[laughter] >> Call to order the meeting on Monday, August 17th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. Please rise for the pledge. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Roll call, please, Jenny. >> Mayor Vogel? >> Here. >> Council member Milbauer? >> Here. >> Farness? >> Here. >> Hedwig? >> Here. >> Robinson? >> Here. >> Thank you, Jenny. On to approval of tonight's agenda. Do I have a motion? >> I'll make the motion, Mr. Mayor. >> Motion by Councilwoman Hedwig. Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Second by Councilwoman Farness. All those in fa- Oh, sorry. Roll call vote. Please, Jenny. >> Mayor Vogel? >> Aye. >> Council member Farness? >> Aye. >> Hedwig? >> Aye. >> Robinson? >> Aye. >> Milbauer? >> Aye. >> On to tonight's consent agenda, do I have a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? >> Make the motion, Mayor. >> Motion by Councilman Robinson, do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Councilman Udveig, any discussion or anybody want any items pulled? Hearing none and seeing none, on to uh roll call vote, please. >> Mayor Vogel? >> Hi. >> Council members Robinson? >> Hi. >> Udveig? >> Hi. >> Resvanis? >> Hi. >> Muehlbauer? >> Hi. >> On to meeting open to the public, just please come forward and when you're at your turn, just state your name and Good evening, Jackie. >> Good evening, Council members and Mayor. I am here today, my name is Jackie Godahl, I am the president of the Miss Saint Francis Ambassador Program. With me I have my secretary, uh McKenzie Bauer, I almost called her Godahl, um and then my husband Brent, who is also on the board of directors. We are here today to introduce you to four out of the six ambassadors who are representing you guys down uh throughout the year. Um we just recently had a bake sale at Night 2 Night um to fundraise to send the girls down to Northfield for an overnight to represent you guys down at the Northfield Jesse James Days parade, so I want to thank everybody who came and uh bought from the girls at the bake sale, it was greatly appreciated. Um at this time I'd like to have the girls introduce each of themselves and then um maybe get a picture with the city council real quick. >> Certainly. >> All right. Hello, I'm Josie Crandall, I'm one of your 2026-2027 Miss Saint Francis Ambassadors. Hello and good evening, I'm Samantha Brekke, one of your 2026-2027 Miss Saint Princess Ambassadors and Miss Congeniality. >> Hi. >> [laughter] >> Hi, I'm Lillian Becker and I'm one of your 2026, 2027 Little Miss Teen Princess Ambassadors. >> [laughter] >> Hi, my name is Amaya Carlson and I'm your 2026, 2027 Little Miss Teen Princess Ambassador. >> [laughter] >> I have a wide lens, so if you guys want to stay where you are as well if you can. Miles, I'm going to take a big shot. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Sorry we didn't get you in there, Joel. >> Well, I can superimpose >> Yeah, sorry Joel. >> [laughter] >> Thank you guys for all your support. We greatly appreciate everything you guys do for our program, so thank you. If you guys need us for anything else, reach out to me and we're here to serve you guys as well, so thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next, anybody want to come forward? >> I'm Anna Filson and I was here a month ago to talk to you about some concerns I had. And I've talked to Mr. Carpenter. First of all, thank you, Mr. Mayor, Chief, and council members. Um, I'm back. >> [laughter] >> Um, thank you for the due diligence to get the wagon with the speed monitor on 235th. Um, it seems it did slow it down for a little bit. But, um, also for the permanent sign that was put in, um, what, about a week or so ago. And, um, I did express my concerns still. Oh, and I thank you for the brush. The brush on the northwest side of Rum River Boulevard path to the northwest of 235th. The brush and the and the bushes and stuff were mowed down in the easement. So, if you're sitting in your vehicle, you can actually see what's in the curve. And, um, it makes it easier for pedestrians trying to cross across to actually see. People have remarked to me when I've been out walking my dog that, "Hey, you can actually see the traffic coming at you." And I went, "Yeah, thank the city for that." Um, but I did tell Mr. Carpenter that I did some a little bit of my own observations. I'm a teacher, so observations and assessments on the fact that other county roads coming into the city, their speed limits are either 60 that graduate down to 35 or 55 that graduate down um on the density of of housing to 35. And that would be 47 and County Road 7 and whatever the one that goes out past the grocery store. Sorry, I've only been here 6 months. I was raised here, but it's been a lot of traveling since then. So, um, and I did say kind of tongue in cheek to Mr. Carpenter, do the residents on the west side, are they at a higher tax base, or are they somewhat seen as more valuable than the children and residents on the east side? Because I'd like to know the reasoning why the speed limit is at 55, and it makes it like the kids crossing and the adults walking dogs and just going over to walk on the parkway in the county park. Um they have to play chicken with the traffic because 55 mph to get across that intersection is pretty severe. And I would like more work done. I don't know. And I did suggest that on 221st off from uh Emerald Lake Boulevard heading towards 65, there's a park in the middle of nowhere, and um posing traffic from either direction going east or west for about 200 yd on either side of that park, they have small like green signs, pedestrian green signs with a picture of a pedestrian and a bicycle, and then below that, um again, the pedestrian green sign that says share the road. And anything like that, I think would be an improvement over just before the intersection, there's a speed limit sign that says 55. And I'm like, who in their right mind driving should drive through an intersection where there isn't a marked crosswalk, but there are sidewalks on either side that dump into uh Rum River Boulevard. So, you know, I mean, I've had neighbors say they purposely drive at 35 mph because they don't want traffic moving faster, especially on that intersection. And so again, thank you for the progress, and I'll be back. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Don. Next. Seeing none, we're going to move on to special business. Alexandra House presentation, please come forward. >> [clears throat] >> Can everybody see the presentation? >> Yeah. There, now it is. >> Okay. Well, first, thank you for allowing me to come and speak before all of you tonight. Um, my name is Tina Bronson, I'm the executive director at Alexandra House, and some of you might know us, um, might know Alexandra House well, but for others this might be your first introduction. Um, I stepped into this role July 1st after the long-term, um, service of Connie More who retired and now is enjoying her well-deserved and earned retirement. Um, I have been with Alexandra House 12 years, before that I was the director of mission advancement. Um, I'm here to talk about Alexandra House because the services that we provide we do in partnership with community leaders like you. >> [clears throat] >> We are the only comprehensive domestic and sexual violence organization for the county, um, and for a county of more than 360 folks, uh, we are the safety net for victims of domestic and sexual violence. We are the ones that answer the call 24/7 365. Our mission is to empower survivors, inspire social change, and uh, >> [clears throat] >> do that through education, support, and advocacy. What that means is simple to say and hard to do in practice. Again, when someone is in danger, someone needs somewhere to turn, Alexandra House is the one that answers the call every hour of every day, free of charge, for as long as it takes to get them safe. We operate 10 programs, emergency emergency shelter being the one most people know about. Uh we also have a 24-hour helpline. We do legal advocacy. We use and elder abuse services, health care advocacy, housing, therapy, support groups, community education, professional training, and Linus's Pet Haven, which opened in January of 2025, making us the only pet co-sheltering program in the Twin Cities that allows folks to bring their pets with them and stay with them in their unit, um because we know that for survivors leaving a pet behind often means that they won't leave at all. So, we have eliminated that barrier. And this is happening in your communities right now. In 2025, law enforcement responded to 12,600 domestic-related calls and 800 criminal sexual conduct calls. And those are call Those calls are coming from every city and every township in Anoka County. And the most serious end is sobering. Minnesotans saw 33 known intimate partner homicides in 2025 with 10 already in 2026, and that does not reflect the most recent um homicide-suicide in Hopkins. Um in in the last decade, over 250 folks have been lost to this violence. And many of them were known to the systems that simply didn't reach them in time. And to put it in perspective, last year alone, 350 victims and survivors and their children spent over 8,300 nights of safety in our emergency shelter. And again, behind that is they're real folks with stories and lives and neighbors and loved ones that didn't have anywhere else to go until they came to Alexandra House. And like I said, we don't operate in isolation. We do this in partnership. We are a part of your public health and safety infrastructure in Anoka County. And what does that mean to actually call ourselves infrastructure? It means that we are already built into the systems this community already relies on. And those are four pillars. And so I'll go through those. The first, of course, is crisis response. That's our helpline. That's our 24-hour emergency shelter. That's our 24-hour response to the hospitals. And that's when deputies are on the scene of a domestic assault, they can connect a victim right to Alexandra House advocates right then and there. So we are, in fact, the first responders for interpersonal violence. Second, we are integrated into the health care system. We partner with Allina Health's forensic nursing program at Mercy. So advocacy happens right alongside of the emergency room care and forensic exams survivors receive, so they're not facing that moment alone. Third, we work in partnership with the justice system. We work with every law enforcement agency in Anoka County, including the Anoka County Attorney's Office, the corrections, the courts, on protective orders, court accompaniment, lethality assessments, uh which reduce repeated calls to the same address, and helps prevent homicides. And fourth, prevention. We're in every Anoka County district teaching healthy relationships, working one-on-one with students with advocacy who are experiencing violence. We are working upstream so uh future children and youth grow up to be victims or abusers in the first place. So crisis, health care, um justice, and prevention. You take Alexandra House out of any of those and the responsibilities don't just go away. They fall into the systems that were never meant to or designed to carry them. Especially deputies who are responding to calls, or your schools, or your healthcare institutions. That is what I mean when I call Alexandra House infrastructure. So, I love this slide because it makes it very concrete. We mapped 3 years of our crisis service data. Now, it doesn't include our prevention work by community. On average every year we serve nearly 1,000 Anoka County residents, providing more than 15,500 services, and answering 1,600 crisis calls. And it truly is every city and every township from Columbia Heights to Linwood, from Nowthen to Lino Lakes. And here's the part I'd ask you to hold on to. Whether or not a community has ever put a dollar into this work, whether its residents call us, we serve them. There's no inter-residency test, there's not a waiting list based on your zip code, and there's never a bill. And yes, that includes St. Francis. And let me show you what that looks like here. So, these are the services that we provided in 2025 to St. Francis residents. We had 20 participants who resided in St. Francis just last year. And we responded to about 52 helpline calls. Now, about half of that was legal advocacy with 88 services being provided to residents of St. Francis. And that means we helped them file protective orders, go to court, access free legal representation, including and we included we had eight referrals from St. Francis PD from the scene to an advocate responding on our crisis crisis line because that came through the lethality assessment program. We also provided one-on-one support to four St. Francis students, and reached 288 of your students with messages about healthy relationships for our classroom presentations. And I will say we had two residents who did some long-term work with our support groups and therapy. Um and we did respond to two domestic or sexual assaults at Mercy Hospital. So, um 20 might not seem like a lot when we're talking about how many people reside in St. Francis, but I assure you it made the difference to those 20 people who did not have to do this alone. So, I talked about legal advocacy and so this is the one I'm going to focus on because you had partici- uh residents that benefited from that program specifically and I see we have the chief here today. Thank you. Um So, our lethality assessment is one of our flagship programs at Alexandra House. We served 532 unduplicated victims. We received 522 referrals directly from law enforcement and that was the high-risk intimate partner um cases. So, nearly 80% of those folks were connected directly from the scene with law enforcement or shortly thereafter. I'd like you to sit with that 80% because before the lethality assessment program was instituted back in 2010, it was not even nearly 40%. We could not reach victims and then that window would close and sometimes they never got the help that they needed. That has changed. Today, deputies and officers are making that call in real time and it is keeping people alive. So, LAB is now built into Anoka County's criminal justice system and its response and it's a model for communities across Minnesota and as far as way as Hawaii. But none of this happens without investment and I want to thank the cities that have invested in Alexandra House. They're shown on this map, um which is very similar to the one that you saw before. The teal um represents the cities that have partnered with Alexandra House. They invested about $152,000, which is about 53 cents per resident. And we're grateful for that support and also the Anoka County Attorney's Office and the Anoka County. These funds pay directly for things like legal advocates answering [clears throat] law enforcement referrals. It is the youth programming that's happening in your schools. It is the staff that are answering the crisis line calls 24/7 365. And this map shows where support comes from and the map that you just saw where services go and I hope one day that those maps look the same. So, I'll leave you with my contact information. It's right there. You can also find me on the website. But I hope that if you have questions about how our services work or if you want to get in