiencies of these meetings as well? Forget long discussions about community needs. Just plug in AI. Imagine the savings if your salaries were redirected towards truly modern governance. With every license plate scanned, we get closer to a world where every problem can be solved with binary decision-making. So, council members, let's modernize. Vote yes on flot cameras. This isn't just surveillance. It's progress.

A future filled with shiny gadgets that remind us how far we've come uh from mere human governance. Let's not just keep pace. Let's sprint towards a new era of total surveillance, profit, and control. Thank you. Thank you, Sean Parson. And then Michael Tunic. Right. Uh, thank you, city council members, madame mayor, and my fellow residents of Flagstaff. I am someone who works a full-time and and a decently well-paying job.

And like most of us in this community, I have no real hopes of ever purchasing my own home. And I am at most two missed paychecks away from being homeless. Over the last few months, as the economy has begun a clear downturn, we have seen an increase in poverty and food box needs amongst um our residents, as well as other examples of increasing economic stress.

These problems are not only going to get worse with federal cuts to social services and the expected increase in the cost of health insurance. Right now, the residents of Flagstaff need our city council to be looking out for those of us struggling to get by and to work to make the city more affordable and livable for the average resident.

Paying Flax Flock camera, a Silicon Valley based billiond dollar corporation over $100,000 per year does not provide any solutions to the affordability crisis for Flagstaff residents. And if anything, it takes away much needed money from um from other social services. Maintaining [snorts] the flat contract redirects that money away from services that could benefit the residents here to a company recently evaluated at $7.5 billion in value as of March this year.

How much good could 100,000 plus provide if it were spent on improving the economic needs of Flagstaff residents? Many of you on council are concerned with affordable housing, for instance, and we heard from a bunch of great examples of projects going on. But couldn't this money not be spent on expanding this housing support? Could it be used to get homeless residents off the streets and into housing? And how would that affect our crime rates?

Could it be used to improve public transit in this town, making it easier for workers to get to their employment and around town? In short, we live in a world of resource constraints. Every dollar you spend primarily to enrich a large corporation with our tax dollars is money taken away from the services that would actually benefit the residents of this town. And what do you get for funding flock? Further encroachment on our privacy rights.

Building of infrastructure that has in many other locations been used against the wishes of the laws of the community to help ICE and other organizations. Uh a tool for racial profiling and something that will and can and will be used as an uh for abuses. I have been to three meetings regarding this issue and at each meeting I've seen the vast majority of residents get up and speak out against the flock contract.

Um um but still the council is refusing to act with the exceptions of council members Alen and Garcia who have been listening to the community and standing up for the people of Flagstaff. I call for the council to follow their brave lead. As a council, I implore you to end the country with flock and instead focus on addressing affordability issues.

In the end, do you stand with billionaire tech oligarchs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Fl CEO Garrett Langley in their campaign to shove AI data centers and surveillance in our throats, or do you stand with the people of Flagstaff who are struggling to get by? Um, your decision will tell us exactly where you stand. Thank you. Thank you, Michael Tunink, and then Marilyn Wiseman. Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak.

Um, I'm the chief deputy at the county attorney's office. I'm here for Ammon Barker. Um, and we support the use of ALPR technology in investigating our cases. I understand a lot of the concerns that have been raised today. I see Patty Hansen, who's an exemplary public servant over many years uh, here and I heard her comments and I'm about to disagree with her. Sorry, Patty. Uh, I have been a prosecutor for 15 years. I've spoken to victims on many occasions.

I've seen and prosecuted murder cases, kidnapping cases, crimes against children. I've been in rooms with victims of domestic violence, victims of violent offenses who while shaking ask me, "Are we going to be able to find him? Am I going to be able to be safe tonight?" And I take solace in telling them Flagstaff Police Department is doing everything they can to find that person and to keep you safe. And ALPR technology is part of everything that we can do to find dangerous offenders.

This is about public safety after all. Am I saying that this system is currently perfect? No. I think Flagstaff Police Department has taken a lot of steps to try to get closer. I think we're going to continue to learn and continue to improve the system. But for right now, what we have is I am not aware of any misconduct or any misuse of data by the Flagstaff Police Department or anybody in this community.

What I'm also aware of is there are concrete benefits in kidnapping cases, murder cases in which we have located violent offenders as soon as we could and did everything we could before they could do more harm. Um, you know, and I speak for other prosecutors in my office when I say in this job, uh, we see a lot of suffering. We see a lot of human suffering.

Um, I do have an investment in this issue and that investment is 15 years of talking to child victims, talking to victims of domestic violence. I'm invested in their safety. I'm invested in making sure that the right thing happens in those cases. The job isn't just public safety. The job is also protecting people's rights. And I fully acknowledge that. And I assure you that anything our office does will be with those rights in mind.

But in terms of doing everything we can to protect folks from the violence that does exist out there, I urge you to renew the contract, continue the contract. Thank you. Thank you, Marilyn Wisman. And then Sandra Labarski. Hello, Mayor and City Council. Uh, I'd like to read you an article from Oregon Public Radio concerning uh, Schammania, which is a county in Washington uh, that many people have talked about their uh, recent court decision.

Scammania County Sheriff Summer Shire announced this week that her office would discontinue using flock safety cameras over concerns that a recent Washington state court decision could make it easier to weaponize the data they collect. An early November state court decision found that data collected by the traffic cameras would be available through public records requests.

Quote, "This recent court decision is a threat to public safety, allowing access to anyone and extending far beyond the policy parameters set forth by the Scammania County Sheriff's Office for their own personnel." At least six flock cameras were set up in the southwest count Washington County in December 2024.

The sheriff's office planned to use the systems license plate readers to apprehend stolen vehicles and to assist with warnings about child abduction and missing persons known as Amber and Silver Alerts. But the cameras have faced scrutiny because their data is stored on the privately owned company servers. On Thursday, immigration advocacy groups in Oregon applauded the city of Woodburn for turning off its flock cameras over concerns that they could be used to assist with immigration arrests.

An October report by researchers at the University of Washington showed that at least eight Washington state law enforcement agencies enable direct one-to-one sharing of their networks with US Border Patrol at some point during 2025. According to Shy, worries in Scammania County were more related to the cameras being used for unreasonable searches and seizures.

Quote, "At this point, I'm just done with the cameras." Shy said, "It's been tumultuous to say the least." The Washington state court decision that caused the sheriff to deactivate the cameras took place November 6th in Skija County Superior Court. In it, a judge determined that data collected by flock cameras are subject to the state's public records act. The court rejected arguments from the cities of Stanwood and Cedro Woolly that claimed flock data should be protected from public disclosure.

Sheriff Shy said her office began using the camera system to stretch its limited public safety resources further. The vast majority of Ska County is managed by the US Forest Service, which limits the available tax base for services like law enforcement. Simultaneously, the region's growth as a recreation destination has led to a record number of requests on the sheriff's office to do search and rescue operations on top of other duties.

Quote, un utilizing flock cameras was one caveat to be able to limit some of the time in trying to narrow down where these people are located. Shire said at this point, she said the cameras have been turned off and the county is not planning to renew its contract with Flack at the end of 2026. So, this is a town of just 12,000 people, but they're, you know, they're seeing that their government is saying, the state of Washington, that they have to share this data.

I can't see how you can with this ruling how you can continue without investigating further. Thank you. Thank you, Sandra Labarski. and then Marcus Ford. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. I'm also reading you an article. This one is from a prominent tech magazine published December 12th. How cops are using Flock Safety's ALPR network to surveil protesters and activists. It's no secret that 2025 has given Americans plenty to protest about.

But as news cameras showed protesters filling streets of cities across the country, law enforcement officers, including US Border Patrol agents, were quietly watching those same streets through different lenses. Flock safety automated license plate readers that tracked every passing car.

Through an analysis of 10 months of nationwide searches on flux flux safety servers, we discovered that more than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches through Flux national network of surveillance data in connection with protest activity. In some cases, law enforcement specifically targeted known activist groups. Via public records requests.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained data sets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025. The data shows that agencies logged hundreds of searches related to the protests in February, the Handsoff protests in April, the No Kings protests in June and October, and other protests in between.

The only reason an officer is able to even search for a suspect at a protest is because ALPR's collected data on every single person who attended the protest. I want to say quickly that that included the Arizona uh Department of Public Safety, the Tempee Police Department, and the US Border Patrol are part of those agencies reviewing protesters. Some agencies have adopted protest policies that prohibit using ALPRs for monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment.

Yet many officers probe the national network with terms like protest without articulating an actual crime under investigation. I read to you this article as an example of how systems marketed as protecting our community actually threaten the values of our community. The best way to protect people is to shut down these cameras. Everyone should have the right to speak against injustice without ending up in a database. Thank you. Thank you, Marcus Ford. and then Deborah Block.

Good evening, Mayor and Vice Mayor and City Council. Before you discuss and ultimately vote on the flock safety contract tonight, I'd like to remind you of some of the cities who have recently terminated their relationship with flock and then read part of an article about two of these cities in Oregon, Eugene, Oregon and Springfield, Oregon.

Cities who have recently terminated their contracts with Flock include Austin, Texas, Bay City, Michigan, Berkeley California Cambridge Massachusetts Denver Colorado Eugene Oregon Evston Illinois Oakland California, Oak Park, Illinois, Olympia, Washington Redmond Washington San Marcos, Texas, Scarsdale, New York, S uh Sedona Arizona Springfield Washington, and Stanford, Washington. Let me submit that these cities are not naive and are not uh anti-technology.

Indeed, Redmond, Washington is the home of Microsoft, I think Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, and some of these other cities are very technology savvy. And yet, they've all uh decided to terminate their contract with Flock. Here's an article from December 6th of this year regarding the decision by officials in Eugene, Oregon and Springfield, Oregon to discontinue their contracts with flock.

Quote, "The city of Eugene and Springfield announced Friday, December 6 2025 um that they would discontinue use of AI powered license plate cameras connected to the company called Flock Safety." The announcements issued in separate press releases came after months of public push back. Opponents said the cameras could be used to track innocent people and put vulnerable residents at risk of surveillance by federal agencies.

Police argued that cameras were key to solving numerous cases, including some involve involving violent crimes. This is a quote from the police chief in Eugene, Oregon. effective immediately. He says, "The Eugene Police Department has ended its contract with its current automated PLA license plate recognition vendor, Flock Safety." Read the announcement from EPD, which was released at U 7:20 p.m. Friday.

quote, "The department has um identified vulnerabilities and limitations that raise concern about the systems ability to meet the EPD's operational needs, data security requirements, and community expectation." The statement continued, quote, "After further evaluation and internal discussion, the department has decided to discontinue the contract. The Springfield Police Chief said something very similar. Thank you.

I urge Flag Staff to vote no and to add their name to this list of cities that have discontinued the contract. Thank you. Thank you, Deborah Block. And then Saut Best. Good evening, Mayor Council. I'd like to speak to abortion and ALPRs. Although we now have a right to abortion in Arizona via state constitutional amendment, there remain over 50 medically unnecessary laws that restrict or ban abortion Arizona, including fetal personhood language.

At least 24 states, including Arizona, have such language embedded in their statutes. Moreover, at least 38 states, including Arizona, [snorts] have criminal feticide laws that could be used to authorize homicide charges for a pregnancy loss. Arizona statutes use quote unborn child to mean the offspring of human beings from conception until birth.

To illustrate the issues with this, I further I would like to read from a recent article by the Electronic Frontier Foundation entitled Flock Safety and Texas Sheriff claimed license plate search was for a missing person. It was an abortion investigation.

A newly released incident report and affidavit unequivocally described the case as a quote death investigation of a quote nonviable fetus end quote and logged evidence of a woman's self-managed abortion and consulted prosecutors about possibly charging her. In recent years, fetal homicide and wrongful death statutes originally intended to protect pregnant people from violence are being used to criminalize abortion and pregnancy loss.

These laws establish legal personhood of fetuses and can be weaponized against people who end their own pregnancies or experience a miscarriage. In fact, a new report from Pregnancy Justice found that in just the first two years since the Supreme Court's decision in DOBS, prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases charging pregnant people with crimes related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and birth.

Most under child neglect, endangerment, or abuse laws that were never intended to target pregnant people. Nine cases included allegations around individuals abortion, such as possession of adoption medication or attempts to obtain an abortion. Instances just like the one in Texas. An ALPR search listing that case number that appears on the death investigation incident report included a month of data, including 83,345 cameras.