touch with me because there's a resident that needs support, I'm here. And I just I want to thank you for giving me the time to talk about what Alexandra House does and thank you for the work that you do for our community. I will take questions if you have them. >> Kevin I just want to say thank you to Tina for showing up. I met her at the JAYLEC meeting and I know I look back at my notes but since 2022 since we've done anything and at that point the council was kind of mixed as far as do we is it is it our responsibility to give taxpayer money to a charitable organization? Well, this is not the case. You provided a valuable service. So, to me it means it's a different situation entirely. So, I would just like us to consider as a council down the road if we appropriate some funds again and the chief verified that over the years and the the facts verified that we do use them and it's a valuable asset to our community. >> Thank you. >> I'll echo a lot of what Kevin said. We had a long discussion about whether or not we were going to support them and it was very mixed and it was a It's a tough vote. Um, I myself have had to use domestic violence services, so I realize how important they are. So, I think we need to look at it again, too. >> Mhm. I I would agree. Um, I think we should look at it again. I showing the maps and how many calls and services that you were able to provide to all of Nokomis County, but to St. Francis um, in particular, um, I I was surprised by those numbers. Um, but thank you for everything you do and Alexandra House, um, I do know people that have used your services and it's invaluable and I honestly had no idea how it was funded. Um, uh, so I would I would definitely be able to come into look at that and if we had something to to give to them, I would be up for that in the future. >> Joel? >> Uh, I just want to say thank you for coming. Um, I do know people that have used your service, um, and they have benefited greatly. I do appreciate that. Um, I will be the Grinch here and say unfortunately I'm one of those people that do not feel that charity is regard much as it's a slippery slope and as much as as important you are to the people that they use your services, um, you know, I stand where I stand unfortunately on the charity and taxpayer dollars. >> Okay. Thank you. Very good presentation. One of my favorite things about this job is learning new things. So, very good presentation. I welcome a discussion down the road. I would say if anything I kind of lean towards what Joel's Joel indicated on that. It's a wonderful cause, but I I just don't know how you draw the line. So, but I'm certainly open to discussing it down the road, so. >> That is um, that is fair and I would say other cities have uh, have that discussion as well, so you might look to them as places. Um, I will say that Alexandra House is not a nice to have. We are not in competition with other nonprofits. Um, if you remove us from the equation, where do your residents go for support? We are public health and safety infrastructure, and this is a public health crisis. Thank you. >> Thank you, Tina. On to old business. Ordinance Amendment Section 3 Traffic Second Reading. >> Uh, Mayor and Council, if you have any questions for me, I can certainly try to answer them. Otherwise, uh, um, just request a second reading of the ordinance. A- Anybody? Any questions? It It is a second reading, so I think we're all familiar with it here. >> I don't have any questions. I just think that we need to think about a way that we can shoot this out to our residents, so that they're aware that this change is coming. So, whether it's on website, whether it's on our Facebook page, whatever, I just want to make sure that we can >> Yeah, Mayor and Council, we will be putting some updated information out on on social media, um, to display some of the the ordinance in effect specific to Saint Francis outside of state statute. So, we'll be, um, displaying some of that. >> Yeah, I talked to the chief some time ago on this end. The legal had to come first before we could >> Right. >> pull some of this. >> Yes. >> A- Anybody? A- Anybody else? Anything else? So, I'm looking for a motion to approve Ordinance 359 amending Chapter 7 Section 3 Traffic of the City Code. Resolution 2026-32 authorizing the summary publication of Ordinance 359. Are these separate? >> Yes. >> Okay. We'll start with the We'll start with the first one, Ordinance 359 amending Chapter 7 Section Section 3 Traffic of the City Code. Do I have a motion? >> I'll make that motion. >> Motion by Councilman Farness. Do I have a second? >> I'll second, Mayor. >> Second by Councilman Robinson. Roll call vote, please, Jenny. >> Mayor Vogel? >> Aye. >> Council members Robinson? >> Aye. >> Udvik? >> Aye. >> Fanas? >> Aye. >> Mühlbauer? >> Aye. >> On to resolution 2026-32 authorizing summary publication of ordinance 359. Do I have a motion? >> I'll make the motion, Mayor. >> Motion by Councilman Udvik. Do I have a second? Councilman Mühlbauer. Uh roll call vote, please, Jenny. >> Mayor Vogel? >> Aye. >> Council members Mühlbauer? >> Aye. >> Fanas? >> Aye. >> Udvik? >> Aye. >> Robinson? >> Aye. >> Go all on to new business. Uh discuss meeting open to the public. This is something I requested. Uh it's become clear to me that I I think people come forward a lot of time looking for answers on the spot, and I just don't think we're well equipped for that. And so what what my main point being is I I like to try and suggest we go to something where people want to speak, sign sign something, and what or check in with a piece of paper, and when they do, it gives them options on there for giving us their contact information so we can reach back out to them when they have questions that we can't answer at the time, which is a lot of the time. So, I'm not really not super concerned with I don't know. It's open for discussion, time limits, or things like that. I'm more concerned about how do we get people's questions answered when they come up to the podium, and how do how do we respond to them? So, I don't know about that. Who else would like to go? Amy? >> Um well, I like um I like the idea of having um like a sign-in sheet, or just so we have the contact information to give it back. That is how the school district does it. If you want to speak, um you have to sign in um prior to the meeting. Um and then and you know, you you you say how you want to be contacted back and then we we have something to Are you Are you going to handle this one or are you going to handle this one? And I think that's important cuz I feel like that's been a little bit lost. Um, I so I think I personally I think that's important. Um, but I I think it it personally I think it should be okay that even if you didn't put your name in to speak that, you know, before the meeting like at school board you you have to put it in before the meeting. You can't like, "Oh, I have something else." Um, so I I think it would be nice if, you know, people didn't get here right at the meeting, they could still speak in in the appropriate time, but just make sure they fill out the paper so we know how to get back to them. That's my thing. >> It'd be kind of like I yeah. >> It'd be kind of tricky [laughter] but >> That's kind of tricky to do two different tracks. I mean, I think it'd just be cleaner to do one. That's just my I don't Joel, what do you think? >> Um, well, I think eliminating it entirely is off the board. I think that would be perceived uh very negatively um by the people. Uh filling out a form is not a bad thing. We used to do sign-in sheets. Uh We kind of loosened up on that. Um, I think uh you might as my opinion would be you could do a sign-in sheet if you want to. Uh you want uh a response to whatever question you may have, then it makes sense. I don't think everybody necessarily would have to if they're not looking to reply. Um, I mean, if you're just coming up there to comment on you know, how you feel about something or something we're talking about, um wouldn't be a bad thing. Um, I think uh I had a a massive discussion with somebody last night, too, and I I think part of part of the the issue is um, you know, where usually people that show up to the city council meeting are passionate about something, right? And that's kind of what gets them there because watching us do city business isn't fun. Um, so people usually show up passionate about something, they want answers. Um and to think that staff knows what somebody could ask at any given time about any given topic with the history that the city has of everything whether it be roads or whatever for somebody to know the answer to what they're asking on the spot I think is a little unreasonable. Um for somebody to be able to get back to them and respond to their question I think is is not a problem. My question I guess would be if we do do the form and Amy kind of mentioned something about you know you handle this you handle that I don't I would think that I'm wondering who would handle the responses like say email or a phone call with with the answers. I mean if it's a if it's a question a department have would have they would handle that. If it's about roads you know Paul would probably get that sheet and have to give them a call back. Um if it's something general you know or if it's about code or something obviously whatever department could handle each each thing I think so. Um they give them a call try and call them. I know sometimes I've heard a couple people call city hall and say you know they they have to leave a message they don't like that but at the same time I think you know it's it's not I mean that just tells me that hopefully staff is busy and working on something and that's what they're getting paid to do so that's a good thing. You know sometimes if you have to leave a message it's not always a bad thing so um that's kind of where I stand on it but I don't think it should be mandatory but if you want a response I think it's not a bad idea to have that as an option. >> Okay sir. >> Yeah I'm kind of on that page too. I think if you're wanting a response you have to fill out the page um or fill out the thing. Um I know that uh I'm pretty sure that the whole two open to the public kind of became a thing with um Mayor Feldman and he just wanted to give people a chance after they had heard some of the business cuz a lot of times you don't think of a question until afterwards. Um, but there's always that option of going home and emailing, too. Um, so I don't I don't know if you're thinking of only having just that one or what if we're looking at whatever, but um, I know that that's kind of why he did it was because so many times when we were sitting in the audience, it was like you didn't think of the question until, you know, you heard the presentation and then you're like, oh, that I'm still not clear on that, so I'd like some more clarification. So, um, I I think I think it's it's it's true. I mean, we don't have the answers a lot of times we don't have the answers and staff sometimes has the answer, but if you want a thorough answer, it's easier for them to respond to you off of a city council meeting time. >> Kevin? >> I agree. I you know, free speech shouldn't be squelched at all, especially when it comes to our city council. We're a small community, we should be able to interact with one another. Um, I think it's worth a try. Again, I I would talk to a couple people as well and they reminded me that the school board does that and I think it's it adds a little more decorum and some humility to situation sometimes. I feel like people come up here and they want to machine gun city here and then it goes on Facebook and then it's a gotcha moment. That's not what we're here for. It's not entertainment that we do here. It you know, it's serious business and we try to take it seriously. If we're not, then then you should be doing something else or you shouldn't run for office, so. Uh, I think it's worth an opportunity to try it again. I would think from the top down, you write the um, the head of the different departments, whether it's public works or or Jenny or whatever. You know, and then and then you can CC us on on the you know, or blind copy us as well. And if somebody doesn't get back to you, um, let us know. Drop a line to us because that's why I ran for office so long ago that nobody ever got back to me and I was building a home here. So it it meant a lot to me that some you know, have some some response some reaction at some point. So I think it's worth that opportunity to try. I just don't want to see more theater take over this this place and have more government and some real function. >> So the only question I'm hearing is I I mean I think I'm hearing some people say opt just opt if they want a response to fill out the form versus everybody filling out the form. How are we How are we settling on that? That I know Joel's nodding. I know that's what Amy mentioned. >> some more boxes checked. I mean it it's it's a silent answer for them. I mean they can they can come and speak if they want and then follow up with please follow up later on. You can look at the form and give it to the appropriate department head and take care of business. I I think it's worth a shot. It's not squashing people's freedom to talk. >> I think I don't know Jenny. I think something could just work on a sample form and bring it back at another meeting here along those lines. >> Um well, there's nothing that would need to be brought back to a meeting. The only thing would be is if you're changing the layout of the agenda because that is written into city code. We could implement a form. We could create one and have council approve it and then we can just start implementing it at meetings. >> I think I think that's where we're at. So >> I think that's good. >> Good. Thank you. >> Yep. >> And I at this moment I mean we've been back and forth on it. I I I mean I'm not really opposed to having the two I guess as long as it's not greatly abused. So I I I think in general I I think it works. It's just it's more when there are questions asked that don't get answered. That that is the problem. So Thanks all for the discussion on that. On to South 47 retail site plan, Beth. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll let it All right. Uh so before you tonight is a site plan request. Uh this is located at 4201 Saint Francis Boulevard. Uh this is a vacant parcel. It's about 3/4 of an acre. Uh you've got residential development to the north, uh industrial to the south, and then commercial properties to the east. Uh so, the site is guided for commercial use in the 2040 land use plan, uh and then it is zoned B2, which is the general commercial zoning district. Uh so, the the proposed use, which is a multi-tenant retail building, is consistent with the land use guidance, as well as the zoning. The proposed building would be a 6,900 square foot uh multi-tenant retail building, so three tenants in that building. Uh the access would come off of Cree Street Northwest, uh and so, the site plan includes the building itself, uh some stormwater facilities, uh and then a new parking lot, as well. The Planning Commission reviewed the site plan at their meeting in July. Uh they discussed parking, hours of operation, setbacks, and lighting. Uh and as a result of the staff comments that came about uh for the preparation of the Planning Commission meeting, uh and then the discussion at that meeting, there were some changes to the site plan that I wanted to go through tonight, uh but the Planning Commission did unanimously recommend approval with the conditions that then um the revised site plan uh is intended to to meet. Uh so, one of those conditions is that the building size was reduced. Uh so, originally, it was proposed as about 7,500 square feet. Um so, that was reduced both to meet the required setbacks for the B2 district, as well as the parking requirements. Uh so, as it [clears throat] stands with the revisions, uh there are 28 spaces required, uh and then a total of 29 are shown on the site plan. So, that does meet requirements now. Uh the exterior building materials, uh this is, I think, a provision that we're all kind of familiar with at this point. Uh, the proposed facade material materials are brick veneer, uh, Nichiha siding, and then a concrete block veneer. And the requirement in code is that there needs to be 100% of the front facade needs to be materials that are of comparable grade and quality to brick, stone, glass, stucco, or concrete block. Uh, and the applicant has provided information that that Nichiha siding is comparable in grade and quality. Uh, more similar to stucco. Uh, so it's cement based, it's pre-colored, and it it has the same or similar durability as stucco. Uh, so it comes with a 30-year warranty. Um, so staff is comfortable considering this as comparable in grade and quality, uh, to to the materials that are listed in code. Uh, the south facade articulation, so this is the facade that faces 47. Uh, there are requirements in the code that any public-facing facade, uh, needs to incorporate different articulation elements every 60 ft, uh, and then windows at regular intervals. Uh, and so that was revised as well, so you can see this is the new, uh, proposed facade facing 47. So there are windows throughout and different facade articulations. Uh, so tonight council is asked to review the application and then to take action either to approve with the conditions, uh, deny, or table and request whatever additional information you might need. So, I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Sherry, do you want to >> I do not have any questions on this one. >> Kevin? >> I have no questions, Mayor. >> Joel? >> Nothing, thank you. >> Amy? >> Nothing. >> I have no concerns or questions either, so >> Do I have a motion to approve resolution 2026-31 approving the site plan for the Saint Francis Script Mall? >> I'll make that motion, Mayor. >> Motion by Councilman Otvig. Do I have a second? >> I'll second, Mayor. >> Seconded by Councilman Robinson. Roll call vote, please, Jenny. >> Mayor Vocal. >> Aye. >> Council members Varnes. >> Aye. >> Adveig. >> Aye. >> Robinson. >> Aye. >> Mielbauer. >> Aye. >> Thank you, Beth. >> Thank you. >> On to the Anoka County Sheriff's Office Safe County ALPR project. Welcome, it's Lieutenant Fred. >> Yes, sir. Thank you for having me. I'll plug in here so you guys can see. You guys able to see that come through? >> Not yet. >> I do see it. >> Oh, now I do. >> All right. I know I've [clears throat] presented to you before, but at the chief's request, I am back. So, hopefully this isn't too redundant for you, but I'm sure you guys have some questions that have come up since I last presented. So, Anoka County Sheriff's Office in collaboration with other police departments, fire departments, Anoka County Emergency Management, dispatch, all the above are working together for a safe county program with a vendor, Flock Safety. This will include increased ALPR technology as well as drone assisted response technology deployed throughout the county as well as software including Flock 911 which allows dispatch to push uh 911 audio to the squads, the responding squads, which will give the officers better situational awareness upon their dispatching of the call. >> [sighs] >> Some of the things that are included, like I said, is the ALPRs advanced or sorry, automated license plate readers. The this technology is not new. It's been around since 2009. I can remember when I was fairly new. Not that new. Um we had large bread loaf size boxes on the back of our squad cars driving around and they would do the same thing as these uh I don't know. It tried to do the same thing as these uh cameras that are fixed um do. They capture a still image of the rear of a passing vehicle. Uh it reads the characters and the and the state and it compares the plate numbers to a hot list that is provided to every vendor, not just Flock, but Axon, Milestone, Verkada, and all the other uh automated license plate reader companies that operate within the state of Minnesota. That list is provided by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension every 6 hours to those vendors. If there is a match, an alert goes out to the cars that are monitoring that area's cameras. Um Minnesota began sharing this hot list data um to the vendors in 2010. So, it's been around for 16 years. What it does not do is there is no facial recognition. That's actually illegal in the state of Minnesota for government to utilize facial recognition. Um and it does not have any direct access to criminal justice uh databases. So, again, the only information that it's checking is against a a list that is provided to the vendor every 6 hours from the BCA. So, what is a hot list? Um the hot list is Well, it started um as a sheet of paper you would get at roll call and it would have a hot sheet of every all the stolen vehicles, missing persons, and everything like that in your jurisdiction that was compiled by your agency. When computer-aided dispatch came around, the state of Minnesota, since it was uh criminal justice information, started standardizing what was going to go into this hot file, this this alert. Some of the things that are on the hot list don't pertain to anything when it when it comes to automated license plate readers. Such as gang affiliation or group affiliation terrorist alerts. Um Canadian Police Information Centers alerts. Uh in 22 years I've never seen an actual alert that comes through from Canada. Um National Sex Offender Registry, that does not come up on a Flock search or a Flock uh read. Basically, the things that are going to hop the that are going to pop that are going to alert off of these predefined list of um alerts is going to be driver's license status. So, what that means is if the registered owner of a vehicle has a revoked, suspended, or canceled or canceled IPS status, that driver's status is flagged in the hot list as to all vehicles that are associated with it. That's It doesn't say Joe Smith has a revoked license, it says registered owner revoked. That's the only information that you get on the alert. Um disqualified drivers, that's canceled. So, if your doctor uh notified the state of Minnesota that you are no longer physically able to drive um based on could be epilepsy, could be dementia, could be several of the different factors, that would also go into the the hot the hot list alerts. >> [clears throat] >> Revoked or suspended driver's license, those come through. Those are several of the hits that people will see a day. Uh I can tell you that nobody is running across the country or or across the county to try to catch somebody with a driving after revocation uh alert. The more important things are Amber Alerts, um stolen vehicles, uh stolen license plates, and the KOPS alerts. KOPS stands for Keep Our Police Safe. So, if the chief has uh an incident here in Saint Francis where there's a shooting or whatever, they are able to get a license plate on a suspect a suspected vehicle, they can put in a a cop's alert out on that that vehicle. When it updates, which is that like I said every 6 hours, that will trigger in the system if the vehicle passes one of the fixed LPRs. It doesn't do it retroactively it if that vehicle passes by an LPR, that alert will notify the the agencies. So, those are some of the alerts that are provided by the BCA. There's a lot of talk about what data is being captured. Oh, they're they're they're capturing my data, they're capturing my data. Well, the data that is being captured is a picture. There's no personal identifiable information on that on that picture. It is it's simply the picture of the vehicle, the picture of the license plate. Yes, if somebody's walking down the road at the same time, a vehicle drives by and the and the license plate is captured, there is potential of somebody getting captured in that picture, but there is no way to search for any human characteristics in the Flock system. It is it automatically bans any kind of search like that. This is only for vehicle and license plate searches. You cannot search for a white male, you can't search for a Hispanic male. It has to be you're searching for a vehicle. >> [gasps] >> The snapshot of the vehicle and license plate is taken. Prior to taking action, officers must verify a hit. That's the same thing as if you're driving down the road if the squad is driving down the road and they run a license plate and it pops up with stolen vehicle alert, the officer doesn't immediately take action on that. They have to verify what's on the screen is what's in front of them. We've had times in the past where I run a plate and it comes back stolen, well, if you look at it more, it's actually a stolen vehicle out of another state and it's a wrong and it's being you run a Minnesota plate. So, you have to verify before you take action. There's no personal CJS information, that's criminal justice information system data captured by the camera and this the cameras have no access to any personally identifiable information. Only the state has access to the hot list and law enforcement is the only the law enforcement can run the plate and get a return from the state, but but Flock cannot. Photo data is automatically deleted after 30 days unless there's a law enforcement unless law enforcement retains it for a lawful purpose, that's a criminal investigation and there has to be documentation for that, but no matter what, it's deleted after 30 days from the system. So, you would have to download and save it to the case file before you can before it's deleted. So, a search in Flock, >> [clears throat] >> these are required fields. For an investigative purpose, you have to enter an offense an offense type. And in Anoka County, we uh we comply with NIBRS, which is a federal reporting requirement. So, the our offense types are NIBRS compliant. You have to select one that matches what the report's going to say. A case number is also required. You cannot move forward without having a unique case number assigned to it. And you have to justify it with a reason for your search. Investigation is not a valid reason. Um you can if you put anything such as immigration or reproductive care or anything that is a trigger that blocks these searches that we've turned off, you will not be able to proceed with your search. You have to enter the legal justification for why you're searching. From there, you enter your license plate number, full or partial, and include the state. There's also an option for a vehicle fingerprint. That being said, we had an incident in Linwood last week where a 9-year-old girl was at the end of her driveway and saw a suspicious van. It made a U-turn, and she thought she was somebody was trying to get her. So, she ran and got her parents. Um we were able to locate and identify that vehicle on our on the one Flock camera that's in Linwood um because it drove past it. And we can use the vehicle fingerprint for that. And what that is is we can look for a white van with a black door. We can look for a white van that has landscaping on the side or what whatever the specific characteristics are on that that vehicle, it will pull whatever is as close to similar as possible with that vehicle in up your search results. And then you can search a few different ways. >> [clears throat] >> My network selected is the agency you work for, right? So, right now these are all the cameras that the sheriff's office had are under the sheriff's office. So, if I search the the sheriff's office network, I would get have access to 13 cameras. Um if I share with other agencies such as Rapids, Blaine, I would have to select their agencies as well. I can draw a circle and get that information as well. Uh there is no nationwide search available for Minnesota. Um people can't in California can't search uh a nationwide They can search a nationwide search, but they get zero returns from Minnesota. Um you have to have a a one-to-one agreement with each and every agency uh that wants to share with you if you're in Minnesota. Uh some uh success stories. Uh very briefly, we had a sexual uh uh assault. The offender attempted to transport a uh victim, a minor victim, back to Mexico to avoid prosecution. ALPR hit located the vehicle in Kansas. The victim was safely turned in Minnesota. Um we did not have a sharing agreement with that agency, but we were able to see that there were hits in that jurisdiction. Our detectives called down to that jurisdiction. They were able to find the vehicle and make contact with the mother and convince them it was in the in the victim's best interest to come back to Minnesota. So, instead of that that victim being victimized in two countries, um we're able to prosecute him here in Minnesota. Uh two two stolen vehicles uh real quick. One uh vehicle was stolen out of Fridley uh in the Cub in the Cub parking lot. Had two children in it. Uh it was reported fairly quickly. They jumped on their system. They located the where the vehicle was last uh passed a ALPR camera. The vehicle was located within minutes. The suspect fled once he saw that the law enforcement was close. They were able to recover both children and the vehicle safely. And a K9 search uh found the suspect. Uh let's see. Uh a lot of these are just you understand Fugitive from Arizona was located and arrested following a hit in Anoka. Non-compliant uh predatory offender was identified in Anoka County after an ALPR hit. And on and on and on. These are all hits that are coming off the hot list um that the vehicle passes our fixed ALPRs. On to drone assisted response. So, what this is is um the county has had a drone program since 2016. Um we fly a lot. I know that the chief has uh some drones up here. They fly a fair amount as well. Every flight is governed by the state statute 66.19. There's 13 exemptions to a search warrant, one of which is a crime in progress reasonable suspicion of a crime in progress. Um There's missing persons searches and a few other exceptions that are used. Um you can also fly a drone to assist another city entity like a public works or emergency management if that request comes uh to you in writing. What the the drone assisted response is will be pre-positioned drones throughout the county. Um these are not patrol drones. They will be sitting in their dock until they're called for service that meets the criteria in order to deploy. Once the uh the the call has been prompted to a pilot, they will review the call quickly to see if it's if it if it meets the exceptions for a search warrant. If it does not meet the exceptions, the flight is declined. And police respond as normal. If it does meet the exceptions, the pilot will uh remotely launch the