As we've witnessed, we are living through a time where vengeance and punishment are being used lawlessly. Please do not advance this contract. [music] Sat best and then Kevin Lenown. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council. Uh, I don't know about you, but I've learned a lot tonight and uh I think it's pretty obvious that we're not ready to pass this. So, I urge you to wait.

Uh I've been a planning and zoning commissioner in the county for a couple of decades and I love the work because a group of people come together and amazingly in this era of government u conflict. They come together without political points of view to solve problems. And you've got to set up here for a technology and privacy task force.

And I urge you to use it to answer the questions that have been raised tonight and make it a very robust and vigorous conversation that is open to the public that uh you're involved in as you ask questions uh and make it work to communicate both to you and to the public. Uh we're we're at the conflu conflation of of many things at the moment. We've got camera technology that can do license plates and facial recognition. We got crime changing. We've got AI. We have privacy issues.

We have the courts making decisions. There's a heck of a lot going on here. And even if we answer the questions today, this will be an ongoing process. It's not going to end. I can definitely see um the advantage of the cameras. I don't having having read a bunch about Flock in the Forbes and magazine articles and you can look those up. Of course, you probably have. Doesn't seem like maybe the values of the Flock organization are the values of the city of Flagstaff.

Um, so I just urge you to wait to make this commission really a commission to get them to address both the questions, look for answers, and communicate with the public so that we're all comfortable with whatever comes out of this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Kevin. And I I apologize. I think it's Ion and um Luis Fernandez. Thank you, council. Thank you, mayor. Um I'm speaking tonight um to urge you not to renew the contract with Flock Safety.

Um of course, Flagstaff PD should have a host of tools at their disposal to fight crime. um but not at the cost of turning our community into a surveillance state. Each tool in the PD's toolbox needed to be weighed against the rights of the cities um of the citizens civil rights and uh I and my fellow citizens did not consent to being photographed simply for using the streets.

We certainly didn't consent to funneling our tax dollars to a disingenuous company that refers to its products as license plate readers when they do far more than that. They are AI powered surveillance cameras. They can identify vehicles without the license plate. They are not license plate readers. Uh this is a disingenuous company that we simply can't trust with this kind of massive personal information um uh acquisition.

Um the truth is this program if this program was presented to the citizenry um in an honest and open way as a ballot measure it would never have passed. Um if if anyone here supports flocks and thinks that it would have then I urge us to do it that way. Um no the majority of the public only found out about the flock cameras because of the revoke position petition after the contract was signed and the cameras were already up.

Um, but we don't just have to throw up our hands and say, "We're being surveiled all the time, so there's no use in resisting." Um, we can make a choice. Well, you can. Um, and because you can make that choice, I urge you to make the choice and not renew this contract. Thank you very much. Thank you, Luis Fernandez. And then Isuya Emanuel. Isaiah. Hi. Uh, thank you for letting me speak to you. I really appreciate it. I'm sure you're tired. You've heard a lot.

You're going to hear a little bit more. Um, um, my name is Luis Fernandez. I'm a professor um, and I am a scholar of policing. Um, I spend the last 20 years focusing and writing um, on policing and policing issues. I I've authored four books, many many articles and a variety of things. So, this is kind of my area of expertise and I'm coming to you as an expert on this particular um, issue. not necessarily flock but policing in general.

Um I have been following this kind of on the outside reading and and paying attention have not spoken to you before. So this is the first time I'm speaking to you and I heard a variety of different kinds of arguments that have been come in in front of you. Right. One of them is um the issue of framing it as safety. This is a safety issue and we must protect in relation very common practice in relation to policing. Um safety issue uh has a variety of things.

So that's an issue um that is identified and it was identified here today. Another one is an issue frame as trust whether we have trust or where we don't have trust. Um and those are issues again also very common within criminology. Um third is framing an issue private privacy the privacy issue is this it can we connect can we gather information? Can we keep it safe? Where does it go? How does it do that? All those kinds of things.

Again I'm just summarizing because you've seen this way more than I have. So these are the three. There's more but these are the three that I've seen. um um through here. For me, these aren't the issues. Um these are issues. They're very important and they need to be taken into consideration. But the main issue here is democracy. And by that, what I mean is can we keep individuals and the and the process safe from potential abuses, not abuses that may be correcting now or but potential abuses.

So for me the issue is an issue of infrastructure um uh and that is can we create a a a community where we don't create the infrastructures that potentially or that have the potential to actually be reappropriated to do a variety of other things. So right now we're hearing like hey we can keep it we can maintain it we can do these procedures we can do these particular things.

I'm saying over the long run that's very unlikely and by the long run I mean five it could be four you know five ten years um so the issue is can it might not be worth uh doing this because things that we create can be used I'll give you an example that's happening right now um ICE this was a particular institution that was being used to engage and do a variety of different things for the last 15 20 years um we all watched it and within one year um they have arrested Um, I believe the latest count is somewhere in the upwards of 160 or higher US citizens that have been arrested and detained by ICE with was not supposed to be their process, let alone everybody else.

They are masked. They are not giving information. They're doing that. Um, so I say don't build this structure because not because of we don't trust because it might not be used in the future. Well, thank you. Thank you Isaiah. And then Michael Glover. Hello. Hi. I'm coming to the city council with environmental concerns over flock safety and its relationship with Amazon and AWS.

So Flock Safety has an open relationship with Amazon which has been partnering with them for the flock flock safety with getting operations with their door doorbell cameras and also is using their data data services as well. So ad AWS is a company under Amazon where they store many of their data. So this the data stored goes to data centers with which are being pushed for in Arizona.

So with data centers, especially with flock safety, we are basically saying that we are accepting the environmental impacts of these data centers within Arizona. And Arizona notoriously is a dry state. I don't know if any of you recognize that, but Flock Safety is partnering with AWS to basically be able to store their data one and two harm our environment. This does not line up with Flagstaff's goals and values of sustainability.

If we want to continue to be a city, continue to be part of the county, continue to be part of the state, we are basically betting against that with Flock Safety, especially with their partnership with Amazon and also inviting other companies to possibly come into Arizona to use up our limited water, use up our limited resources.

And despite the limited water and resources, these data centers and flock safety is using a lot of lot of electricity in turn a lot of energy consumption which increases carbon uh carbon emissions. And so if we're talking about net zero goals and sustainability goals, net well flock safety does not align with our goals one bit. Thank you. Thank you, Michael Glover. and then Cal Banks. Hello. Uh, my name is Michael Glover.

Thank you, Mayor Daget and the council for giving me the opportunity to speak today. I'm currently a history education student at NAU and I'm exploring postgrad options to stay here in Flagstaff to teach. I would love to stay here. I have fell in love with the community and the environment up here, but I'm deeply concerned with the local government.

On October 28th, many of us left here dismayed at the resolution and for continuation but hopeful of change to come with the seemingly receptive attitude of the police department and the council. It appeared that the resolution would not be voted on for another 6 months. Yet, oddly enough, here we are less than two months later.

Coincidentally, a week after the majority of NA students left Flagstaff for winter break, Councilman Garcia said that he appreciated all the new voices at the last Flock meeting and it does not seem like the rest of the council agrees. I oppose the flock cameras on the basis of privacy concerns, which we've heard many, but I think the core of the issue here in Flagstaff should be about consent. In June 2024, these cameras were installed with zero public comment or oversight.

And in October 2025, we heard from over 30 community members speaking passionately and openly about their concerns for the unintentional harms these cameras may cause. The council room was completely full, largely of people who oppose the system. Despite this overwhelming opposition, mostly from younger individuals, it only took a few promises and testimony from well-connected individuals to sway the council into revisiting this issue.

Why are people with vested interests in the cameras prioritized over the concerns overwhelmingly of the public? Public research of over 47 vulnerabilities and there are data being sent to the workers in Philippines when Flock has promised that our data is apparently ours but is being sent to the Philippines. The way the council has acted around the Flock issue is odd to me.

Despite a seemingly open ear and a receptive chamber, at every turn, the council seems to stray further from public opinion and increasingly support the flock system. I leave you with three final questions. I understand trusting the police department, but I believe they are misguided and misinformed. Was police work like kidnapping cases impossible before Flock? Why are they a necessity now? Why are you trusting Flock still? There's a clear pattern of lies and deceit by the company.

and why are you failing to respond to the overwhelming concerns of your community? Thank you for listening and please shut down the cameras. Thanks, Cal Banks. And then Artemis Diaz. Hello. Well, I don't have anything written down, but I just wanted to voice my opinion to urge you guys to say no to renewing the vlog cameras. And I took off of work early to be here and for the first meeting that I was here. And I think there was several discussions in between as well. And I am just confused.

Yeah.

why it still has is not decided and why like I just um noticed these cameras just looking around town like over the past 5 years and I love Arizona so much every part and corner of this large state and I've noticed them in every like urban area and rural areas and highways and counties all across the state and they all popped up very recently without like any acknowledgement or you know uh telling Yeah, they didn't tell the media or the public that these were coming out with our tax dollars.

And yeah, these are completely different than any other ALPR system. These aren't just ALPR cameras. These are this is a ridiculous technofudal like dystopian piece of technology that I can't believe we're even dealing with.

And I'm like really discouraged with like I'm I'm very new to being political, but I'm very discouraged with like even knowing like how representatives work and like this whole system because it seems very discouraging and um [snorts] Oh yeah, and then they partnered with Ring doorbell cameras recently and yeah, they're very ripe for misuse and there's no place for this kind of technology in our society and Arizona should want no part of this to do with this.

And um I'm really am so grateful for everyone who's just like also noticed these and like learned about them because like uh yeah, if it wasn't for us like this wouldn't be a thing at all and this fight is not over and will never be over against. Will you speak into the microphone please? I'm just going to speak this way if that's No, we need you to speak into the microphone because all of this is recorded.

Well, why do I don't really understand why I have to do that, but I have a little bit of time left and I'm just going to speak how I want to speak. So, no, then your comment is over. Oh, well, we can do it. And yeah, next we have Artemis Diaz and then we have Chelsea Green. Good evening, council. Uh, my name is Artemis Diaz.

I'm a student journalist with NAC today and I've been covering this story and the stories of people of Flagstaff and I want to say first and foremost I am not here to state any opinion. I'm a journalist and that is beyond my ethics. What I do want to bring forth is some questions and concerns I have uh after reviewing the contract as well as reading a document uh from the oversight committee which flock safety is currently under investigation by.

So currently, Flock Safety is an under investigation for uh enabling invasive survolent practices that threaten the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans. I am concerned for the people of Flagstaff. Uh along with a contract that I think that opens us up to a lot of abuse. uh 9.1 limitation of liability.

Flock will not be responsible for error of interruption of use or for loss of uh inaccuracy uh corruption of data, footage or procurement of goods, services or technology or loss of business. um as well as um control including repeat criminal activity or inability to capture footage or uh identify and correlate license plate with FBI databases, public disclosure of proprietary information made in good faith or for crime prevention.

Uh Flock safety is not responsible for any of that and that concerns me.

Uh I am also concerned that uh give me a second for data prevention uh as part of the agency's consideration for paid access uh the flock system and the flock is required by federal state and federal law to ignore uh store the agency data or the agency uh control including repeat criminal give me a second sorry uh end user data agency agrees to preserve and securely store this data on behalf of the Flock uh cameras and could flock can delete data from its servers and should Flock be legally compelled by judicial or government order, Flock may retrieve the data from agency upon demand.

Um with ICE, I worry that the federal government could petition our city and petition Flock to release this data. Um I think that we should review the contract. I think that's very important. Um, thank you. Yep. Thank you, Chelsea Green. And then Richard Kak. Thank you, city council, uh, members, for keeping these issues in the public conversation. Uh, your commitment to the democratic process is absolutely why I'm here.

Um, at the start of this meeting, you said, "Pledge allegiance to liberty and justice for all, not just some." Um, and I'd like to keep I'd like you to keep this in mind as I connect flock surveillance to the tech billionaires who influ whose influence is on display in the current national political sphere.

Uh the company Flock is owned by Garrett Langley who is startup funds uh whose startup funds were also seated by Palunteer founder Peter Theel through the venture capital company Founders Fund. Uh of the initial Flock Safety Seed Fund there was 120,000. Uh but once Founders Fund came in it jumped up to 10 million. In case you're not familiar, Peter Teal is one of those billionaire hedge fund managers that most of the US hate right now.

For most uh for those that know surveillance know surveillance is the mechanism by which these powers would like to lock the vast majority of Americans into a kind of panoptic obedience systems that only the very rich will have any say in. While they consolidate the media, folks like Peter Teal and Mark Andre are also planning to impose their views on Americans in other ways. They are stacking government agencies with folks who work for them.