aircraft. It will respond within 90 seconds to the call location. At which time the cameras will turn down and assist with the call. >> [clears throat] >> The drones take off uh autonomously once prompted to. Um upon arrival, the drone hovers at the GPS coordinates until the pilot takes positive control of the aircraft. The pilot manages the flight remotely using a desktop interface. And after the mission, the drone returns to its base. Uh the pilot has to hit land and then the pilot is required to file all state required documentation as well as an ICR uh stating what the flight was about. Why it matters. Uh it provides real-time eyes on the scene. Um I'm I'm not sure what the response time is, but from one end of your city to the other, it could probably take 5 to 7, sometimes 10 minutes depending on the speed and whether or not you're driving emergency. These drones can go within their flight designation area within 90 seconds they can be on scene. Why that's important earlier this year we had a a call in the city of Centerville. A woman said that she thought she heard gunshots. Um she was on the phone with 911 watching the house where she thought she heard the gunshots from. Squads took 7 minutes to get there. And that's not abnormal for that cuz that Centenial Lakes covers three separate cities. That's still a pretty good response time. Um at minute four she told the dispatcher that somebody was coming out of the house and walking down the street. Well, that somebody did murder his um Sorry, is suspected to murder his ex-girlfriend and the child. Having known that if we had the drone up, the suspected shots fired in a house would probably meet the criteria for a drone assisted response. We would have had eyes on on that suspect when he left the house and follow him to where he was and the the apprehension would have been faster and the the aid provided to the victims would have been quickly as well. Instead it took over an hour for a squad deployed drone to to respond, deploy the drone, locate the male, and walk a K9 in to where the male was. I don't want to cover that. But the biggest that's not a biggest the biggest um aid to public safety with these drones is not law enforcement. It's actually going to be the biggest benefit is going to be for the fire service. Um this is a photograph these are the exact same time, exact same photograph taken with both cameras off of the drone. The one on the right is a live view camera. This is a house fire. Uh you can see a little bit of smoke coming out. Uh you can see the the ladder truck is on the side of the house. What you can't see is the dangers on the left-hand side that um are visible. Uh I'm not a firefighter, never claimed to be, never wanted to be, but the before they put somebody up on the roof to do ventilation, they the chiefs would like to know where the where the dangerous spots are. This information on the left will tell them where to not put their people because it's unsafe. Um this pro the the this program was unanimously supported by the entire Fire Protection Council, as well as uh the entire Noac County Chiefs of Police Association because of its benefits on multi-discipline uh deployments here in Noac County. So, how we currently use Flock? We currently use Flock. We have 13 locations. Uh they're listed here on the left. They're also listed on the on the BCA's website. Our current use of drone technology is we have trunk-deployed drones. We have every shift we have two uh as well as pilots that are on on duty uh as part of their normal course of duties and responding to calls, they also carry um a unmanned aerial system. I assume that's very similar to you, Chief. Okay. >> [sighs and gasps] >> ALPR data is currently retained for 30 days. Drone data is retained for 7 days if it is not evidentiary. That is a state requirement that if it has no evidentiary value, it is deleted as soon as possible. And I can tell you that most of our pilots if once they determine there's no evidentiary value, they delete it that same day because it just takes up network space. ALPR data is not shared with federal agency, and immigration-related searches are prohibited and blocked as well as well as reproductive care searches. We currently rec- uh conduct a system-wide biennial audit just like our body cameras through the same through the same company, but we also internally do a uh rolling audit every 30 days of all use of our system. Minnesota has some of the strongest privacy protection laws in the nation. And when it comes to the ALPRs, we have one of the strictest statutes in the in the country. All searches are logged and abnormal abnormal activity is automatically flagged and I'm notified if there's anything that is outside the norms of search of typical patrol search or investigative searches. Outside of the exigent circumstances, any investigation we get a search warrant. There's vehicle tracking movement search warrants have to be reviewed and signed by a judge. Misuse can carry strict criminal and civil penalties as well as losing their law enforcement license and their job. I mentioned nationwide searches in Minnesota data are prohibited. We block searches as mentioned. Any protected data is blocked and we do not share with federal agencies. Mainly, if we want to search historical ALPR data to track a suspect's movements, we are required and do obtain a search [clears throat] warrant. This is the same level of privacy protection afforded to the citizens regarding the search of their home and their papers and and things. As far as the drones go, Minnesota law also has a very strict drone policy. 62619 is the Minnesota state statute regarding law enforcement use of drones. Anything that falls outside of the warrantless search exceptions requires a judge signed search warrant. Every drone flight is documented and logged for auditing. Footage with evidentiary value is saved to the case file. Anything not evidentiary is deleted as required by state law. These are some of the reasons why we fly. Emergencies involving risk of death or bodily harm, natural man-made disasters, active search for missing people. Those the first and last one on emergency and safety situations is actually the majority of what we search for missing persons and emergencies involving bodily harm or death. Very frequently we are requested to fly for crime scene. Especially on the larger cases we fly for them and those all come with a search warrant. Reasonable suspicion of criminal activity is another reason why we fly. Crash reconstruction that's in there mainly for the state patrol because they're the ones who do the crash reconstruction. We will fly for public events with heightened security risk. So case in point would be the Anoka Halloween parades draw tens of thousands of people into a small area that is a soft target that we make sure that we are aware of we have good situational awareness. It's against the law for law enforcement to collect data on public protests or demonstrations unless there's a signed search warrant. I can tell you we've never had to do that because we don't collect data on public protests or demonstrations. Or it is illegal to equip law enforcement law enforcement drone with facial recognition technology. Again, unless there's a search warrant but we don't have drones that have the facial recognition software. Flock software does not have facial recognition capabilities. >> [sighs] >> All right. There's a lot of these this is a PowerPoint presentation provided that we did in Columbia Heights. So there's a lot of extra a different [clears throat] a different community than here in Saint Francis. So I am here for any questions that may come up. I know there might be a lot but by all means. >> Jordy, you want to kick us off? >> You sure? Um Who owns Flock's data? >> We do. >> Okay. Um someone known or recently has been experiencing I don't know you can call them activists, you can call them criminals, vandals, whatever you want to say. Um people destroying their cameras. Um they've decided to not replace them from what I've read. Um who pays for that? And I mean, obviously, if you catch them, there'll be restitution, whatever, but uh if we don't if they did decide to replace them, who would end up toting those costs? >> Whoever owns the the cameras would be the ones that own that cost. Um it is a it is a felony criminal damage to property um for doing so. We had one in Nowlin that was uh the wires are cut and somebody smashed it with a baseball bat. Um that has since been replaced, but um yeah, it is a it is a felony crime to do so. >> So, did the sheriff's office pay for that or did the city of Nowlin? >> No, the sheriff's office did. >> Um so, I want to I want to apologize to you for our first discussion. I know I raised concerns about, you know, 1984-esque vibes and surveillance state, um things like that. I don't think I was as clear as as how concerned I was. Uh a lot of the issue we run into here, too, is we have uh public concern, which obviously you've seen. I'm sure you've been well aware of uh social media campaigns and all that stuff um against Flock. So, what we come up against is and part of the issue I have is uh the first time you were here, you said um it was going to be a 2-year pilot. That's now changed to a 1-year pilot. >> Mhm. >> And it was supposed to go through the county board, and it didn't. And of course, the information that uh Sheriff Wise, which I I do believe he gave us uh talk at at the uh the county meeting thing they had they they had. Um and I heard it was a very good discussion. Um I unfortunately was not able to be there. Um but the perception is reality in this case, right? People see that, oh, you went $1 under what what it takes to be approved by the county board. Um can you elaborate on that? >> Absolutely. Um it was not a dollar under. Um it was a it was $500 under and while that might not seem like a big difference, it was it there is a significant difference. Um I think um just stating the facts correctly do change um some of the perception. The reason why is uh the sheriff saw that right now we didn't have the full vote of the council to approve a long-term contract. The contract would have been a 10-year contract with a 2-year uh step-in with the cost. Um seeing that, he felt that it was in the best interest of the citizens of Elko County to do a trial. Um Flock was able to uh provide all of the technology, all of the the the capabilities of the 10-year contract within a 1-year contract with zero um renewal and allow us to fully test the product before coming back to us uh later down the road with uh an option to sign into a long-term contract. So, that's what that's why we went with the 1-year. Um they in 100% honesty, Flock is taking a substantial risk financially in deploying millions of dollars of technology into Elko County. Um the sheriff and myself and the chief and um the rest of uh the CLEOs and fire chiefs believe that um and forgive me for speaking for them that uh this is a technology that is needed in our county um and it will um save lives. It's going to save lives of first responders as in the fire department going into things that are unknown. You know, we are going to find uh the missing missing people after they uh after they leave either missing children or those with dementia that that wander. Um there's federal grants to cover for drones to help locate people that are prone to wandering. Um this isn't just about stolen vehicles. This is about better situational awareness for law for law enforcement, fire, EMS, and to um assist with public safety as a whole. So um that is why we've decided that the sheriff has decided to move forward with a one-year contract to prove the concept. And if it doesn't do what it's being billed to do we're out the $174,500 of the sheriff's office operating budget and that's it. >> Uh >> If we if we want to move forward with more, then the sheriff is will then be prepared to present that to the county board as a whole. >> All right. And uh I've been doing research as well. Um you know, the the claims made online, things like that. And obviously we're going to have some misinformation out there. We're going to have some good information. Um obviously there has not always been honorable people operating these things. And unfortunately as as much as I do appreciate the work that law enforcement does and I do support law enforcement. Definitely love love our our police department. I think Todd's a great chief. I don't know Brad Wise that well, so I can't speak on him. Um but I think a lot of the concern comes from, you know, we have times from going from COVID where we have I mean we have we have a constitution, we have laws. In my opinion, I think the constitution was greatly trampled on during COVID. Um I think with governors and snitch lines and things like that to say you have too many people at your house for Thanksgiving. That does not help um the case as far as you know, where we want to do the right thing. And I think and that's not that doesn't fall on the sheriff's office. I know our police department did great during COVID. You know, we weren't harassing businesses or anything like that. Um The question comes I think like I say it's the 1984 vibes, right? Are we going to I understand I looked up Signal Trace. Signal Trace is not compatible with Flock, which is great. Signal Trace is what people put out there as far as um it can read uh the data on your phone and all that stuff and and whatever is out there Bluetooth. Uh Flock is at this time not capable of it. Um I think the laws are great. I think the concern I have and the the issue I have is I'm I am more of a realist. I like to think I have a more of a realist uh perspective on things when it comes to yes, the laws are great. I have read the laws that are out there for this kind of stuff, but unfortunately if people followed laws, we wouldn't need you, right? In a perfect world. Um so even though there's laws there against people that are operating these it can be misused and I and I don't know how how familiar are you I guess with the misuse of Flock by other departments across the across the nation. >> [clears throat] >> Year-to-date there or in history right now we have 18 people who have been found to be misusing the system nationwide. They have all been terminated, fired, and uh most have been criminally referred to. And if you think about that, um there's well over a million officers in the United States and having 18 is a extremely low percentage of misuse. Um as well as you think of all of the private data that is currently accessible to law enforcement uh on a daily basis. Um And that actual private data um your full name, date of birth, address, phone numbers, all of your biographical information that is provided by the state to uh with your driver's license, all of that information is accessible to law enforcement on a daily basis, and you're not seeing the misuse of that information. What Flock is capturing is a still image with zero personal data on it. Just because we can determine that uh Todd Schweiger was driving at uh Viking Boulevard and highway County Road 5 on 6 or 8/16 at 7:00 in the evening, that doesn't give us any information. That means that yep, he was there at that time. The there's no there's very low expectation of privacy um per the per the Supreme Court on the exterior of your vehicle in