Flock is a company who owes a lot to Peter Theal by setting up those infrastructure to help them put in place their surveillance state mechanisms. You are siding with them. We are what we have been watching as many local localities have been facing conflict with the federal government in protecting neighbors from ICE. These connections are being made by those who can, a lot of folks.

Um I have uh I was made aware of them by some folks on YouTube and some local other people in this in this community. Um all of which like to share their sources and I'll send those to you as well. Flock also um also costs taxpayer dollars. You are charging us for our own internment camp. You all say that you have control over this thing, but whether you think you do or whether you are deceiving us, it's irrelevant. By voting to renew this contract, you are siding with the tech billionaires.

In an interview, their CEO accused a nonpartisan watchdog group of being a terrorist organization um and of only wanting chaos. Is it chaos to want checks and balances? I would like to believe that there is a middle ground between chaos and authoritarian surveillance state. Please remember that you serve the people of Flagstaff, not the tech billionaires. I would be uh it would be so nice if we could ignore the greater context, but that is not a luxury we can afford at this point.

I again thank you and wish you a pleasant holiday. Thank you, Richard Kak. and then Jane Marks. All right. Thank you, council. My name is Rich Kak. [clears throat] Um, one of the lessons I've learned uh through life is that power corrupts. It does not require a conspiracy to corrupt. any power needs checks on it but this technology is too powerful at least under the current uh with the current guidelines to have sufficient checks on it.

I feel this is only a short step away I think as other people have pointed out tonight that this is only a short step away from what China is now using to keep uh uh basically uh people imprisoned on their own streets in that country. This I don't believe is just a slippery slope. I think this is almost being pushed off a cliff. We need to slow down on this.

I think the people in this country are just now waking up to the stealthy approach that was used by Flock and getting these cameras in place. And I think when the people are misled, they really need to look at and evaluate why we were being misled. I think when people look at the real facts, they will come to the right decisions as evidenced by the communities around the country that are now waking up.

As mentioned by a previous speaker, people are shocked by the increasingly invasive net that is closing in around us. And I think that you can bet that as the public continues to put um continues to learn about this, they're going to put the brakes on this as a bad idea. With this level of tracking, it is intimidating with a potential for serious abuse. And I think it's a big stretch to call it just a safety program. I've been photographed for attending protests.

I've felt intimidated for political and social positions. And there are countless examples where our higher powers have grossly misled us and will abuse their power for for political ends which again is an issue that has been uh mentioned here. So for this and many other reasons uh I urge the council to oppose this at the very least uh slow down give it a lot of discussion and uh let the public make the decision on this. Thank you very much. Thank you Jane Marks and then Gary Pearlmutter. Hello.

Um, my name is Jane Marks and I'm a Flagstaff citizen. I've raised my children here and I first want to say that I appreciate the comments from the gentlemen from the prosecutor's office and their commitment to victim safety and I think we're all for that. Nevertheless, I would like to see the council put the brakes on the camera system. And the reason why is because both across the country and voices in this room, there's a lot of people for various reasons that are afraid.

And that I think that it's in our interests to slow down and figure out our values around these issues because they're complex and that we're not there yet. And that luckily we're not alone either because there's many cities similar to Flagstaff in many ways across the country that are also learning about this and figuring out the legal issues and the long-term privacy issues. So thank you. Thank you Gary Perutter. Good evening. My name is Gary Pearlmutter.

Um I've been a longtime resident here and uh a longtime attorney in in our community. Um uh first I want to let you all know I'm very concerned about the flock system and FPD's use of it. While I certainly have tremendous amount of respect for Flagstaff Police Department and uh their ability to engage in the community, I this is one issue where I I believe we have to draw a line very strongly. Um and we should not be collecting and storing data on people's movements.

That's what we're doing here. Systematic collection is a form of surveillance. It's very different from taking a single shot or looking at one camera and seeing what somebody has done. I know the Flagstaff police policy states that Flock is only an ALP PR and automated license plate uh reader system, but the Flock system also collects photos of occupants and the license plates identify the owner who can be compared with driver license photos.

Additionally, Flock is able to basically track individuals. It accumulates massive amounts of data on innocent persons daily activities. Do you want a camera system permitted by the government be tracking you dayto day on your activities? That's what this system's capable of doing. The tracking is a form of surveillance. Flock is also uses AI technology. It's been well reported in the news.

And if you take a look at it, the contract it there's language in there cloaked that says they can use the data for such uses and they can use it and compare it with other people's activities. Um, do you want a camera system permitted by the government to be tracking you in that way? Um, secondly, it seems to me we should not be taking the data and running it through AI.

these AI logarithms to potentially swing the government's eye uh toward sus toward people in terms of their patterns, their behavior patterns. That's what they're able to do with this AI technology. And it, you know, to what extent are people going to get swept up who are participating in just innocent activities? AI logarithms are only as good as the people that put them in there.

We've had issues with with bias and we need to recognize that just as fundamentally as human beings we all do in our day-to-day activities. This system presents those kinds of dangers. Um also um I'm concerned about the data being retained.

Uh it does say in section the old the contract from temp the 4.4 4 which was the contract that's part of your the minutes here section 4.4 refers to aggregated data uses um so with that um I have strong issues and concerns and concern about other constitutional issues that this arises other people as well. Thank you. Thank you. We have some online commenters. We have three online commenters. The first commenter is Pan Patel. Pan, go ahead and unmute and offer your comments. Hi.

Um, good evening, Mayor Daget and members of the city council. I'm here to ask you to vote no on renewing the flock safety contract. I'm speaking not only as a resident, but as a machine learning engineer who has worked on recognition systems. I understand how these systems are built, how they improve over time, and what happens when the city's public space becomes a training ground for a vendor platform. That's why I do not want this infrastructure anywhere, including flying staff.

I want to acknowledge the speakers who've shared experiences working with victims of violent crime and the fear around kidnappings where time is critical. Those concerns are real and we can focus on prevention and rapid targeted response without building an always on database of innocent people's movements. If this council is going to normalize automated tracking in public space, we should have clear independently verifiable benefits that justify that trade-off.

And right now we're being asked to take that on faith. As stated before, it is not just about license plates. It is a system designed to create a searchable timestamped record of vehicle movements through our city. Even with a short retention window, it can reveal patterns about where people live, work, worship, seek medical care, or gather politically, most of whom have done nothing wrong. And it is not limited to plates. Flock advertises, quote, "Turn images into actionable evidence.

No plate required." Technically, that means it's extracting a signature from the whole image. Make, model, decals, racks, damage. So, vehicle can be found by appearance. And those images don't just include metal and paint. Depending on the angle, they can drivers, passengers, kids in back seats, and people nearby tied to a time and place. That's not reading plates. It's building a searchable record of people's lives. We also need to be clear about training use.

Flock's own privacy policy says it may use a fraction of images as training data to improve its machine learning systems. In plain language, even if the city deletes records, that does not necessarily undo how images of Flagstaff citizens and behaviors will be used to build build a surveillance product. And it is not just theoretical reporting describes flock using gig workers to review and label surveillance images for AI workflows.

This means unknown subcontractors potentially outside US jurisdiction with limited public auditability having human access to sensitive imagery. Even if Laxaf has restricted sharing today, this is still aworked platform. In Illinois, officials found an audit found US Customs and Border Protection access Illinois data and Flock acknowledged unclear permissions and protocols for federal users.

The ACLU has warned that flocks standard agreements can grant the company rights to disclose agency data for investigative purposes even when departments try to restrict access through settings. Finally, addressing an earlier comment, a phone or webcam is not a citywide 247 automated identification system with alerts and bulk search. That the risk is that the city is funding an always on system that centralizes and operational operationalizes surveillance at scale.

At the end of the day, the system creates powerful records about innocent people's lives and routines. Flag staff should not normalize that. Please vote no on renewing the flag safety contract. Thank you. Our next online commenter is Kevin McCoy. Kevin, you can go ahead and offer your comments. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. Uh, good evening everyone and thank you for having me on tonight. My name is Kevin McCoy.

I'm a born and raised Flagstaff local and concerned citizen regarding the flock contract. I'd like to first start off by thanking Mayor Daget for the uh comments that you made at the end of the last meeting on October 28th when you stated that if Flock has another data breach, misleads another client, gives another public apology, and promises another fix, you would be willing to cancel the contract immediately.

I do regret to inform you that since that meeting uh Flock has been caught uh with a data breach that led to stolen police loginins exposing exposing Flock surveillance cameras to hackers. This article was released by techcrunch.com on November 3rd. In addition to that, on wcbvb.com, another news article dropped in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, that flock was caught installing new cameras in that city after they had cancelled their contract.

Then in futurism.com's recent article since that meeting on December 7th, they found that flock uh through a data breach is using workers in the Philippines to train their AI model, giving them access to countless recordings, both photo and audio of people in communities with flock surveillance cameras.

And most alarmingly, the Associated Press, apnews.com, uh, made an announcement on, let's see here, if I can find the exact date, uh, November 20th, that the US Border Patrol has been using Flock cameras to track driving patterns, just paying attention to where people are going and using that information to then later institute Terry stops to find, convict, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants. So, you know, these are very concerning matters and mayor, I I appreciate your comments last meeting.

So, I I hope to hear a followup on that in light of all of this new information. In addition to that, uh I would like to address uh that I'm proud to see so many people from the Flagstaff community speaking on this topic. This is the largest turnout we've had since the Northern Arizona Healthcare Hospital incident, uh, where the majority of the city council voted in favor of something that the citizens of Flagstaff strongly opposed and later overturned through a referendum.

We do intend and I hope to work together with people in the community to get another referendum going to undo the flock contract if city council fails to do so this evening. I would like to thank uh council member Alen for standing by the community over the years and consistently voting with the people.

And lastly, I ask everyone if this count contract goes through tonight, please make sure to start submitting freedom of information request acts foyer foyer requests to the city of Flagstaff on this data so we can challenge [music] what we've been told about the uh nature of storing that data. Thank you very much. And the last public commenter is John Celely. John, you may go ahead and offer your comments. Hi. Can everybody hear me? Yes. Okay.

Thank you, Mayor Daget, Vice Mayor, and members of the council for the opportunity to speak. My name is John Cely. I have lived in Flagstaff for nine years and currently work as a community health worker with Health and Human Services, helping individuals exit exiting incarceration successfully reenter our community. But tonight, I am speaking strictly as a private citizen.

At the end of the last meeting, Mayor Daget said, paraphrasing, "If there are any new news about questionable behavior involving flock from this point forward, I will change my vote from in favor to against." Since that commitment, multiple credible reports and legal developments have raised serious concerns that clearly meet that standard.

Investigative reporting has shown that Flock technology is not solely automated AI, but relies on overseas human workers to review and label surveillance data, contradicting public representations of the system. Civil liberties organizations have documented how license plate reader networks like flocks enable broad vehicle tracking and extensive data sharing across agencies.

In Washington state, as we've heard tonight, courts have ruled that data captured by Flock cameras can constitute public records, meeting sensitive location data may ultimately be subject to disclosure beyond the city and the police's control. Additionally, false alerts from similar systems in Austin and Milwaukee led to wrongful stops and temporary detentions, demonstrating that database errors or misreads can have real human consequences.

Taken together, the public records exposure, documented misuse risks, false arrests, lack of transparency, inev inevitable mission creep as systems expand beyond their original scope. These issues cannot be resolved with minor policy tweaks. Continuing this contract places community members at risk and undermines public trust. The responsible action is to cancel the flock contract outright and invest in solutions that genuinely improve safety without expanding mass surveillance. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any additional comment? No mayor. All right, we have a comment from council member house. Thank you, mayor. First, I [clears throat] want to thank everyone who's come out to speak with us tonight. Um, this has not been an easy conversation at all from the first conversation we had on this till tonight and from all of the emails that have come in over the past several weeks and days and months. Um, it is clearly a topic of great importance to our community.

Um, I also want to just take a moment to thank and appreciate the work of the Flagstaff Police Department. um your willingness, chief, and and deputy chiefs, um to listen to the community to do all that we can to make this a program that we can um work with and meet the values of our community has not gone unnoticed and is not unappreciated. Um and I wanted to start my comments tonight by acknowledging and appreciating that.

Um, this has been a very difficult um, consideration for me because I see both sides of this. Um, and neither side is is a black and white um, uh, matter for me.