on upon a roadway the public roadway. What is prohibited is you trying to establish a pattern of life or to stalk somebody. I can tell you that this is not a dragnet surveillance uh system. Um there will not be a Flock camera at every intersection. They will be sparsed out around the county um where it makes sense. Um we're not that In order to get every intersection in the county or every roadway in the county, we're going to need thousands and thousands of cameras. There's no appetite for that. There's no desire for that. What we're trying to do is to try to get um a good idea of what's coming and going on the major highways um the state highways and the county highways throughout the county. These aren't going on residential neighborhood streets. They're not pointed at homes. They are pointed on the roadway capturing the exterior of a vehicle. So, given the fact that we already have access to all of your personal information, the misuse of a of a Flock system takes a lot of work. You have to act You have to actively try to find a pattern of somebody's life. Especially right now with 13 cameras at our disposal, there's we don't even have them in all of our contract cities. But what I can tell you is if somebody was going to {quote} stock you, there are far different resources that we could use other than an ALPR camera on a county road. >> [laughter] >> And not just for example, if any of you have the McDonald's app on your phone. Did you know that you they have they compiled off of one user's phone 500 plus pages of personal biographical data on that one person using This is from the McDonald's app. Because when you consent to this stuff, you're giving them significant access to your private to your private data on your phone. But people click through that without thinking. We're telling you we've looked at the white papers, we've looked at the retention we have read the third-party auditors, all of the information that and Garrett Langley, the the CEO of Flock has been overtly open about all of this stuff. They do they do not sell your information, they don't collect your information, they don't have direct access to the to the photos. They We have the access law enforcement that we own. All of this all of this stuff is to say the expectation of privacy on the roadway is extremely low. There's no aggregation of data when it comes to where you're at or how many times we see your vehicle or anything like that. There's a ton of misinformation out there. The cameras cannot be hacked. The one instance that is talked about online, a guy illicitly obtained a non-activated camera and accessed the boot system on the camera. Never had access to the network, never had access to anything. He was able to access the view of the lens. The cloud server has never been hacked. There is no backdoor system for the Feds. Um there's so much uh misinformation out there. It's hard to address them all, but I can tell you that this uh company has all of the certifications, the highest certifications that any um any SOC 2 compliant, any uh um any IT company would have be able to have to deal with uh private or potentially private data. Again, these are these are photographs. Um one last thing on that, Miami-Dade's uh Miami-Dade Police Department has one of the best cybercrime divisions in the country. They took down one of their cameras and for uh you know, 30 or 60 days tried to crack into it and tried to crack into the uh Flock uh GovCloud website and everything. They weren't able to do it. They were they found that it's absolutely secure in every way they could imagine. And if anybody can do it, I can I assure you it's Miami-Dade uh cybercrime division. >> And you you brought up something else that I think is is paramount too cuz I see both sides of the argument as far as the fear um you know, from the one side and then I I do see the benefit as well um for law enforcement and how it could help people. Um and I think we have to weigh those options together too, but but you brought up too. I mean, I think a lot of the people that are talking I mean, if you have a Facebook account, the amount of data that you're giving away and if you you open your phone with your face and the facial recognition uh playing with Snapchat and all that stuff. Um you know, that's something too I think people need to consider too. So, I I I do think it's a little overblown. I think the the fear is warranted only for the fact that honestly because of the the lack of accountability at higher government levels in my opinion um from what I've seen lately. Um the fact that to me and whether you're a fan or not a fan, um you know, a former president charged with 34 misdemeanors that were upgraded to felonies because the statute of limitations was done over political stuff. Um and that's that's kind of the the concern is if the wrong people are at the helm or decide oh, we're going to change these laws real quick to to use them for whatever reason. I mean, not that it's real quick cuz government's not real quick, but you know, we're we're going to change the laws now and then now all of a sudden it becomes something worse. Um I think that I think that fear is valid only because of the abuses we've seen during COVID by some um you know, state agencies and stuff. So, I will say that. Um but I I do I do appreciate your time. I think the drone's a great idea. Um I think the drone is less invasive for one. I think it definitely helps support um fire and law enforcement to keep them safe in a lot of aspects. Um I really I really do wonder a lot and I I, you know, I think with the uh the license plate readers, I know it's not new technology, but I I I wonder if the risk reward is is really really big there. Um I do know that it wasn't a flock, but cameras did help to catch uh uh perpetrator that uh kidnapped the gal from I think it was Zimmerman, wasn't it, recently. So, and then it wasn't a flock, but the cameras did help catch him. So, I mean, I that's obviously a beautiful thing um to to keep our kids safe and I know if if it was my grandchild or our kid or anything, I know I would definitely be thankful that there was something there for that. Um you know, I don't know if I support the AL AL PRPs or BRs or whatever the hell, but uh I think the drone is a is a definitely a an awesome deal, but um I do appreciate your time. >> Sure. Well, last thing on that um if you recall the Brown University shooting uh late last year, that was that case was solved by Flock ALPR cameras. They were able to solve that case and the the police department even openly says that it is. Think of the guy the the ongoing active shooter that was happening in Austin, Texas and there was no way to locate that suspect until he went into a neighboring jurisdiction where they did have Flock cameras and they were alerted and he was arrested within minutes. Um of that alert. So, while law enforcement isn't perfect, I can assure you that this program is already one of the tightest monitored programs in the in law enforcement right now. And as we continue to move forward in this process, it's not going to get any more lax. Um we have very strict rules on who can access it and if you don't attend if you don't conduct your training that is required, if you don't meet the requirements that our administrators including myself have no problem shutting you down. We've had we've had commanders that have been blocked from using the system. I for one was blocked as of last week. I went on vacation for 2 weeks and the training lapsed, came back in to run some audits and I couldn't access it until I completed my training. So, it there's zero tolerance for any misuse of this or any other law enforcement or criminal justice system that we have. So, and if it is found to have an alpha, I'll file the charges myself. >> And in in the law it does say it's a misdemeanor I believe to misuse the system. Is that correct? >> I I believe it is, however, it is a prohibiting offense so you lose your license and you get criminally charged. So, you don't get to be a law enforcement officer anymore. >> Thank you. >> Amy? >> Um well, I agree with a lot of what Joe said. Um I think that the drones um it's two separate programs, right? >> It's under one umbrella, but yes. >> Okay. I think the drones going to fire uh emergency scene, I think I think that's fantastic. I I I think that would be really helpful for um for our emergency workers. Um as far as the FLOCK cameras, I think that because there's so much hesitation and unknowns for for people, I think I I think it's probably just going to take time for people to get used to them maybe elsewhere um and you know, and and just you know more about them um for people to be comfortable with them, but I appreciate your um presentation. I I wasn't sure the first time if it was you. I was I was out on medical leave, but so I didn't get to hear it before, but I I appreciate your um presentation. I thought it was it was very good and answered a lot of questions, but I just think that there's there's just too much in the news right now with other cities um and kind of the hype and the fear and >> Can I address that for 1 second? >> more time would be would be on your side. >> Can I address that for a second? >> Sure. >> Sure. Um most of the cities that you see that are canceling their their FLOCK contracts are doing so because they've signed on with Axon and they're getting the same technology with a different company. So, they're So, they're scoring political points by saying, "Well, we're we're getting rid of FLOCK." Meanwhile, the next week they're putting in Axon's cameras that do the exact same thing, just not as well. So, I can tell you right now our squad camera or have the technology in it every Axon uh company um fleet camera does. The confidence and the accuracy is night and day. Flock has a substantially higher accuracy rate when it comes down to it. So, and I can tell you that we trust that more than we trust our our squad in LPR cameras. So. >> I'll take your word for it. And I'm not asking you to answer, but in the end I'd like to go Todd thinks thinks about program as well. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Yeah, I'm I'm kind of in the same camp. Um, I I personally don't I guess I don't necessarily have a problem with the Flock cameras, but I am I'm only my voice up here. I have to listen to the constituents and I I choose to. Um, and there's a lot of a lot of questions still out there from them. And I think until we can get a solid answers from them and how they really feel on it. I agree. I mean, it it's it's a great tool. Um, all my my friend, my close friend is good friends with the little girl from Zimmerman. So, that that hit home real close for me. Um, so I do see the importance. I just think that right now there's such a lack of I guess people don't have a lot of faith in in government in general and they don't trust that we're really doing the best for them. So, I think we have some steps that we have to take to prove to them that we're we're really on their side. Um, again, I want to hear from Todd, too. I pretty much know what he's probably going to say, but um I think we just it's it's a tough one for me. >> Kevin. Oh, yeah. Thank you very much for a good presentation. My first question is the budget impact after if we do if we do sign on with this excuse me, what is the budget impact for the city after the one year is up? >> Um our the plan is to approve the concept first >> Right. >> and then present to JLEC to hopefully have a JLEC funding source. >> Okay. And then um if we decide not to opt in on the program, the county will they still place cameras where they on their roads or their jurisdiction areas without without our input or >> Um no, we won't. Um but I would caution against that because if we make technology dead zones, right now criminals are actively avoiding where they know the where ALPRs are and that's been proven. We can see that they're taking auxiliary routes um in and out of the county. Um and the more you create a dead zone, it pushes crime to your area. And that that's that's fairly consistent [snorts] across the country. When you have a when you have a cities that choose to be a dead zone of this technology, that's where the crime goes. I'm not saying your city's going to turn into a a crime den, but they will actively avoid where the where the cameras are. >> Mhm. I you said Axon is the news media that inept when it would not ask that question? You you the I say the county sheriff for example ever been on the news all all last week. We're not doing it or we're getting out of this. We're not doing this any longer. What kept him or why didn't the media and that's not a fair question to you, but what is the next step? Why do they we we've gone to Axon because it's a lesser cheaper product or I mean there that's pretty sneaky of them not to say we went for the brand Axon instead of >> Uh I'm not going to throw agencies under the bus, but I can tell you that some of the major cities that have decided to leave their contract with Flock. >> lot. >> Have switched to Axon. And you can you can look some of them up. I'm not I won't throw them under the bus, but I know for a fact that that is the case. Um I won't speak for Sheriff Cyber like either because um I know him. I'm not going to I'm not going to speak for him on that one. >> Sure. Sure. >> The new the news media yes, they're they're Everybody knows. Um not every news media is on fair or gives both sides of the of the argument. Um But Flock tends to be a lightning rod and that's what they focus on. Flock is not the only company that does that has ALPRs. I'm telling you there's Flock, Axon, Milestone, Verkada, um Panasonic and Motorola are just some of the the top six off the top of my head. That they all provide that they're all provided Minneapolis has ALPRs for the last 15 20 years posted around there around their city [clears throat] called Milestone. It's it's been there. They use Minneapolis uses Milestone, Axon and Flock. So it's it's nothing new. You probably have passed by those cameras hundreds of times and never and never thought a second thing of it until um somebody claimed that um Flock was sharing data for immigration purposes and that's where this all kicked off. And there's zero truth to that at all because Flock has zero contracts with Department of Homeland Security. >> As far as the quality what not do you see yourself or does the department see yourself changing from Axon cameras on the squads to Flock at some point? >> Um >> If the quality is so much greater. >> The video quality is fine. It's the back-end software analytics that that give you misreads. I mean, you can drive down the road and get a false hit on a fence post. Um or a mailbox that says that the vehicle's stolen when there's no vehicle. Um what I will say is that the Axon is very good at certain things. Body cameras, tasers, um and the quality of squad cameras is very good. Um what I will probably be making the pitch to the sheriff soon is that we turn off the ALPR system in the squads. Because you get to it There's so many misreads that got the deputies just tune it out. Because it'll it gives you an audible alert every time it it picks up something that is on the hot list, and most of the time it's not accurate. >> And Axon is currently body cameras for a lot of agencies in our area as well. >> Very It's