Um, in terms of my own research on this topic, I've had so many conversations not only with members of our community, with um our police department, but also with um the National Academy of Public Administration, the policing project at New uh uh NYU School of Law, the ACLU of Arizona, and the National Organization um and other groups that have talked about um the use of this type of technology.

Um, and ultimately what I've come away with is that this is a program that has great potential for many of the needs of our community. Um, my concern, however, is that as someone said earlier, um, we are racing to te to catch up with where technology is. um when we don't have policies in place, we don't have state legislation in place, we don't have answers to so many of the important questions that create that sense of pause in so many of us for what this means.

Um I wanted to and a couple of the community members kind of preempted uh this for me, but um in my work outside of council, I also uh work with an organization that's based out of Massachusetts. And when I told uh some of my co-workers that we were having this conversation tonight, um one of them shared with me the statement from the city of Cambridge that was issued in conjunction with the police department, uh their law department, IT department, and their city manager's office.

Um this was just released about seven days ago on December 10th. And uh it's their statement on the flock safety ALPR contract termination. and they state that they have had many meetings internally and with Flock safety to discuss city council and community concerns raised with the previously approved deployment of Flock's automatic license plate readers as well as data privacy and security and the importance of ensuring Cambridge remains a welcoming and safe city for all of our residents.

At a point in time when the collaboration between local governments and federal law enforcement have been severely strained, the city recognizes and appreciates the significance of these concerns. In late October 2025, 16 flock ALPRs that were deployed in the community were deactivated and removed by the city. However, concerns about flock were substantiated when they notified the city that two cameras were installed by their technicians in late November without the city's awareness.

Following an outstanding work order that should have been cancelled when the city originally deactivated the cameras and account due to this material breach of our trust and the agreement, the city is terminating its contract with block safety. The two cameras have also been removed. Moving ahead, the city plans to conduct a thorough evaluation of ALPRs in Cambridge and looks forward to re-engaging with the city council and broader community about this technology.

My number one takeaway from that um experience and the conversations that we've had in our community, the conversations that are happening nationally is that while this is a technology that I think has major implications for our ability to care for the victims of crime, it is a system that we need to thoroughly vet within our community. Um, I want to see our um our task force that we put together able to work on that and vet this before we actually sign a contract.

I am not in favor of us moving forward with the uh cooperative contract that we're under. I would uh instead recommend and suggest that we cancel that uh cooperative contract and instead engage our task force to be able to evaluate not only Flock but other providers of this technology.

see how we can ensure that it is aligned with our values as a community and ensure that we are not stepping into a lion's den of potential problems down the line as this moves forward with state legislation, federal legislation, and other concerns that are facing our communities. I want to state um uncatategorically that I support our police department. I support the work that they're doing. I understand the challenge that this presents to them.

um in terms of meeting the needs wh while they're underst staffed, while they're underresourced in so many different ways. And I believe that we can come up with a policy and practices that both support their work while also supporting their concerns that they have already shared for our community, their commitment to serving our community and doing that well and in ways that um move us forward and make us the safest community in Arizona.

That's a statement that was made in the report summary for this and I believe it to be the true intention of our police department and I want to support them in that. I just believe that at this time and where we are currently with these sorts of systems, we need to allow policies and practices and excuse me, documented rules um and understandings of this technology to catch up before we march across um the line to full adoption of this sort of technology.

Um, I also want to state that um we heard a lot from um representatives from the Cookanino County Attorney's Office, from from other uh law enforcement agencies that speak about the care for our victims and that should not be uh undervalued in our considerations. they are the top priority of these sorts of systems and this sort of technology.

However, what I don't want to see us do as well um in in all of our considerations is forget the potential to create new victims um by not doing this right. So, I want to see us do this right. I want to support our police department and our community in making sure that we carry this forward in the best ways.

And I truly believe um that the best way for us to do that is to press pause on this contract uh allow our task force to do their work and come back with a recommendation that our community can truly embrace um on how we can adopt this sort of technology moving forward. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, uh Council Member Alen. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Council Member House, for articulating so well um your concerns. Uh thank you, Chief, uh and Deputy Chiefs.

Um I I want to thank leadership as well and our our brand new city manager who has inherited this conversation um gracefully and with great respect. Um, I want to thank the community who's come out several times for this uh and shown us the uh the way you're thinking about this both online and in with your presence and with your impassioned words. Um, I'll get right to it here. I think this has been a long uh uh fruitful conversation.

It's been thoroughly explored by all of us uh both here on at council meetings and elsewhere. Um, my final vote on the flock contract renewal is going to be the same as my last two recommendations. I don't think we should move forward with our flock partnership at this time. [clears throat] My concern has never been with the police department or an inability to recognize the power of these tools to help solve crimes. This has never been an easy issue to grapple with for me. I trust our city.

I trust our PD and our IT department. I trust the process that has resulted in an unprecedented narrowing of the scope of what the city intends to do in terms of taking advantage of some but not all of the functionalities that Flock offers. If it were up to us, I would deem our agreed upon safeguards and restrictions as sufficient to maintain the safety and peace of mind and the trust of our community. Unfortunately, my one and only overarching concern about flock remains.

Ultimately, we have to recognize that when push comes to shove, it's not going to be up to us. For me, too many legal questions remain about what the city will have to do with our available data if a larger entity or even if the private company itself comes demanding it. Could the federal government demand access to our flack data within 14 days through a subpoena or court order? Yes.

And could we deny them their request if we're subpoenaed to hand o hand hand that stuff over through a judicial or government order? No, we can't. Could the federal government resort to non-judicial or administrative tactics to bully us and manipulate us? Absolutely. political pressure, for example, or withholding funds or threats of other types.

I would have answered this question very differently a year ago, and I suppose I did, but our nation has already been through too much in 2025 for anyone to be naive enough to answer no to that question. Furthermore, while friendly agreements are well understood between our sharing partners, the city has no teeth here, no actual legal control over what partner entities that share our data do with it in terms of sharing it more widely themselves.

If we have to comply with the subpoena, what reassurances do we have that the sheriff's department or the county or NAU will hold fast? At the end of the day, we have to wait until there is a legal claim before some of this case law gets settled one way or another. At that point, it may be too late. There simply aren't enough reassurances. I strongly believe that if we're unable to act proactively about this now, we will be forced to respond reactively later.

If that's the case, rights will have already been violated, possibly worse, and it'll have been too late. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. First, I have a couple of questions. Uh, Chief, I've seen you write down a lot of notes. I've heard a lot of um incorrect information or misguided information.

And I just wanted to before I ask the questions, you probably have some bullet points you wanted just to um comment on to um clear the record on some of the assumptions of things that could happen with flock cameras. So I'll give you a few minutes to address those. Yeah, Council Member Matthews, thank you. Uh Mayor Dagot, I think also there are flock representatives. I don't want to speak for their their company on those levels that are here too.

if if they have um some comments related to the accuracy of what was said. I I also I think that's important. Um I'll I'll start with uh the concept um and I appreciate criminologists coming in from the university and individuals having a conversation about um the strategic approach to crime reduction and and suppression uh in communities. One thing I want to be very clear on um is there is no magic wand or one tool. Um yes it does involve us working in the area of social determinance of health.

It does work have us working in areas with nonprofits providing housing and behavioral health and addiction services. Yes, it does involve us collaborating with other entities um with within the community proactively to prevent crime. Um so when we say hey uh let's try to create one correlation in a monolithic metric that says um hey this tool is producing crime reduction. Um I think that would be in my 32 years of being involved in the strategic process that that would be disingenuous.

Um so I will never say um you'll never hear me say that because of this technology tool we see this reduction. There's just too many variables in crime crime in our community. I will say this, upon my arrival a little over a year ago here, um we did see a 50% increase in violent part one crimes in this community. Um we set forth uh and I think there's some similar data in the county attorney's office on that increase in 2024. I'm not speaking for 2023 or 2014.

Um but I I you know when we sat down with our crime plan um and set goals for ourselves um we sit here today with a 12% reduction in violent crime and a and a and a reduction of almost 4% in property. I'm not attributing that um solely to this technology, but it's one piece of the wheel liken it to a bicycle wheel. For that bicycle wheel to be true, every one of those spokes has to contribute to its truness.

And so, um, I've seen in those 300 plus cases, um, and firsthand, um, not theoretical or hypotheticals that come to fruition. So, I think that's a really important part of the conversation. Um, I also want to be clear. Um, in all the scans that I've seen over the years, whether it was in the other city or here, um, I have never seen or been able to identify or am I aware of any image where we were able to identify a person inside that vehicle.

Um, and I think we've showed you all imagery repeatedly and demoed the product with you. I think that's an important part of of the conversation. The other thing too as we talk about um I've heard um you know liking this to internment camps and comparing this to China um I want to be very clear um that is not the Flagstaff Police Department's approach.

Um we we are pride ourselves in being a thoughtful um reflection of our community on a whole host of levels and and and we do not take those approaches at all. In fact, we could have a conversation that the role of local law enforcement, if you look at history in this planet, the role of local law enforcement is that first line and protection of democracy on behalf of victims.

Um, my experience um in in communities, especially communities of color and immigrant communities, um is quite different than what I'm experiencing here currently. um whether it was in the west side of Phoenix or we hear recently in South Tucson, immigrant communities and communities that are being victimized at certain rates are asking for those police departments to leverage that. Um I think currently um there are um 4,000 uh cities using this.

There's the Motorola Vigilant product that has a thousand cities and then uh Axon who manages all our video is getting into that process. So that there's going to be continued expansion of this um moving forward. I have some other things, but I don't want to consume a bunch of time. Council member, well, I just I wanted to give you the the space to answer some of the um the the comments and the questions that our community had, but I I do have a few questions directly.

Um and Maryanne can say no, don't ask that here, but um there was a common theme about public records. Um and um there isn't yet a state statute clearly or a case that we can clearly refer to. But let's do a hypothetical and say tomorrow I put in a a foyer request and I want to see the data. What is the police department's response until such time that the laws actually address it directly or um we get other information?

Um at this time the police department's response would be we are not releasing data that has not been um extracted from flock during a criminal investigation and made part of a criminal case. Thank you. And what um I know that there has been a lot of stories. Every um agency has different contracts and different agreements and different expectations and different partnerships. we have already um turned off our national sharing and our state sharing.

Um so, but what if I I I've seen a lot of comments and concerns online and a lot of emails and comments tonight about yes, but we're worried about the current administration. What if an executive order comes through or ICE comes in and says, and I'm not sure why they would want to see our flock camera data because it's just a license plate and it doesn't tell us who's in the car or who owns the car, but what would our response be?

Um, if there were a request from a federal agency for our information, we would tell them, "No, we're not sharing that with you." And a lot of that's because um in my civics class um there are different um there are different um um levels of authority, right? We have our government branch, we have state and local authorities. And just because a government administration says something, they don't always legally have the ability to exercise that. Is that correct? That is correct.

and and most um time often when we are requested to work with federal agencies that is a voluntary basis and we have volunteered not to share. We've made that clear in our statements and a commitment to our community that we will not share information with ICE and the technology in my research that federal law enforcement and other um military enforcements their technology far exceeds our camera scanning technology. Is that correct?

We have not received any request from federal agencies to search our database um containing the flock images. Um and I would I [snorts] yes in terms of of the data we have is limited to the pictures of the back of the vehicle and the license plate. It has no other identifying information of who owns the vehicle or who is driving that vehicle.

So there's no connection to an individual and um chief and I don't remember uh the details but in just a handful of incidences um not forgetting the victims. It's easy to sit back. You know, we've done a really good job in our community of of keeping our belief that we're a bedroom community, but we are in the middle of a corridor between the 17 and the 40, and a lot of bad stuff comes through our streets that so many of us aren't aware of.

Uh, recently we were able to um rescue a kidnapped baby. Is that correct? Uh, Council Member Matthews, Mayor Daget Council. Um, yeah, we we have a an incident involving a kidnapped one-year-old from Southern California. I think that uh paints some of the complexity and the demands placed upon law enforcement in the modern era to be able to share our data as a result of mobility of criminals in their journeys of crime. Um, so yeah, that is one of many many examples.

I think also too um you know to to your to your other question related to you know if there was a and this kind of ties to council member Alen's approach um my ability um uh to to say no to the federal government and then they uh do an endound or run an audible and do get a court order or something to that effect. you know, Maryann can speak to you with depth related to what that probable cause that has to exist and then um the viability of a license plate in the back of a car.

If if a federal agency is looking for somebody or has the desire to seek that data um their use of a court order would be m it would be much more poignant to access MVD records, bank records, phone data. uh and and this is probably some of the least valuable information for them in a timely case knowing that our data is dropping off in 14 days. Thank you. So um that just will lead me to a few com comments. Um you know this is a hard conversation.

We've heard a lot from our community, a lot of um emails. Um there's 50 so people here. There's also a lot of people that sadly are afraid of um cyber bullying and retaliation if they own a business and everything. Um so they tell in privacy maybe a different story. Um I actually am in um am very invested in our missing and in and murdered indigenous people.

Um, I'm on the indigenous commission and um, you know, I hear those stories and those fears and I know that Navajo is is looking at solidifying their contract for that reason. I mean, we have a long history of unsolved cases and a lot of families that um, are left without answers and it's heartbreaking. And so I bring that up because um when I dug into my research for this, I found that um the the biggest theme was um there's a risk with any new technology. We've heard about it.

AI is coming at us at the speed of light. Um and it can be a benefit or it could be a real threat to our society. Um, and someone mentioned to me when we were talking about it, it's more about normalizing it one little bite at a time, right? And we see that in other sectors, whether it's education or or politics or whatever. It does creep up on us one step at a time. It's not this may not be the end all bad thing, but it's just like when we get used to this, what is the next thing?

Also, there's more trust, which was interesting to me. people are okay with MA having um 76 is it 76,000 52,000 privacy data points that they collect on us using social media and our phones um and and Flock has eight and it's car color make and model license plate uh direction um time of day and just a few other generic ones I I get you reading some of the stories that are out there. I get the concerns, but I also I told the story a couple of times.

I was in Houston last week and I was ordering something on Amazon and it says, "Do you want to send it to Houston?" Like, how do you know? You know, how do you know that I'm there? They already know. Uh NAU uses geo fencing. If you're in a mile radius, if that's the parameters they put in, they know that you're there and they'll send you a text message saying come to the NA game.

Um so the early tracking where we are and I make those comments because when we think about our privacy being um at risk when I look at that we've we have given up more privacy um in just our daily lives and we're okay with that. are doorbell ringers, the cameras. Um, you know, I'm knocking on doors right now and probably 70% of the homes have already these cameras in here that was mentioned already uh today about that security risk.

So, not to minimize the flock cameras because I think that we need transparency and we need strict oversight because it could get out of hand. There's a lot of technology that we do not use in our cameras that other towns and cities and municipalities must use. We don't here. Um so, um I'm conflicted and I'm I'm anxious to hear from the rest of the council, but um I'm really am struggling weighing on our biggest priority is public safety.

And if we haven't been a victim of crime, it's harder for us to um sympathize or or recognize that. But there's some bad stuff that happened to a lot of people out here. And I don't want to minimize um maybe their wishes that they hope if their child is abducted or someone's murdered that they want the fastest way to solve those crimes. So, I'll wait to hear from my colleagues, but um those are just some of the things I'm grappling with. Thank you, Council Member Garcia. Thank you, Madame Mayor.

Um I wanted to start off I initially I put a I wanted to put a comment, but I do have a question for the chief and the PD briefly. [snorts] Chief, um you have made some alterations to the program and made it a little bit uh or quite a bit more safer um to do some tests to see what works best for you. Um are you committed to keep those safeguards kind of in place as we move through this? Um or was that just a test?

Council member Garcia, Mayor, members of council, no, we're abundantly committed to being agile in the assessment of of how things are and constantly in a position of red team and blue teaming things as we move through this. I think it's a really important part of the process. Um whether you look at the 14 days, the national share shutdown, the state share shutdown, um and how we're handling a lot of those things. No, we are absolutely committed to moving forward with that.

And I think um the one of the most important things is we um if if we are to say we're an emotionally intelligent police department, that ability to self assess and self-correct um for example, if we were to hear later that um the related to public records that uh libraries and archives at the state level indicates that it is 30 days and we're doing 14 days.

Um, I'm willing to have a conversation that we're not going to violate that and then if we have to shut this down based on what these community values are, we we do that. Um, I think you've heard me be very clear related to any kind of violation of our agreements, whether it's with Flock um or with the sheriff's office or NAU.

Um um I spoke to the sheriff this afternoon and he plans on mirroring our approach on this and he is committed as is the NA chief um to the same conversations about not sharing these with the entities that this community doesn't want us to share with. Um so I think your to answer to that yes um I think this is we have to be in a constant state of learning and selfassessing and being able to be in continual improvement. Thank you chief excuse me. Thank you, Chief.

I think it's important for everyone to hear that. Um because in my opinion, uh what you did, how how you pivoted to get us to where we're at is was a bold move that not a lot of departments have taken yet. You were kind of setting uh you're kind of trailblazing the way for your department to see how this could work amenably with the community. You're taking the first steps of that and I appreciate that.

I also wanted to highlight that well due to my count looks like we got 32 against and three four which tracks with some of the pre-written comments that I have here. I wanted to start by expressing my appreciation for the public process itself. I wanted to thank all the members of the public on both sides for expressing their concerns and sharing their potential solutions to this dilemma.

In the past few months, I have encountered hundreds of specific individual conversations through emails, phone calls, personal and public meetings. From folks flagging me down in traffic and at the car wash to, of course, those meetings in the aisles of grocery stores and at the checkout counter. I have reached I have been reached by more citizens on this topic than any other since I've taken my seat at council one year ago. tomorrow.

Um, so far for every community member that has voiced their vote to keep flock system in place, I have heard at least 10 community members that shared a contrarian view against renewing the contract with the mar with the overarching mantra that has been reverberated from this from this constituency base in no uncertain terms. Get the flock out of Flagstaff.

[snorts] I want to thank you, Flagstaff, for going above and beyond to make certain that your city council remains a large part in this conversation and doing so by all means available. That's what I was voted into this seat to do, to listen to you, to advocate for your voice, and that's what I will be doing today.

I do agree with Chief Connelly that over the past year there has been no visible signs of abuse to the system by our Flagstaff Police Department and that it is a very useful and efficient tool of solving crimes. I too am an advocate for victim's rights and see the benefit of this tool when it is used correctly. I want our officers to know that I believe in their ability to utilize the flock system for good.

But I also understand that we are not the only ones using our database and that made and that and may trust and my trust stops just outside of our department.

Uh for the better part of 18 years, I have witnessed the Flagstaff Police Department consistently progressing in a more restorative justice and community policing model type of way of using less profiling while building more impactful relationships within our community to better understand each other instead of drawing hard lines in the sand just to make more arrests without addressing the issues or the root cause of the arrests. And for that, I applaud the Flagstaff Police Department.

Let's keep moving. good with a capital G policing forward in our beloved mountain town and thank you for your service. It has not gone unnoticed. I want my colleagues up here at the DAS to know that I have respect and admiration for each and every one of you. Regardless of how you vote on this topic, we are up here representing our community and inherently our viewpoints are going to be as diverse, as unique and as different as our communities that we serve.

This is what democracy looks like when it's done right. Right. Just know that if your vote contradicts mine tonight, um you are also speaking for a portion of how I feel about this topic because I am not 100% sold on either side of the issue as of yet.

Now, when it comes to the citizen task force, I am extremely disappointed that first off, this will not be an official commission forwarding recommendations to us, your city council, for approval like a traditional commi commission from what I understand. Secondly, the fact that we are here to renew a contract for flock prior to this unofficial task force even meeting brings me to this thought that there are reasons for subsidiary citizen groups.

There are reason why subsidiary citizen groups are formed with local governance and I think that putting the task force together after the fact is literally placing the cart before the horse. This is not what I anticipated when I agreed to the suggestion of the citizen advisory group at a prior meeting. And maybe that's my fault for not making myself more clearly or thinking that everybody just thought the way I did. This basically takes the public role on this issue out of the equation.

If staff are the ones leading the group, in my opinion, that's going to be a major no bueno. Now, when it comes to public record review and the fact that we are that we currently do not have lawful determination on if flock photos are subject to public record review process, this gives me angst and makes me want to halt this process until a legal determination exists on this extremely important part of this issue. with a lawsuit with lawsuits that can inevitably come from the oversight.

I am not willing to place the city of Flagstaff into financial risk over the litigation that this could cause. It simply doesn't make sense to rush into this. My suggestion is to iron out all of the issues and if the citizenry of Flagstaff is more amendable to proceeding with Flock's contract, then we move forward with it at that time independently of the city of Tempee, which we now piggyback our current contract with and take this on as our own.

In in terms of trust, Chief Connley, Deputy Chief Sheay, Deputy Chief Hernandez, and all of the Flagstaff Police Department, I absolutely trust and believe you to do the right thing when it comes to making our streets safe. But when our data is fre is more freely available to be used outside of that field of influence, even though protected as it is or has been, um, well, that where my trust begins to relinquish and erode.

and for the company Flock with um you all have said one thing and uh have done another time and time again on in the press. So my trust with you um just erodess period. [snorts] The part that gives me most pause in this moment is of great concern to me as a Chico person with roots in the greater Southwest that historically reached seven generations. In our current national [snorts] political climate, the lack of checks and balances worry me.

I now am forced to live in fear that simply due to the pigment of my skin, I may be subjected to being attacked by masked militants and may succumb to torture without cause or legal right. Even though my family has lived in this area since before this place was called America.

and that at the highest level of our federal government, the absolute pinnacle of the United States leadership, those folks have thrown the rules of law book out the window and are ruling in many cases by force and not only that not only has gone against our constitution, but moreover has quite simply eviscerated the Declaration of Independence. If you guys haven't read that lately, in 2025, please do. It's a trip.

This alone should give us reason not to give anyone a chance to use our local surveillance to their benefit ever. In closing, for my per from my for myself personally, this issue comes down to Flag Staff values that have been expressed tonight. The takeaway for me is that there is a greater appetite amongst our community for individual autonomy, inalienable rights, and personal freedom than there is for citywide surveillance.

And this large population and the majority swath of the public that I have heard from deserves to have representative a representative voice at the table. Tonight, I will be giving them that voice. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Um, so I guess first I want to acknowledge that you all have raised some serious and good faith questions about privacy, data use, surveillance, and those questions and concerns matter, and they should continue to shape how we govern technology.

Um, I I have pages of all the comments that were given tonight. I have another notebook of all of the people that stopped me in the grocery store who called me, who emailed me. And I can't explain how hard it is because I trust our police department. I didn't know how I was going to vote tonight. I'll be honest with all of you. Um, but it is my job to listen and to really think about what this will impact our community.

This council and this community have influenced the way we we are doing our technology and how we're going to move forward with it. I agree with a lot of your comments tonight. We need a broader view. We need to maintain trust. We need to protect our victims, including our missing and murdered indigenous neighbors. We need to remember that there are voices that are not in this room that we need to to look out for and watch. They are part of our community, too.

[clears throat] This is an ongoing process and it's not going to end. And I said that at the last meeting that to me this this does need to come back. Um but there are too many questions and um I've done a lot of research and I still have a lot of questions and our our chief has done a great job on trying to answer all of it, but I still don't feel like I have all of the answers. I wish that we could pause this for six months and I know that that probably is not an option.

I'm glad we have the task force. I want to rely on them heavily and I do I do think that they should be coming to council and talking to us about um how we can move forward. But I don't believe that right now we have all of the answers to move forward with the flock contract. Um, and again, thank you, chief. Thank you, staff. Thank you to everyone who put their time in, who has communicated with council, asked the hard questions.

This has been by far the most difficult decision I've made in my five years of being on council, and I do not take it lightly. But I think, again, I do want the task force to stay. I think that there is an overarching privacy policy for our city that needs to happen and I think there is a path forward. I'm not sure what that looks like, but at this point there are just too many questions and too many unknowns. So, thank you again, Council Member Spence. Thank you, Mayor.

And I want to thank my fellow council members for this enlightened discussion. and I want to thank the police department for the modifications that you've made in response to the public concerns. However, I believe that we need to wait until the freedom and information uh requests for this um license plate data is resolved in Arizona.

Um before we move forward, I am very concerned about the federal preeemption of accessing our our data even though we don't want to share with ICE or Border Patrol, Homeland Security. Um, we've seen instances where the the current federal administration is backed by the judicial system that I think puts our data at risk. And I believe our technology privacy task force needs time to uh assess this technology.

and I look forward to their coming to us in six months or a year with a recommendation on automated license plate reading. So, at this point, and I I too have been uh undecided uh on this issue, I've appreciated everyone's comments tonight, and uh I will be a no vote on renewing the contract at this time. Thank you, Council Member. Oh, Council Member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor. Um, where is There you are, CJ. Um, it didn't dawn on me when we were talking about a task force.