a very good system. It's a very good system. Um we've had We've been with Axon for body cameras since we got them. And it's a I don't know. You guys with Axon as well? It It is probably one of the most user-friendly systems out there. Um so I wouldn't I'm not going to denigrate them on that quality of the product. It's just some of the products, including in my opinion, not the sheriff's house, my opinion, that their ALPR technology is substandard. >> Okay. So uh for now, I really appreciate your presentation. Go ahead, Joe. >> Um just a real-time fact check for you on a few hits that came up. Uh you don't want to do it, but that's when I'm doing it. Um Denver, Colorado, um ended their Flock contract and signed up with Axon. Douglas County, uh Colorado, I believe, same thing. Syracuse, New York, uh Grand Chute, Wisconsin, Ferndale, Michigan. So just a recognition of that, just to put it out there. >> And I I I not going to accuse them of whether it's right or wrong, but people score political points wherever they can, right? >> Right. >> And that's that's what's happening. Um there's some that are right down the road here in Minnesota that did the same thing. I don't know if if I say he's going to a different system or not, but the bigger ones that are on the list uh in Minnesota, that's that's what's happened. So, it's not that they don't like the technology. It's because they feel the brand has some tarnish. But, Flock has become the Kleenex of its product, right? When you somebody sees an ALPR camera, they're automatically going to say it's a Flock camera. Well, there's several other companies out there that do it, and this is the only company that I have been able to from top down review all of their security standards, the third-party audits, everything. And I know that they have zero sharing agreements and zero contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, which seems to be one of the big issues around uh around the cities here is that they're sharing information with the feds or ICE or anything like that. Um and there is there is none of that. Other companies do. >> All right. >> I think I'm No, sir. Thank you. Um I don't know where to start. Most of the questions have been answered. It's a good questions and excellent presentation, and I've also read some of the sheriff's information he's put out. And I I'm just going to say this. I mean, I dabble in law enforcement. If I'm in your shoes, I'd be doing the same thing you're doing. I get it. I get it. I I know it will solve some crimes here and there. I'm not I'm not questioning that at all. It's just for me it becomes a slippery slope and a bridge too far because when we talk about passive collection of information, that's what it is. It's passive collection of information. And not only that, there's nothing that can't be hacked. The Louvre Museum gets broken into. The the credit card systems get Anything can be broken into. The the drone program, I'm all for that. I think that's a great program and I I totally get why you're both asking for it. If I was in your shoes, I'd be asking for it, too, because it's your your task with public safety. And and and this is this is another tool. Well well put, but it's just a bridge too far for me. It's just I I can't the passive data collection of that just doesn't work for me. So, that's just where I stand on it. I um I I agree with I know they all wanted to hear from you, too, and we'll talk. >> Joe. >> Um Good question, too, and I I don't I I know I got some information from the sheriff when I requested it there and I do appreciate that. Um I haven't seen I mean, I granted it's a pilot and I don't know what the contract looks like, but I don't know if we're privy to be able to look at the contract itself. I'm kind of curious on the terms of um or if we ever move forward, it would probably go to J lack, which it wouldn't even necessarily get to the council. Um but I'd like to see that contract as well and see what the terms and all that stuff is as far as being able to discontinue it and whatnot. But that's all I have. Sorry. >> Okay. >> All right. I think the big picture we just need to remember what data is being collected. Um it's license plate numbers, characters, and vehicle descriptions. Um any personal data that's going to come out come from that is ran by the officer through an NCIC query, the same thing they do 100 times a day on a computer. That's that's how they're going to get that personal information on people. Otherwise, the the pictures that Flock is is gathering, the information is the same thing that you're going to see sitting behind somebody at a stoplight. Um So, I think we just need to remember what data is being collected. And personally, I think the only way we're going to let this system prove itself um is by using it and getting some success stories, and we will have them um because they continue to we hear new ones every single day. Uh there's there's going to be some some concern, I think, from a lot of people, um and there's probably going to continue to be that concern no matter what until the the system positively impacts them. Um And we've had some success stories right here in Saint Francis already. I mean, we 2 weeks ago we were called to a check the welfare scene at a at a residence called in by a family family member. The house was in disarray. It appeared something had happened there. Um so, we did put a auto cops alert, as the lieutenant mentioned earlier, and Sherburne County gives us a call, says they think that vehicle was in their county earlier in the day. Their one of their Flock cameras actually hit on the license plate, and they were able to locate the individuals at a campground um a little while later. And it able was allowed us to close that incident. We knew they were safe. That family member was able to sleep that night rather than who knows how long it would have took us to to find them. Another happened over the summer. We had a So, that's a that's a that's impacting people. Family members that call in this stuff and expect us to get results for them. Um the the second one is property related. We had a burglary basically of our hardware store theft. Um where some expensive property was taken. Uh you know, again, an alert was entered, and that vehicle was located in Blaine after a Flock camera hit down there after we provided that license plate number. Um the property was returned. And you can you can call the hardware store and they can they can vouch for this. Um So that's property related maybe not as significant as you know letting people sleep at night and know their family members are safe but I think it's a year. I think we need to allow the system to prove its integrity, ease people's concerns, show the success stories that we'll have locally. I can guarantee it. That's the only way we're going to let some of these concerns go away. There's no harm in trying it. Um >> Can I add to that chief? Um first we we have a transparency portal on our website and as this whole system comes on board the amount of searchable information as far as the use cases and stuff like that will be available on that transparency portal. It'll be broadcast and we'll continually push out that kind of stuff. Um I will be providing routine updates to the chiefs at every chiefs luncheon I'll be there to provide as much information as as I can. I know they want to not spend their entire afternoon at these meetings. So as much as they allow me to share I will. They will have full access to come down and and check out the the center and what's going on and at any time they can run an audit of what's going to be what's going on in my area, who's searching what in my area and we'll provide that on demand for the chiefs. Um and lastly speaking with the sheriff this morning he said he asked me to reiterate this a little bit. Um Your residents pay a lot of money for law enforcement to the city some of the county. Um and they do you do so to protect you and wouldn't it be the best to give them the best technology out there to solve as many and to keep you guys as safe as possible. Um it's it is in some cases around the country has been misused. But we're not Minnesota is not is not Georgia. Minnesota is not Mississippi where their expectations, their rules are a little more lax. We have very strict and defined rules, strict and defined statutes that require us to meet certain standards when it comes to any kind of public or private information. And that's where we that's where we're going to stand by is make sure that out of all the all of the data we have access to, I assure you that this is not something that we are going to tolerate any kind of misuse on. >> Go ahead, Joe. >> Um one more question, too. And I know there's there's a website out there. Obviously, there's the Deflock website which shows where all the cameras are, whatever, which does allow people to see um and try to I don't know. I don't know how the what word I'm looking for, but you know, where where it's either safer to commit crime or where it's at. Um get are a deterrent just like police officers are a deterrent. They can't arrest somebody for crime they haven't committed. So, when you see an officer, you know, you may think twice. Um so, camera Um that's the argument behind it. The the other question I have and there's a name of the website specifically, but there's some site that uses public data from data requests um that you can, you know, have I been flocked or something. And you can put your license plate in there. Um if a data request is given or asked for, obviously, they have gotten or claim to have gotten data um and that's for manual searches, right? So, if one of the officers was to type in my license plate, um then I would know that he typed it in, what reasons he used, or whatever, based on that data. Um how what I guess would be available to them per data request? >> The search, um what they search for, and case number, and reason justification. If if there's not an alert that is uh triggered that the license plate triggers, we have no information on that. Um, we don't get alerted and if you search for that vehicle, you have to put in a justification why. Um, so that's the basic I mean there are uh some of our cameras people drive by 30,000 times in a month or whatever, just whatever the numbers are. Um we're not getting alerts or even note of being notified of probably more at least probably not even 1% of those. Um, it's yeah, it's it's taking pictures of the vehicles going by, but if there's nothing associated with that vehicle, nothing is nothing happens and it it gets deleted at the 30-day mark. So, um I think that's what you're asking. Um, as far as >> It it there's there's no way to short of me searching for you to find out if your vehicle has been captured on it, which is an improper search. Um, there's no way to um, to determine whether or not you've passed by uh one of our cameras. But if you do if you did a data request, we'd be able to pull if your vehicle was searched, who it was searched by and what the case number and justification would be. >> Well, and I do want to add too. I mean, our our police department has used and this is there's nothing wrong with this because they go and they ask the owner of the property say for Amazon Ring footage or camera footage and I've you know, I've volunteered that we can register that so as a private we can offer that as well to our police. So, it's it's you know, it's there the one there's a young lady that spoke up at the last about two meetings ago I think and said, you know, we have a reasonable expectation of privacy and like you said, the Supreme Court's ruled. I mean, when you are in public, you have zero, from what I understand, zero expectation >> No, it's not zero. You have a diminished expectation of privacy, but the exterior of your vehicle traveling down a public roadway, there's no expectation of privacy. It's the same as if the chief decided he wanted to put the sergeant back there on the corner and have him take a picture of every single vehicle that drives by. It's just doing it without staffing it at I don't know, what do you pay the sergeant, about 3 million a year, something like that? >> [clears throat] >> So, it it's doing that. It's saving the man hours of literally doing that, of standing and count and doing traffic counts and taking pictures of every vehicle that drives by. Um so, yes, there has been Supreme Court rulings that say that, you know, >> [clears throat] >> you you have a diminished amount of expectation of privacy upon the public roadway. And like I had mentioned, we're not putting these on residential streets, we're not putting these facing homes, we're not it's facing the tra- the traffic pattern. Um and that's it. >> I'm one of the questioners. I know you said you're acquainted with the sheriff. I seen the the quote, I might be off a little bit, but he said, "We're getting two to 300 alerts a day. I just don't have the resources to follow through on every one of them." What in the hell is that? >> Uh >> And I know you can't answer for him, but what is what a statement to make where you get two to 300 hits a day, I don't have the resources to cover it all. So, we're letting criminals run loose, I mean? >> No, I can um you know, each agency can restrict what the alerts are for, right? So, like I had mentioned, there's the Canadian Police Information Systems alert, turn it off. It's never the one that I've It's You can you can control what is being notified on. If I don't care that my deputies aren't looking for um canceled, that's the medically canceled drivers. They're going to If they run the plate on their on their CAD, they're going to get that information. I don't need an alert every time somebody drives by, cuz it could be the son of somebody who was canceled and every time they they drive by uh the alert comes off. So, there it may be a training issue, but I can tell you that we have reduced what is allowed and what we actually get alerts on significantly. And that's going to continue because um they will become immune to the notification. >> Mhm. >> Um there's just like I said with and and when you're driving your squad car with Axon, every time it gets a hit um on a vehicle you're passing or a mailbox, you hear a chirp. I can't tell you how many of my guys have been like, "Can you just turn it off? I'm tired of it." We're driving our BearCat down to US Bank Stadium for a detail on Saturday. Every time we're driving down in Minneapolis, doot doot doot doot, it's just going off non-stop. We don't have a computer that has CAD in there, but yet it still alerts us non-stop. So, um you just you start to tune that stuff out and when it could be an Amber Alert or it could be a stolen vehicle or or somebody's in danger, you want that alert to to notify the cop, does hey, look at that vehicle. That's kind of the whole purpose of it. So, um over-saturation of noise and everything like that is kind of and so the sheriff might be referring to that where they just have everything turned on and it's just constantly >> Okay. >> pinging. >> All right, thank you, sir. >> Absolutely. >> I just have one kind of closing comment here, too. And and this is nothing to do with you guys. And you don't have to nod your head in agreement. It's just kind of sad to me that we have to utilize these kind of tools or even ask for these kind