Um, and I was just um in my head thinking it was a committee. Um, and it does have different responsibilities and stuff. And I do think again for all the reasons why we have community committees that maybe this should uh morph into a committee where they can u make recommendations unless that is something in their capabilities um as a task force. But um it saddens me because I I just hear a lot of information that I know is not correct.

But the fact of the matter is that's what our community um believes. And so it, you know, to me there, like the vice mayor said, there's a lot of um mistrust and misinformation and um too many questions still. And it is scary. New technology is scary. and and we talked about the body cameras um when it first came out and how the community um you know was very suspicious of that and fearful of what that would mean.

Um I don't have the same fears of uh as Flock and I do worry about the 78,000 um people in our community, not just the 50, but not all of them spoke up and um we do have to weigh that. Um and you know, I hear the the concerns and the hesitations from uh my colleagues. Um I don't want this to go away. But it doesn't sound like it's going to move forward tonight. Um I know that we use cooperative contracts because they're a lot less expensive than if we go directly.

Um I'm sure a fraction of the cost and that would be a great way to enter into this technology without having to write a big check. Um but maybe the community would feel much better in us just having a direct um um contract.

So, um, as much as I support moving forward, I will, um, you know, I I've heard the community and, um, I would like to hear some more answers and, um, address some of the concerns and correct some of the misguided information and come back when we have more community support. Is there I didn't really ask you a question. I was just perfect. I was just giving you food for thought about the task force versus because I don't want us to stop.

Not um but I think that our community would like to hear from people other than us sitting up here that have talked around a table and can have discussions and ask those questions that they have and had time to really listen and understand what is real and what's not real. And they can come back and that just will increase our level of comfort and trust in the system. Would you like me to provide any additional context around the task force and the intent uh associated with it? Sure.

Um so from the perspective of um I I I heard some uh comments in relation to the not coming to council uh from the task force perspective. So the purpose of this is really focused around the policy creation um aspect and so those policies would come to council um as kind of a representation of the community into what is our privacy core values listed out on paper on this is what we believe uh privacy looks like in relation to the different technologies.

So after having you know a great internal discussion in in rel and I when I say internal I mean from the community's uh task force perspective not from staff perspective um and and really trying to get those out on paper and then that would be the the document that would come to the city council effectively for approval saying this is what the community has said is their core values in relation to privacy in relation to technologies and again not just uh license plate readers but holistically.

So we would have an overarching privacy policy that just effectively states um that we are trying to capture our core values. We're you know trying to uh maintain uh trust with the community and then these sub policies if you will uh in relation to a specific technology would be underneath that and council would see that um and provide opportunity for comment from the task force.

Um the reason we approached it from kind of more of a task force perspective as opposed to a commission perspective is technologies kind of come and then there's a lot of work and then they you know it might just kind of settle down for a while uh from that perspective. And once we have that that overarching document and that um that we use against the technology to say can this technology comply with those core values um of the community or not.

And that kind of goes into a lot of that process from a procurement process of can they meet the standards that our community has set in relation to that technology. Um, but I I completely hear the the cart before the horse uh aspect to all of this and and um I apologize that we were not faster in in coming to uh to uh providing this uh for council, but we will do our best going forward. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I'll try to be brief, especially after that long diet tribe I had earlier. This is not the way I expected this to go. I'm looking I'm and I'm speaking directly to the people who wanted it to go this way. Seriously. Um, Council Member uh I'm forgetting your name and I know you very well. Matthews. I'm a little I'm a little frazzled right now. Council member Matthews is absolutely right.

I heard so much misinformation coming up here almost just like spewing um stuff that you that that I have seen on YouTube that may may or may not be true and news articles that are written from like news article.com or like you know speculative sources and stuff like I want the community to be to first of all espouse this process moving forward. If you're just gonna fist pump on your way out of here tonight and say, "Yeah, we won." Um, then that's fine. You have the right to do that.

But if you really want to make a difference in this town, show up throughout the process and make a difference. But you have to open your mind.

You have to open your ears and tr and not just trust without cause but start investigating the facts because some of the things that that you're against with the police department are not factual that I heard from from the dis um and I and I expect you to put in as much work as we have not necessarily but if you're really true to making this thing work for the community or not work for the community show up and open your mind Um, I hope that wasn't too harsh. Council member Alen.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I realized um right after I finished my earlier comments that among all the people that I had thanked uh at the start of my comments, I had neglected to mention legal. Um, I I just want to throw you guys in the mix and thank you deeply and acknowledge all the work you've put into this and the countless hours you've spent preparing uh uh things for us to consider and answering questions that have come across your desks.

um you're you're in no part a very very big player in all of this and you have always treated us with respect and indifference and I just want to really appreciate that uh acknowledge that publicly. Council member House. Thank you, Mayor. Um I just wanted to acknowledge something that that CJ said. um you don't have to come back up.

But um towards the end of your comments, CJ, you you apologized for the the task force not coming forward sooner, and I just wanted to acknowledge that and say I don't think you owe us an apology on that. Um it it was an idea that came forward um in the timing that it that it did and there was really not a way for it to have um been formed any sooner than it was. Um, if anything, I want to um, if not apologize, which I I think I do, uh, want to apologize to our our team.

I know how much work has gone into this from uh the IT department, from the police department, from our legal team uh in trying to answer all the questions that were coming forward. Make this work. Um do the right thing by our community in in every single way that you could. Um, and because of how complicated and complex and just challenging this conversation was, um, I'm sorry that we couldn't have more certainty on on all of these things before it got to this point.

I know it has to be extremely disappointing and frustrating um, that this is is where we're at. Um, I think it's a lesson learned in in how we bring these things forward um with and for our community. Um, but I think that is not something that your team should have to apologize for. Um, it's something that that we bear as as the elected council members for this community um that are are moving these conversations forward.

And so I just want to acknowledge again the hard work that's gone into this by all the the teams that have been part of this um within our community. Um I I believe on um on the full agenda it shows that procurement is also part of uh the conversation. Um and um so just acknowledging a lot of work has gone into this. Um, our team has been considering this very thoughtfully and and wholeheartedly has dedicated a lot of time to answering our questions as they came forward.

And I don't think that we should overlook that as we're having this conversation tonight either. Um, especially with with how it seems like this vote is probably going to go. Um, I just want it to be known that even though this might be the direction that we're going in, it does not mean that our team did not do the utmost in trying to do the best for our community. And I just wanted to acknowledge that. So, thank you again. Council member Garcia, did you have something else you wanted to say?

Oh, no. But since you asked, [laughter] I'm just kidding. I just I just uh would request that we take a vote by roll call tonight. Okay. Um I actually have a few comments. So I've appreciated the community members who have taken the time to speak with me about their thoughts on Flagstaff's use of flock cameras as well as those who reached out to us via email and spoken at council meetings.

I've heard a range of perspectives from supportive of the technology as a law enforcement tool to adamantly opposed. Bearing the weight of our decisions is what we agreed to when we stepped up to run for office. Each of us knew that making decisions means that we'll disappoint or even anger those who wanted us to make a different choice.

Um, not only in this instance, but in all instances, I'd like for people to leave council meetings and know that they've been heard, even if a vote taken runs counter to what one or more residents are advocating. I've certainly sat in those seats on uh many, many occasions and felt relief, happiness, and disappointment by an action of the city council. I've been proud of council members and also wondered how they could have come to such a wrongheaded conclusion.

So whether you leave here happy, disappointed, angry, or puzzled, I'd ask that you also consider whether you feel that council gave this topic proper consideration and debate. And I believe up to this point we have. I look forward to the work of the data security task force and look forward to a presentation soon. Um, I couldn't express my thanks any better than has already been expressed to you tonight.

I appreciate the legal and um, IT information that's been shared with council and and some of which can't be shared um, publicly. And I um ask that staff continue to explore those topics. Chief Connelly, deputy chiefs, and women and men of the Flagstaff Police Department, you have my deep respect. While I believe that these cameras are a useful law enforcement tool and that victims of crime deserve every tool possible, I think we need to cancel the contract at this time.

I'm not saying no to the technology forever. However, a decision must be made tonight and it's clear that we need more debate and answers and I look forward to more discussions out in the community where we can have a true back and forth. I mean, this this kind of format is um at times clunky, right? You have three minutes. Um there's a bunch of people. The meeting's gone on, you know, so long. Um and I look forward to having true true meaningful conversations with many of you out in the public.

So, thank you, city staff, city council, Flagstaff residents. Um, community input has helped shape better policies regarding this technology and will help to shape better policies regarding all technology. Again, I think Flagstaff residents who have shared their perspectives and they have been varied. Um, I know that you take your role as a member of this community seriously, as do I. So um we can either make a motion or we can make no motion and it dies without a vote.

I'd like to move that we cancel the contract. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Um, we're going to take a 10-minute break so that those who don't want to stay for the rest of the meeting can exit. And then when we start back up, if anyone who's still in the lobby would try to be quiet so we can finish our meeting All right. So, moving right along down.

Oh, first I want to say that we are going to postpone the energy code update uh options to the January 6th meeting. Um just because we all need to be fresh and um and uh and we will be then we'll be fresh. So item E, consideration and adoption of resolution number 2025-66. Good evening, mayor and council. Stacy Saltzburg, communication and civic engagement director. Um so before you tonight is your annual um commemorative flag designations.

Um, so the resolution would set the flags that uh the city would be flying on the temporary flag pole uh in the 2026 calendar year. Um, I did receive two requests this year for additions to our schedule. Um, Council Member Alen had requested a Route 66 Centennial flag to be flown in June of 2026 and also an America 250 flag to be flown in July of 2026. Um, beyond that, I didn't get any other requests for either changes or um, replacements.

And um what is included here is the flags that were approved for 2025. Um and if there is any modification to those, we can certainly do that. Council, what do you think? Council member House. Thank you, Mayor. So I am uh supportive of the well I guess my my question for those two additional flags would be um just ensuring that are they looking is he looking for a a split month with the flying of those or how would that work?

He didn't specify, but my recommendation would be uh primarily for the month of June that we would split the month. Um just given our um you know historic um we have flown the LGBTQIA plus month flag since the inception of of this um policy. And so I think just to honor that perhaps split the month for that um June Route 66 Centennial flag. Um in in terms of the tree city, this is another one that's been around for quite a while.

I think I would I don't think I have a a recommendation or a position on that and I would look to council to make that determination. Um either to split the month, replace it, or otherwise. Okay. I think my leaning would be um the the thing that I'm getting a little concerned with is as we start adding in and starting to split those months um how that could encourage it down the line. So I would just want us to be mindful of that. But especially since next it's just celebrations for next year.

I don't think it's a a permanent thing. So, I'm in favor of those. I am going to ask and I'm glad the council member Alen got back when he did. Um, because I would like to ask about the Star Wars Day flag. We did it. [laughter] We acknowledged it. Are we looking to keep it or are we okay with honoring the fact that we celebrated that and and we can go back to I don't think that needs to be a yearly thing. That certainly wasn't my intention. Okay.

So, I would be in favor of adopting those additions for 2026 and uh removing the Star Wars day. Council member House, could I ask for a clarification on the two additions? Do you want to split the months of June and July? Oh, thank you for clarifying that.

So, Council Member Alen, uh, we were discussing the the two that you were recommending adding and weren't sure if you were looking for those to be like split months in, uh, the recognition of the centennial or just for, um, and and Route 66 or just for a day. Um, for LGBTQIA+ month, I feel like I would be more in favor of like a a day interruption rather than splitting that month for the Tree City USA and the uh National America 250. Yeah, thank you.

[laughter] Um, I would be more supportive of of splitting that month for July if that was aligned with your vision for adding those two. Yeah, I'm amendable. Vice Mayor and then council member Matthew. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to comment on the Star Wars day. I am in favor of removing that. Thank you for bringing that forward last year. That was fun. Um, but I did I wanted to do a flag for employee recognition.

I I got that thought from I'll admit someone else, but I thought, "Oh, that's good." But then I was reminded that our flags are there's something in there that says they're not just meant to be flown for a day. And so I just wanted to state that I opted to not bring the employee recognition day forward because of that. We do try to avoid the single day flying.

It's a lot of um it's a lot of work to pull down our flag, put the new one up, come back the next day, pull it down, put another one up for just that singular day. Um so we do try to stay away from that. As you know, with the Star Wars day, there's, you know, some exceptions made, but we we do try to stay away from that single day. Thank you. And I just wanted to state that as to my main reason of wanting to take that off. Council member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor.

Um, in general, as last year, I don't 100% support these flags because it just gets muddy. But I like um Austin's two recommendations. Um, and especially, you know, next year's going to be a big uh celebration for our country. Um, and Route 66. So, I'd also like to put in for October of next year will be um our recognition as a dark sky city, our 25th anniversary. So, I would like to suggest a um dark sky flag for October. And I don't know what's on there right now.

Right now, we have um part of the hispar Hispanic Heritage Month as well as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. See, this is another reason why I don't like any of these flags because it just there's so many important things that we want to fly. Um, I don't know. What does the council think? I love your idea. Well, we could because Hispanic Heritage Month um bridges two months, we could again Yeah.

And then October, we could split dark skies with National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I'm good with that. We put the dark skies at the end of the month since I think the the end of the month like October 24th something. Yeah. So we can move National Domestic Violence Awareness Month up to October 1st through 15th and then the dark skies from October 16th through the 31st. Council member Garcia. I think that's a wonderful idea, Madame Mayor. Thank you. I saw nods. Are we okay?

Stacy, do you feel like you got direction? I do have the direction. You do have a resolution um that'll need to be passed. Please. Mayor, I move to read resolution number 2025-66 by title only as amended. Do we need to state Stacy? You can certainly just say um with the inclusions discussed during the meeting. With the inclusions discussed during the meeting. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Um. Oh, wait. I do need to read. Yes.

A resolution of the Flagstaff City Council pursuant to the city council policy on the display of flags designating all commemorative flags that will be displayed throughout the year 2026 on the temporary pole in front of city hall. Mayor, I move to adopt resolution number 2025-66. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I I. Any opposed? All right. We are moving down to discussion items. Update on municipal customer assistance program. Good evening, Mayor Council.

I'm Jessica KDson, customer service director, here tonight with sharing good news, a lighter item for you on an update on our municipal customer assistance program. This program was developed in response to council direction to assist with affordability following the rate increases that were implemented during the water rate study. staff and water services, customer service, and legal, reviewed other municipalities and utility programs to evaluate a variety of approaches.

We evaluated what will be workable with our existing staff and our billing system. Tonight, we're proud to be presenting you with this pilot program. The program has a dual mission. First, to provide financial assistance to qualifying customers, and second, to create a mechanism for community donations. The program offers a $10 monthly bill credit for one year with an annual reertification. And we designed the qualification process to be simple and workable within our existing billing system.

The program is currently only available to residential customers. So our eligibility and qualifying programs customers qualify by providing documentation of their current enrollment in an existing government assistance program. So some of the accepted accepted programs include SNAP, LIE HEAP, Medicaid access and they provide documentation to us through their application process. Additional programs at or below 130% of the federal poverty level may also qualify.

So the list is not meant to be exhaustive. For documentation requirements, the [clears throat] customer's name must appear on both the municipal account and the program documentation. So landlords holding the municipal account would not qualify. Once approved, the benefits remain active for one year until red reertification. And if a customer moves within the city, their benefits would follow them to their new address.

For our community support, the community donation component allows anyone to contribute to support neighbors in need. So you don't need to have a municipal account with us in order to contribute. Donations can be made in two ways. So, one-time donations through the city website payment page, which I'll be showing you, or recurring donations added to their monthly municipal bills. For recurring donations, customers can contact customer service to enroll or to discontinue.

We felt that this was important because currently almost 70% of our customers are on paperless billing, which we're really proud of, and 60% use autopay. So this is a way to capture all of those customers to be able to contribute. The contributions are then pulled and allocated to those qualifying customers. So the slide before you is just how to navigate to the page. Um the direct website is flagstaff.az.gov/billpay and then the little square here is the payment assistance.

And then once you click there, that'll take you to our payment assistance and you can click on donate to help which will take you to the payment page and the apply for assistance is then there as well. Um this is then our online tool over here to the left. This is what our e billilling notification looks like. So this is what um it looks like when you receive a new bill um each month.

Um, so right here, um, it shows you, well, we like to notify you about going paperless, but then we also highlight if you need payment assistance, you can click there to app explore the assistance options. That'll take you right there to the assistance. Um, we also have other assistance options that people can look at. But then now we have the new box to inform people of the um, donation options. Uh, this is the assistance application. So, it's very straightforward.

Just asks the customer for their name, address, information, and then gives the examples of the documentation that we're looking for. Um, then they just upload that information and submit to us. Uh, and then this is an example of our uh this is what our payment page looks like. So it can set the donation amount, can sign up to do a recurring donation if they like and enter their city account number if they'd like to do the recurring donation with us.

We did already launch this, so this is already all live. Um, and as of today, we have seven customers that have already signed up. So that's exciting. Um, applications are processed within one business day. So it's really a quite simple process for our team to process these. Um, we've partnered already with creative services and so we have a design in the works that's coming soon.

Once we have that design ready, we'll have some bill inserts that we hope to have ready in February to go out in all of the bills. These will be promoting both the enrollment and the donation opportunities and we'll have Spanish and English materials ready. We want to remind everybody that this is a pilot program and we hope for it to be funded primarily through community donations. The city funding is not guaranteed. Currently, water services did commit $10,000 to the first year of the program.

Um we will be monitoring the donation revenue versus the program enrollment. Um so if we need to restrict to a first come first- serve basis um depending on the resources, we could have to discontinue the program based on the available resources. But we hope that everybody will donate to support the program. With that, I'll take any questions. Awesome, Jessica. Thank you. You are welcome. Council member House. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Jessica. I love this program or pilot program.

But, um, my question is, is this only available customer? So, like if you live in apartments and you wanted to contribute to this, but you're part of bulk billing, are you you can absolutely contribute. So, the page to contribute is for anybody. If you want to sign up to be recurring, then you'd have to be a a city customer. And one thing I didn't mention is we are working with our payment provider to do the like traditional round up option.

Um, so if you're doing like the one-time payment option, we hope to implement that sometime in the future. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Um, I I did want to do a special shout out to not only you, Jessica, but to um Shannon Anderson, Flat uh FCubed, sorry, it's been a long night. FCubed and our Northern Interfaith, Northern Arizona Interfaith, Am I saying that? Yeah. Council, thank you.

um they had come to me asking if we could create something like this and we've been working on it for a while now and I just really appreciate your your attention to this. You made it happen. I can't wait to see the card that we'll be putting in the bills. Um I think that'll be a useful tool and I just um appreciate all of your work on it. It's great. Thank you. Yes, thank you.

I I know we um shared a lot of anxiety going through the water rate study and having to raise um raise the rates and the impact on our um community members. And I'm grateful that that staff took that seriously and and made something of this. I'm wondering, have you projected out, you know, how many um how many people you would need to have donating, how much money, I mean, do you have any way of even guessing um how many people might want to take advantage of this?

It's definitely hard to say based on, you know, I researched how many folks qualify like for the programs that we would look at. And I mean, so many households qualify. It's, you know, 4,000 to 5,000 households qualify for those programs, which would be beyond what we, that would be a lot of donations. um you know the number of you know we look at the number that we perhaps send out postcards that become overdue. Um we send 6,000 annually. Um [snorts] we don't do nearly that many disconnects.

Um so it is hard [clears throat] it is hard to estimate. Um it's Yeah. [laughter] Oh gosh. No. Too late for that. No. Um, right now with the 10,000 we could support 88 it customers with just that amount for a year. For a year. Okay. With that base. And so maybe depending on um how many people need to utilize this, I suppose you can change it up to be even partial help. Well, it is partial help. Yes.

And and the some of the other utilities that I reached out to, they ended up with excess donations actually from their programs. That was what I heard from. I hope we have that too. Yes, I hope so. So, okay. And um Shannon, thank you for um naming the people. Sarah Jablin, Tamara Lawless, Erin Young, Jessica KDson, um creating communication relating to the programs that the city has to help community members manage their water and sewer bills. So, thank you staff. Any additional comments?

All right. All right. Thank you. We love it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, skipping over energy code update options which we will talk about in January. Next up, we have future agenda item requests. And we have a citizens petition titled provide representation for individuals with disabilities in Flagstaff. And what I normally do is um call the petitioner up to okay, call the petitioner up to um discuss why the petition was submitted and then take public comment.

And then this is where the um council members give the thumbs up or thumbs down for additional discussion at a future meeting. putting it on a future agenda. So, I will call up Russ Randall. Thank you, mayor, members of the city council. I am not Ashley the petitioner. Joseph Spence is the petitioner, but he could not be here today because he's having a medical procedure done. Um, so to start, I would like to read to you a letter from Joseph Spence, the author of the petition.

And this is what he writes. Dear members of the city council, I am sorry I was unable to be here today. As someone with a disability who now feels without representation and really without a voice and is the author of the petition, I encourage the resumption of the commission on inclusion and adaptive living meetings as soon as possible. So, I ask that you have the petition to restart the commission be moved to the the agenda of the next city council meeting.

Um, the work of the commission is very important. To continue with suspension is to completely ignore the needs of the disability community. This is just not right and the suspension needs to stop. Thank you, Joseph Spence. Now, as for me, I speak to you today only as a representative of Barrier Free Flagstaff. I am encouraging you to move the petition to the next city council meeting.

And at that meeting, I would encourage you to vote for the immediate resumption of the Commission on Inclusion and Adaptive Living. As you know, the commission has now been suspended by the former city manager and not by you, the city council, for over four months. Does the city charter allow for this? Moreover, what other commissions such as planning and zoning also be subject to suspension by the city manager?

Does the name of the commission and that it includes the word inclusion make it easier for it to be suspended? And just how long is this suspension supposed to last? The commission on inclusion and adaptive living does extremely important work. Let me read for you a letter that I wrote many years ago about that work. Dear fellow commissioners, I would like to thank you for electing me as the chair of the commission on inclusion and adapted living. I am deeply humbered by your support.

I want to assure you I will do my best to the very best to hear your concerns and have them addressed. We have such important work to do. Our commission serves the disability community of Flagstaff. We advise the city council on all issues affecting individuals with disabilities. Our goals are to improve inclusive access for all members of our community in the areas of housing buildings transportation employment, and education.

Simply put, we encourage greater opportunities for those with disabilities. For me, this is a deeply personal issue. I grew up with a brother who is disabled, and I and I was with that brother when he drowned in the Salt River. My own non-visible disability is that of PTSD, something I have struggled with my entire adult life.

I believe in a social justice model of disability which challenges us to create and ensure accessible and inclusive settings that allow people with disabilities to participate in all aspects of life. This is a challenge put before us as members of the commission on adaptive living. Our mountain community of Flagstaff has been built through compassion for one another. Now is the time for us to pursue a more accessible and inclusive community for all.

Working together as a commission, we can make this happen. And now, if you as members of the city council agree that the work of the commission on inclusion and adaptive living is important work, I would encourage you to do what you can to get this commission restarted as soon as possible. Thank you very much for listening today. Thank you, Russ Alita Field. Good evening, mayor and vice mayor and council, and thank you for hearing us out tonight.

Uh, my name is Elida File, and I'm also a member of Barrierfree Flag Staff. I'm also a part of the um the Northern Arizona Community of Practice Transition Team and serve as a youth liaison to the commission on inclusion and adaptive living. So tonight really I'm speaking to you under the umbrella of barrierfree flag staff and thank you to all of you for receiving the emails. Especially thank you to those of you who responded. Um I am hearing that disability issues are important to you.

So, I am hoping it doesn't take a lot of urging to push this onto the soonest possible agenda so that we can discuss resuming the Commission on Inclusion and Adaptive Living both in terms of meetings and activities. And I I did hear the concerns from one of you that there had been um some toxic behavior on that commission. Um, I would love to discuss that more in a less public setting so I don't throw anyone under the bus.

Um, that really is part of my concern here that an individual's behavior led to the disability community of Flagstaff at large losing a voice with the city. Um, to me, there needs to be a process to address those issues as opposed to marginalizing the group that's being represented. Um, and yeah, it's been a long flocking night, so I hope you enjoy your evening. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and I believe, um, city manager has something. Um, I do, mayor and council.

Um so as as you all know um the the commission was uh suspended in September of last year and that was um after some discussion with staff and um and also I believe some of you as well. um just going through this process and as a um a new city manager um one of my roles is to to better understand um staff's time and what staff is spending their time on. So we're taking the opportunity right now to um to to identify the the best staff liaison for this commission.