of tools. And one I'm I can venture a good guess based on what I know that if we would just deal with some of these individuals in the first place instead of the catch and release game that our judges and our courts play, uh we would we wouldn't have to be here. So, >> Um if I may, and by all means cut me off. Go ahead, council member. >> No, go ahead. I was laughing. >> Smiling. >> Oh, sorry. I I don't see you, so it's like talking to the ceiling. Um >> Thanks for that. >> Yes, Lord. Sorry. Um Nowadays, we have certain technology that is expected of law enforcement, right? Um if one of your officers gets into a knockdown, drag-out fight with somebody and has to put that person in the hospital because they're using force, and their answer is, "I didn't have a taser." There would be questions as to why why don't you have a taser, right? Or if, along those same lines, um nothing was on video. Why don't you have a squad camera? Why don't you have a body camera? There will come a very time very soon and at a much more expensive price when there's crime that is occurring in your city, be it a property crime or a person crime, or if you don't have the information to do a proper at the time would be considered a proper investigation, the question's going to come, "Why don't you have this technology?" And I don't have a I don't have a good answer for you other than we're trying to and we'll do our best. And is law enforcement perfect? Absolutely not. Mistakes are made, but the accountability is where that's my job as administrator. That's the sheriff's job. That's the chief's job to make sure that we're holding them accountable. Um And out of the million cops in the country, if 18 are the only if that's the most that we get, those are pretty good odds. It's a pretty good percentage of of people that are doing right or wrong versus wrong. >> Any other questions or comments? >> No, sir. >> I have some. >> Go ahead. >> So, um just maybe you can explain what the status is here. Are we in the pilot program? Are we deciding something tonight? Like what what's our What's our goal here besides learning about it? >> To be more responsible. >> I think the [clears throat] goal tonight was to re- present, um, answer some additional questions if there were some, and take your feedback, um, to the sheriff and let them make the decision on their program, ultimately. >> Okay, but we are not currently in the pilot program. >> [clears throat] >> Nothing has been deployed in the pilot program as of yet. We are still in the planning phases. The contract has been signed. Noth- The contract term doesn't start until the first documented operational flight of a drone. So, we are still in the planning, permitting, and um, discussion phase of where things are going to go. So, nothing has been started. We have cameras. Other cities have cameras, uh, throughout the county. Those are still those cities and our and our cameras. Um, there will be deployment of more cameras coming. We're just working through the process of the permitting and the site selection and everything like that. I can just I can tell you right now that across the board, there are zero city streets that will be involved in this pilot program. It will all be county highway or state right-of-way. Um, no matter what city we wish to put them in, that is the plan. So, if um, as the as the sheriff has said, if you decided you wanted to opt out, that would that would still be respected. Um, but in the cities that we do participate in, um, they are staying on county and state right-of-way. >> Wait, I'm sorry. I wasn't here when you came last time, so I So, the city of Saint Francis is in the pilot program or are we not? That That That's the status. >> There was There wasn't a quote-unquote opt-in. We were as a law enforcement community, we were moving forward as a joint law enforcement, uh, operation. Um, if certain cities choose to not, like Columbia Heights, they said, "Absolutely not, we're not having any cameras in our in our Okay. Um and you can take a look at crime stats since that and that's fine. Um but what I'll tell you is that we won't put We're not putting anything in Columbia Heights. Because they've been adamantly against it and that's fine. The sheriff's The sheriff's decision is that we will respect their decision and we won't put any tech in their city. >> So currently this program >> have We have identified locations that we would like to put cameras in your city. And one of the DARs. >> So I mean, I guess I'm I'm a little confused when you say we have the ability to opt out with all of all of us so to speak voting on it or coming to a consensus vote on it. How do How do you know that we're opting out or in? >> Uh just through the communication with the chief. >> Cuz I mean, I think clearly I think we have opt-in on the on the drone. >> Uh and that's what we're here for tonight is just to to get a >> general consensus of where council [clears throat] stands on on being part of the pilot that hasn't officially begun yet. And with that, what what do we want that to include? Do we want that to include a drone? Do we want that to include the ALPRs? We'll We'll take that feedback and we'll provide that to the sheriff and and see how they want to proceed. >> So I mean, am I Go ahead, Jill. >> So Well, do we have a a deadline so to speak to give you that information? I mean, obviously it's There's a launch date, no pun intended there, but when the drone launches, apparently that's when the uh date starts. Um and then I also wanted to say, um you know, I'm I'm going to continue to research everything, figure out what I can. To me, it's the truth and the facts are the most important things. Um you know, get that information out there. I understand everybody's concerns. I understand the benefits right and I do want the good guys to have every tool they can. I think that the scariest part to me is the lack of accountability at the state level even with some of our high-ranking state officials and say this fraud situation. What actually happened I can't tell you, but I think the lack of accountability or the lack of confidence in government in general is my biggest concern because I want good guys to have the right tools. I I just I don't know, you know, how do how do I how do I convince myself and the constituents that 100% we're going to have accountability for this situation is is kind of my biggest hurdle, but is there a deadline that we needed definitely have a consensus to say, "Yeah, we want to go ahead." or "No, we don't." or anything like that. >> I don't have a hard date on that. I can tell you that as we work through the permitting process we're going to prioritize the cities that are actively engaged in this program and want to continue the program because to get the most, you know, bang for our buck is to get them deployed. Get the It's It's the combination of cameras and drones and the software to all work together that provides the benefit, the maximum benefit. Um so, uh as far as a hard line a hard deadline I don't have one for you. Um I can tell you that we don't have any sharing agreements with the feds and we currently don't share with I don't believe we have a sharing agreement with the state patrol or any of the any of the state agencies. Um this is going to be an Okaloosa County project. Um so, that's that's kind of where I'll leave that at. >> I have a question. >> So, can we opt out for the cameras and opt in for the drones? Is that a poss- is that an option? >> Yes. >> Okay, well I'll just say that out. That's where I would like would want to go with that if we were voting today for >> I think I think >> I just don't I think I I think we need a just a consensus. Just vote on this. I I do. I I don't know. >> Yeah, that's where I would be. That's that at this point. >> I I I would agree. Sarah? >> I think I think we're now, yeah. I think we can at least say that we want to opt in for the drone. I don't think we need I think we need to still discuss this and look into it further cuz I do agree that it's a very good tool. So, I think we just have to proceed with caution, but >> Calvin? >> I thought it was a package deal early on and drone or not or >> In a perfect world, it would be a package deal. Um in order to move forward and get some get some traction on this program, we are willing to make a little some concessions as to what is put into your city. I'm not going to I'll be honest, it's not my preferred, but I am not a resident of your city. I'm not going to tell you how you should vote. Um but I would Is it more effective if you have the cameras? Yes. Will we utilize the drone if we can place it up here? It every day. It'll be I can assure you that based on the call volume and the type of calls, it will be flying routinely. >> I would I would vote for the drone situation currently and then let's see how this the pilot uh program goes with the county wide. >> Joel? >> Yeah, I'm 100% on the drone um tonight. I think, you know, it's What was there? Two? Was there two late uh license plate readers? Is that what it was supposed to be? Do you remember off top of your head? >> Three, potentially four. And mainly it's going to one was going to be south on on 47 near Ambassador more towards the border. There's going to be one 227th. There's I don't think it was more than five. >> Okay. I know there are certain but I mean I'd I'd like to continue that to I don't know gain the confidence I guess of people if this is where we're going to move. I think it's I think eventually it's inevitable. I think like you say it's a it's a slippery slope when it comes to this stuff and I I I think it's it's to me it's it's better to have 100% confidence in it for me to say 100% I want to move forward. But I think the drone is a no-brainer to me. So that's where I'm at. >> Sure. >> I mean bring back to the sheriff and we're happy to discuss it again anytime, but I think that's kind of where we're falling at the moment. So >> All right. Well, if I may, I'll I if I can work with the chief on uh the uh coming back in a few months and talking a little bit more about ALPRs, but in the meantime one of our steps will be to work with uh city engineer, the public works director on the on the installation of a one of the drones um at the PD in a secure area. So um and then >> That sounds good. >> continually uh we'll be continually funneling uh feedback and information back to the chief. It's not This isn't a one-time thing. It's going to be a continual project. So >> Thank you for your time. Thank you for >> Thank you for having me. >> Thank you very much. >> Sure. >> Sorry, I'm a last minute kind of guy. Um all right, so is that >> [clears throat] >> obviously I think is it I would think it'd be legal I guess to share the stats or the data with you know, this is this is the positive numbers we using county regardless of the current ones we have. >> Yes, I can tell you right now that we have not been overt in our communications with the successes with the with our cameras. Um and that will change uh in the near future. We're in the process of building out our transparency portal, which will have significantly more information than most people will want to know. Um and it will have we'll have our PIO will be handling a lot of the the positive uh feedback. And honestly, if there is something that goes wrong and one of our guys or gals decide to do something that's wrong, I assure you that will be publicized even more because there will be a there will be people held accountable for it. Um I've worked for the last 2 years on this project. I'm not going to let somebody messing around or doing something inappropriate ruin it for the public safety in Anoka County. So, I would say look out for uh more information to come from the Sheriff's Office once the new transparency portal, especially with the drones, is up and available. It'll have flight times gene- uh it'll have scrubbed data of any kind of like location. Um but you'll be able to see flight paths um on the public site. You can see flight times, launches, landings, all that kind of stuff. So, um if you're interested in looking at one that is up and running that is very um very good, go to Elk Grove, California. Uh their transparency portal when it comes to their drones and ALPR, that is going to be it's going to be mirrored to what we're doing is they they've been up and running for a couple of years. So, that's what we're looking for is to have well, you look and you're like, "Oh my god, there's look at all these flights um and we're and you can we've had one person that's concerned about flights. And he's like, "There was somebody flying a drone over my house." and it wasn't us. And he's like, "How do I know?" And I pulled up the our flight logs. I'm like, "We haven't flown in that city in 3 months." So, we were able to locate who it was. It was a different county that was flying for a search warrant. But, all of that information will be available online. It's coming. Can't post something that doesn't exist right now. We don't have that in any of the drones or anything deployed yet, so. >> Thank you for your time. >> Appreciate your time. Sorry it went long, but um Chief has my contact information. Any of you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly, okay? >> Thank you, sir. Thank you. >> On to meeting open to the public. Anybody wishing to speak, come on forward. >> Good evening, Carol. City of St. Francis. >> Hi. >> You guys probably thought you weren't going to hear from me tonight, so. >> [laughter] >> Um so, one thing I I know Joe has talked about this. You talked about it. Um the Alexandra House is, in my opinion, not a charity. Um and I I'm going to get emotional here, but um as I have talked to Todd, and I thank you, and I thank your officers that do this without the support of the city, and without the support of any kind of funding to help this, because I, at one point, was in a very abusive relationship. And if I would not have had my family as support, my son and I probably would not be here today. Cuz I didn't know about that Alexandra House. Had no clue. And to tell you how amazing this place is, I lived a block and a half away from that facility. This was after I had already left the abusive relationship, and I had no clue it was there. That's how secure this place is. You cannot see it from the road. There's no address out there for you to just search for it. They don't just randomly take donations from people. If you want to drop stuff off, you have to have a donation time scheduled. Nobody can just come into that facility. And so, when people call it a charity, it's not a charity. It is a lifesaver. And I thank all police and all first responders that help deal with that because that saves so many lives. So, I beg you and I plead to reconsider donating money to them to help because you know, even you guys talking about the flock and you talk about this Okay, yeah, the flock is going to save people, but this program saves a lot of women, men and children. And I I'm so thank you all very much, but thank you very much, Todd, for bringing them in and for continuing to utilize them even though we are not helping donate to that to that fund. So, thank you. >> You know. >> Good evening, Mayor, council members. Uh my name is Jim Tyson. Um live in St. Francis. Been here about a year now. Um the whole flock and drone topic, we