But we have determined that we will resume the commission uh in March of March 25th will be the next meeting and it will be with the current membership and then our plan is to bring in an outside facilitator to to start off um kind of on the right foot and resume this commission. Thank you. Uh Council Member House. Thank you, Mayor. I I think that pretty much just answered my question. Um my question was going to be in terms of this being brought as a citizen petition.

Um getting that clarification on just what that would do in terms of the timing because it's it's not as simple as taking a citizen position and just putting it on the next agenda. It goes into the queue if my understanding is correct of that process. And so if we had advanced this as the citizens petition, it actually may have extended the time before that conversation um beyond even what you're talking about with resuming the commission. Is that correct? That's correct, Council Member House.

And the other thing I would just like to say is that um you know, I know I'm committed to to meeting um with the disability community. I know the mayor, I believe we have a meeting coming up in January. So, until that commission resumes, I'm happy to meet with um members of that commission and and the the disability community. Thank you very much. Happy to hear that it's looking to resume and I'm hoping that that is satisfactory to the the folks that brought this petition forward.

Council member Alen, thank you, Mayor. Yeah, and thank you for bringing this to our attention. I appreciate the disability community's um concern over these things and I appreciate the confusion that kind of surrounds the um some of the the the factors that go into why that happened in the first place. I'm a huge advocate and peer of the disability community.

Uh, not a lot of people know this, but I have a younger brother with severe autism, and I spent time in college working with uh, physical therapy and occupational therapy. Um, it's near and dear to my heart, especially adaptive sports, and I want nothing more than to get this thing back up and running, uh, because I completely and utterly bought into the value and the importance of this commission for the city of Flagstaff.

It was mentioned that this should be done as soon as possible and the reality is that I think as soon as possible is is the the plan that the city manager just laid out. Um so stick with us, hold it hold on there for a little bit longer and uh we will all get through this. I'm putting faith in city manager's process of of mediation uh and hopefully that will will um address the issue.

Um the only other thing I wanted to say is that uh there was a comment that the previous city manager did this on his own and that uh it wasn't strictly okay to do that. Um that is a misunderstanding. Um I felt brought along on uh the the deliberations for that very much so. uh city manager always um consulted with his council on uh everything he did and this was no um exception.

So, I just wanted to clear the air on that and look forward to getting back to business, but I I'm a no vote for the for the uh petition. Council member Garcia. Uh thank you, Mayor. Um, not to uh restate anything that council member Asen or Council Member House has said, um, I'll try to be brief, but I agree with them. So, I'll be a no vote as well, even though I support the commission 100%. Um, I think that the path forward is the one that was displayed tonight by the city manager.

And, um, the main reason that I would be voting no for the citizens petition is a, we already have a solution to the meeting. It's going to be happening in March. And I think that's about as quick as we can get it done. And um B, the sensitivity that wraps around this, I don't think should be part of a public conversation. And inevitably, it would have to be.

And I am not willing to risk um whatever the implications may come for those that were uh maybe hurt or damaged through the um process that happened to make this committee go away publicly. that would that's just too much for me especially for a disability commission to be put through that um kind of public conversation. So I'm a no vote for the meeting. I'm 100% in support of meeting with all of the commission uh independently or as a group um as we wait for that March date to come.

And then I'm excited to see what will be happening next and the new ideas and the the rest that that took place should rejuvenate some thoughts and we should have a disability commission that hits the ground running, rolling. Um, and we should have some good conversations with that. Thank you, council. Any additional comments? Um, anyone who disagrees with with what's been expressed. Well, I look forward to getting the meetings um going again.

um look forward to our meeting in January and then um again in Feb uh March. All right. So we are moving down to open call to the public. Seeing noneformational items to from mayor council and staff and future agenda item requests. Let's start over on this side of the room. Um, Council Member Spence. Nothing this evening. Thank you, Council Member House. Thank you, Mayor. Just two quick things.

So, first, I just I noticed uh in the public comment cards that we had um during an earlier conversation. One of them was actually meant to have been attached to item um uh 8F regarding the letter of support to renew the long-term authorization of annual deposits to the historic preservation fund. Um it was asking if all of council could sign on individually to that letter um uh rather than just a collective signature.

And so I just wanted to make note of that request and um it was already approved so I don't know if we can change that but it was just that was something that was put forward in a comment if I may. Um so this this um letter that was signed off on was actually done a few weeks ago. Um this was a ratification of that letter being sent. Should members, individual members of council want to sign on um individually, we'd be happy to provide that information.

I don't know if additional letters can be submitted at this time, but we can look into that and send you that link to be able to do that, but mayor did sign on behalf of the entire council. Thank you very much. And I apologize for that oversight. No, no, no problem. Thank you very much.

Um the other item then that I wanted to bring forward was just the uh comments that we had earlier about um furthering council discussion for public support of renaming Agassi Peak to um Omaki and I would like to um ask that we bring that forward and just at least I don't know if it rises to the status of affair. I think it's more of just looking into what that process looks like and and bringing that back. Um, mayor, council, u, yeah, we can bring an update back to council on on that one.

I have that in my notes as well. Perfect. Thank you. That's all for me, mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to let everyone know that I appreciate all of the conversation tonight and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Thanks, Council Member Alen. Yeah, just a couple things. Um, if you weren't going to mention it, I certainly had it queued up to to to uh agendaize um the conversation about Omi, um, Home of the Clouds.

I I think we should get to that right away. I um it's definitely something that just sort of escaped our notice, I think, after after a while. Uh, which is very unfortunate and not okay. Um, I I would like to suggest that the name of the mountain is is twofold.

that I mean that we generally call it Omachi but I also think uh colloqually if if uh if that's hard to remember for people home of the clouds uh is absolutely a a satisfactory alternate name for me uh in English um so I would just keep that in the mix and I hope we can get to that very soon to be involved in it wanted to mention that um [clears throat] on a slightly related note The Cookanino Plateau Water Advisory Council voted last uh last week, was it last week or at most two weeks ago?

Um to write a letter in support of Bajabjoy National Monument and its and its preservation. Uh I have signed that letter as the chair of the committee and am very excited to be turning that in and just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention. Uh I did fail to remember to mention that during liaison reports this afternoon, but I was also eager to get on with the agenda earlier. Um you know, I just thought of this, but I I I I think it's a worthwhile discussion.

Um I think we need to have uh some allowances made for uh for credentialed press to be able to uh take some better photos um during council meetings. Uh, I imagine that our photographers are incredibly um frustrated with the angle at which they're forced to um resort to uh for their their coverage. I I don't know if them walking around behind us up here is a good idea, but uh at least getting on the ramp or being able to to come up on the steps uh makes a lot of sense to me.

Um, it also makes a lot of sense to me that that would be restricted to a credentialed press or or or managing that in some way where it's very clear that this isn't just uh you know anything that any public can do. I agree with the reason why we have these uh safeguards in place um to keep uh you know just to manage crowds and and and emotions. Um, so we wanted to think about that.

And Stacy als I also lastly uh just wanted to make sure it was uh introduced into the minutes that I'm the first council member to use the term 67 during a council meeting. [laughter] It's the word of the year. Council member Garcia. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, you learn something new every day. As far as context for 67 is concerned, I never thought I would ever get what it meant, but today when council member Alen said it to me, I totally got it in the moment.

I guess it's just one of those nuanced things. Well, we got the numbers back according to pros for the uh Christmas tree lighting we all attended. 18,000 people downtown. Maybe they said eight, but that's what they that's what they said. 18,000 during the the meeting we had, I think. Anyways, now now that now that you looked at me like that, I'm like, well, maybe we should double check.

But there was an increase be because because of because of the weather, I think there was an increase um uh which we saw this last weekend with the uh holiday light parade as well. There was people all the way up to the the end there. Um, and I was happy to walk in front of the public works truck, which I think mayor was actually driving or in the cab of that night, according to uh speculation. And uh yeah, and uh and that was really nice.

It was nice a nice event for the whole for the whole community. Um I also wanted to wish uh merry Christmas, happy Quanza, happy Hanukkah, happy holidays, and a merry new year to the citizens of Flagstaff. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be a city council member. This has been one crazy year, heck of a ride, but I've learned a lot about myself and about our community and how I can help out moving forward. Thank you.

Lastly, um Cleo Murdoch Park installation uh art installation. Um come join the city of Flagstaff for the unveiling of two new art installations. Russell by Beth Nybeck and the historic Dunar School plaque by Marie Jones. this Thursday, December 18th, at 11:00 a.m. Unfortunately, I will not be there, but again, there is speculation that the mayor might. So, and others as well. Uh, [laughter] that's all. Council member Matthews. Thank you, Mayor.

Um yesterday uh uh um council member house and vice mayor and mayor and myself attended the manora candle uh lighting. It was a beautiful celebration. I want to thank the uh Flagstaff PD for showing up and just giving us some um emotional support um in their presence given um some recent events. But it was very festive, fun, and always enjoyable. um time to uh celebrate with our Jewish community and I always enjoy going um and attending that.

Um also I was in the parade um with the Route 66 car club was in the tow truck. We had some technical difficulties but we got it rolling and we made it through the the parade. So that was fun. Um and then Monday we had um um our detox in healing center task force meeting. Ammon Barker and myself um have been really pushing hard on this and we have located a um very potential temporary building.

So, we talked about um pushing for an RFP and we talked about doing a uh study um simultaneously because everything at the speed of government takes too long, but to just uh do a study on really what is needed up here. We have still a lot of um barriers. We've just started. There was 27 stakeholders that were invited to this meeting. And I think um one thing that I can say for sure is everyone is engaged and supportive of identifying the need for a medically assisted uh detox facility.

And um funding is obviously going to be one of the big deals, but also one thing that we've we've learned is with Flagstaff's minimum wage. Um, a lot of people that work full-time in Flagstaff making minimum wage no longer qualify for Medicaid and so they are not eligible to go through any treatment programs. So, we're looking at that and trying to see what we can do um to offset that to help our neighbors that maybe are looking for uh a treatment uh program to help them get back on their feet.

But I'm excited about um our county attorney's uh tenacity in this and it's been going on since the 70s. We've talked about it and everybody just gives up and walks away, but they've never stopped saying how important it is. So, I'm hoping with the group that we have put together that we're actually going to make this um come come true this time. So, I'm excited about that and I look forward to the beginning of the year. All right.

So, um I think many of us got to take advantage of some time with our delegation from Navajoa um Sonora. I got to spend most of the day on Thursday with them. Took them around downtown, had lunch. Uh we did a tour of Lowel Observatory and some some cultural exchange and also some economic development exchange. I wasn't there on Friday for their work with our fire department, but the pictures look like um it was a really productive and fun time.

And let's see, Saturday was the NAACP holiday lunchon, which was a nice event that council member House and I went to the holiday parade of lights. If public works will let me drive a truck in the parade, I would love to drive a truck in the parade. Um, I was actually up on the balcony of um, the Weatherford doing some announcing. Maybe you heard my voice and you just thought I was driving the truck. Um, but again, if public works is listening, I would like to drive the truck.

Um, might as well throw the Zambon in there while you're at it. On Sunday, Council Member House and I also went to the re remembrance for Victims of Gun Violence. This is something that um Moms Demand Action, the volunteers and flag staff do every year. And this year was um a a really special um remembrance of um the victims of the Sandy Hook um tragedy. And it was a really moving um it was a really moving event and I was glad to be there with council member Nora lining. Got it.

All right, Marshall. Today, sorry. Today was the ribbon cutting at the new Marshall Elementary and um which was a lot of fun. All the kids were super excited to see the new school and have the ribbon cut and um it is really a beautiful, beautiful campus. And then we've been in meetings since 12:30. So I'm going to leave it at that and um city manager uh mayor and council just a couple updates.

We have a budget retreat on Friday uh starting at 8:30 at core services and it will be facilitated by Jeff Kennedy. Um just expect a good discussion. I think we we're supposed to be done by 3:15 on Friday. Yes. Um the other item is we uh we just put out a statement on the flock contract. Um, and you should have all received that, but we wanted to get um the message out pretty quickly that um and I and I can read it actually if that's appropriate.

Um, the Flagstaff City Council voted to cancel the city's current contract with Flock Safety for automated license plate recognition technology during the December 16th council meeting. The Flagstaff Police Department has deactivated the system immediately and will work with Flock on the removal of the cameras currently included in the city of Flagstaff's contract. So, that just went out um to our our media partners. So, I wanted to give you a heads up.

Um the other thing that we learned today is um Council Member House cries when she listens to children's choirs. So, um, but I hope everybody has a very nice holiday and, um, we'll see you all on Friday.