could be here all night debating back and forth. I just want to offer a couple thoughts. Um And I'm sure I'm not going to cover all of them that I've been thinking about for the last half hour, but bear with me. Uh one of the things that he had mentioned is uh now let [clears throat] me start with the the whole packaging deal. Um I hate when our governments do this all the time. I'll call it lipstick on a pig. You get one good thing, but they're going to bulk it in a bunch of garbage along with it just to get it passed. I think we're all for the drones. The lieutenant made a comment about, you know, the system works better if the cameras are tied with the drones. If the cameras are only tagging license plates, honestly, what the heck does that have to do with the drone helping police and fire on scene? Secondly, um the whole system and why this is probably blowing up now more so than the last 15 years that everyone's had cameras and whatnot, it's the AI part. You get data center blow-ups. You get power utilities that want to have, you know, raising the cost to all of us to offset the cost and provide record profits to the companies. AI is non-deterministic. If you're not familiar, that means that you can ask the thing four question or four times the same question, and chances are you're going to get back a different answer. So, the system that takes a snapshot of your license plate, which yes is innocuous, it's public data, you're on the street, whatever. If it can't get the perfect digits, it's going to interpolate or make up something. You get cases where people get ripped out of cars and it's not even them that were at fault. So, that's the downside of the the cameras, right? Your ta- your car, you drive past it, you come close to something, it couldn't totally see your license plate, next thing you know, you're being pulled over for something you didn't even do. I guess what it all boils down to is this is an important topic, and either as a city, you have a big meeting where everyone can come and voice their opinions, and you have discourse back and forth, and then you guys know how to go, or quite honestly, put it on the ballot. Which is no different than the county sheriff should have done or anything else. It This is an important enough of an issue that people should have the ability to say yay or nay to. And I know licensing costs with packaging deals makes a difference, but split this crap apart, right? We I think we all support the drones being there. They're They're a big help. How many times can you be on different scenes and you get the above head view, right? But these cameras are not it it's just more lipstick on a pig. I think I'm in the same boat that you are. It's just passive data collection. You know, it it's a still image, yes, of your license plate, but what's the frame of vision? I guarantee you there could be other people walking around, faces. These cameras can record and while the cameras may not have AI on them, the company still has the data. They could, you know, yes, there's retention policies, but they can process it anyway they want. So, if the laws aren't there ahead of time, which our laws in this nation never are ahead of time, ahead of technology, you know, concerned about the people, they can do anything they want with that data. They own the data. So, thank you. >> Thank you, John. >> [clears throat] >> Well, Mike Paul, St. Francis. Um I was only going to say one thing about Flock and that's really all it is. Um in the early '90s, I lived in Illinois at the time. I was in Richton Park, Illinois. And uh they ran my license plate just driving through my apartment area. And my name's Michael Paul. There's a lot of them out there. Well, they did a felony stop in front of my aunt's house and pulled me out of the driver's window at gunpoint. Under misidentification where I was the wrong Mike Powell. So, if they can put that on Flock and make it a lot more than just driving through my neighborhood, what's going to stop that from happening? There may be safety features to it I'm not aware of. I don't know. I'm just telling you that I've been a victim of misidentification of my license plate years before Flock ever existed. And it could get out of hand. But like I said, I don't know the system well enough to say that there's not safeguards there to stop that. I don't know and I'll I'll tell you my ignorance off the bat. But it is a fear that I've got. But that's all I got on that. Now, my next one, very disappointing of what we were talking about earlier on uh speaking. Um it's amazing that I came out after the uh primaries. Um because I read the second page of that. And it was talking I talking to you today about it. That it's talking well um you can't talk more than one topic over 90 days and this that and the other. And that's what other cities near us have done. Okay, if Isanti jumped off the bridge, would you jump with them? I mean, that's what my parents would tell me when I did something stupid and I said my buddy did that. Well, if they jump your buddy jumped off the bridge. Well, that's the same thing we're getting when we've talked about um the cars parked on the grass. Well, well, Isanti does this or another neighboring county does that. Well, we're not them. We're doing what's best for our community. And I don't think censoring us is good. Um You talk about uh Facebook. Yes, we all talk on Facebook after the meetings. That's a fact. I also talk about Pontiac 400s and Trans Ams and GTOs on Facebook. I mean that's where you talk with like-minded people and you agree or you disagree. That's kind of what the platform was designed for. Does it get abused? Absolutely. But that is a forum for communication. Not everybody does it but some of us do. But to say, "Well, we talk about it on Facebook after the meetings." and that's a "I got you." moment. I don't think that was fair at all. Um because we are trying to talk. Um I did talk with uh Joe, I talked with you and I talked with uh Jenny and everybody about this. I mean at least they responded. Um I don't think censorship is good. I mean if that's what you guys want it, why'd you guys wait till now to say it? Why didn't you say it 2 weeks ago? Um because what that letter said that was in that uh or the agenda today was a heck of a lot more than just cutting to one. If you only wanted to hear us once, that's fine. But even when you say, "Well, but we go, "Well, well, well, one more minute." Well, you did it. Joe did it today while the lieutenant was doing it. Why is it wrong when we do it? Because as the communication's going on and talking and things evolve, we're going to have more questions that we want to add to it. And uh there's a lot of times like uh and I waited to talk to the last one here so people didn't think I talked twice so I don't waste everybody's time. But you guys got to decide. You say you guys want us to be involved and you don't have to have the answers right away, but I've asked the questions about the property behind Subway for a year and a half. I've asked the heads. That's everybody that sits in front of me right now and I get a different answer all the time. The property they extended the purchase agreement for a certain amount of after the TIF was denied so they could come up with another plan. Then it was extended because they uh didn't have the property lines. Well, it couldn't be sold until uh they had a plan and all that stuff has been a lie. It's not even a miscommunication anymore. Uh So, who's holding those heads responsible for giving misinformation? Is it you guys? Is it the heads of the departments? Um or And that's why we get frustrated because you Okay, we'll send us an email. We're not getting answers coming and talking at this podium. It's a lot easier to bury that email. And if that's what you guys are looking for, I mean, I >> [laughter] >> you've got the power. I don't. I mean, that's your guys' decision. But don't tell us you want our input and then tell us to shut up. You can't have it both ways. And there's not tons of people that come in here and give a lot of opinions all the time. So, there's only a handful of Some are with me and some are against me, but you may guys are making it sound like you've got hundreds of people in here every other week talking, and that's not true. I've been up what the last six or seven meetings, and there hasn't been that many people. Today was the most that I've seen in a long time. So, I I mean, you guys got to decide what you guys want. I mean, but you guys are the power. I'm not. I'm giving my opinion. You can listen to it or not. I mean, that's just the way life is. But you can't say you want my opinion and tell me to shut up. You've got to come up with a better plan than that. And if you guys want a piece of paper for us to sign, does that mean that we can only talk about what's on that paper? Or things like I didn't know the clock was being talked about today. So, I couldn't bring that up cuz I wanted to talk about it the censorship thing that we're going through. Would I have been able to speak on that? Or is it just what's on the paper? Because I don't mind putting on a paper to give a thing that I I don't care if you guys answer right away. But I've been asking the same questions for a year and a half over there, and I haven't got an answer from anybody that sits up here, the heads or the council. Not a legitimate answer anyway. So, I mean, that's all I got to say, but I like I said, you just got to pick your battles here. Do you want to our opinions or you don't? Um, are we allowed to raise our finger and say, "Hey, I got one more question?" Or we're not. I mean, because you would the mayor, you have told us to stop, and we have. So, it's not like we're not listening to the council. We're not being rude. Okay, we get passionate, but then you say, "Okay, that's enough." We stop. We've always given that respect. So, seeing that letter or the the agenda today, that's a blindside. That isn't a very good look for any of us. I don't think that's who we are. I don't care what our neighbors are. I don't live in a Santee or East Bethel or any of those. I live in Saint Francis. And that's what I want to talk about. I don't give a damn about them. Cuz that doesn't do my life. This does. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. Anybody else? Seeing none, two council member reports. Kevin. Not much. I did attend the night the National Night Out. I hopped over here and saw our uh group with a couple nice booths set up. A lot of people. It was really impressive to see how many community members were out there. Kids, moms, and dads, and utilizing the park stuff as well as them food trucks, and the fire department, and the fire district, and uh it was really uh good to see. It was really heartwarming. And then I buzzed back and checked out in my own neighborhood and talked to some neighbors I hadn't seen in a while as well. So, but again, kudos to our ever-giving staff, the public works, and they were there and not just with shoulders down and chin on chest. They were there with some enthusiasm, whether it be fake or not. They were doing a really good job faking it then. Cuz they were here they were um putting their best foot forward, and I applaud that heavily. Thank you. Thanks, Kevin. Sarah? I also attended the um National Night Out on 19 United and again, it was it was great to see how many people are out and um the kids were having a lot of fun. I think there was a little bit different things this year and so they they were enjoying those. So, great job, staff. >> Thank you. >> Amy? >> Um I don't have a lot to report, but I just wanted to say to to Mike and all the people that have been coming. I mean, we we actually really do want to hear from you. For me, the form was just a way to get back to people. Um like we probably know Mike, we probably know how to call you or Tina or some of the other people that speak regularly, but we don't always we don't always know that and so um and my comment about the school board with the form and you have to sign up ahead of time. You can't jump in after. I don't want to it to be that way. Um what I was saying for us, I don't want it to be that way here. Um I think that um and also at the school board, they um they don't usually interact at all with whomever is asking the question and that really falls it just really falls flat. You're there and there's just nothing. Now, they've added a little bit where sometimes the superintendent might answer a quick question, but the school board members themselves don't interact that much with whomever is asking the question. And it and it really it really feels like you're not being heard. But they do have that form where you can say, this is how you contact me to for a response and then they take that and they make sure someone responds, the appropriate person. And so for me, the discussion tonight on um public speaking was not meant to tell anybody that we don't want to hear from you. That is the exact opposite of what we were trying to say, or me anyway, I'll speak for myself. Um it was more for me, it was more for we need to be answering the questions that people are asking, especially the ones that come come back repeatedly. So for me it was more on how do we get the answers that they are came here to an- to ask, and because we we can't we can't always answer them. In fact, we should say we we can't ever answer them here. And so sometimes the dialogue is just too much. I think you alluded to it once, Sarah. Sometimes the dialogue is just too much in it. The first hour of every meeting is just is just back and forth, and we and just in to keep the move the the meeting going forward, and to then get back to whoever asked the question at a later date is I think a better a better route for for getting answers, I think. Um so that for me that's what it that's what it was for to to actually answer your questions, but we really do appreciate everyone coming um because there's meetings, not lately, but where there's no one. So it's hard to know what to do with if no one comes. That's my my two cents. >> Joel? >> Uh well, I was not at National Night Out. I'm working out of town, unfortunately. Um did a lot of research on some of the topics that we've been looking up, um looking at other different other things in other departments as far as uh budget and whatnot, but other than that I have not been directly involved in the community. So that's all I have. >> Thanks, Joel. I don't have much either other than National Night Out. Appreciate the effort everybody put into that. That's big that's a lot of effort. Um and we all I mean, it wasn't just me, we all attended our special canvas meeting here this last Friday. So. Canvas the votes. Other than that, I've got nothing else. Anybody else anything last? >> No, sir. >> No. >> I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. >> I'll make that motion. >> Motion by Councilman Fines. Do I have a second? >> I'll second, Mayor. >> Seconded by Councilman Robinson. Meeting's adjourned at 8:15 p.m. >> You got a motion. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Gosh. >> [laughter] >> What? >> Roll call. >> Roll call. Sorry. Good. Sorry, Jenny. >> Mayor Vogel. >> I. >> Council members Mehlbauer. >> I. >> Fines. >> I. >> Abing. >> I. >> Robinson. >> I. >> We're adjourned at 8:15, [laughter] so we >> You made it still in the time.