Recommendation to Authorize the City Manager to Negotiate and Execute a Purchase Agreement, or in the Alternative a Lease Agreement, for a New Security Camera System from ICU Technologies for the Police Administration Building and Off-Site Property Storage Facilities in an Amount Not to Exceed $274,075.97.  (Police 3116)
I. May or as he Ashcraft I that carries 4 to 1. All right, thank you. Then we move on to item five, see? And then, of course, you introduced that one. Recommendation to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute a purchase agreement or in the alternative, a lease agreement for a new security camera system. From I see you technologies for the police administration building an offsite property storage facilities in an amount not to exceed 274,000 7597. Okay. And, Councilman, that's why you were the one who who pulled this. Did you want a staff reporter? Do you just want to. I'm okay without a staff report. I mean, maybe I can mention why. And then if we want a staff report after, we can get maybe more questions. So I appreciate all the information. I appreciate Chief Fenton and City Manager Levitt providing some information earlier today about this. I question why six weeks before we are actually hearing back from our community about how we want to prioritize funding and services with regard to our our police department. We are voting tonight to to extend or I'm sorry, increase the budget for the department with very little with an unknown general fund impacts as stated in the in the staff report. To me I think it would be better to have this come back as a part of a budget. It's a ten year old system. It was clearly not a priority two years ago. I do understand that there was an issue with some vandalism that's mentioned in the staff report that was not we weren't able to prosecute the vandals. But at this time, I'm not confident that this is actually rising to the to to increasing public safety. We have an item Councilmember Spencer has put on nine be at the end of the item, end of the agenda for us to discuss safety and whatnot in the future. And I think we should hear through the rest of our policy process before we start spending a quarter million dollars on a video system to catch folks vandalizing the police department. So I think, Councilmember, I see that we have joining us interim chief police chief Randy Shin. Captain Jeffrey Emmett, apologies. I don't know. Mark in Fresno, is that a member of the department or a madam? Madame Mayor? Yes. Dynamic representative from ICU Technologies. Got it. Okay. And before I call on either of you. City manager level. Did you. Are you fine? How would you like us to proceed? I could start off from my perspective. Or actually, maybe I'll let Captain Emmett first start off with the reason I was requested. And then I can add on to why. Why move this forward to the council? It actually came forward initially in August. I waited till late in the year to move it forward, basically because of the budget concerns that I. Councilmember Knox White had mentioned. But I'll let Captain Emmett first discuss it and then I can add to that. Okay. So I will note that I just heard from the city clerk that there are four public speakers on this item, but I am going to treat this like the staff report. And then we will come to the public speakers and we'll see if there are any clarifying questions from the council and then we'll go to our staff reports. So I'm Chief and if we could go to you first. Thank you for having me. I'd like to defer to Captain Emmett, who wrote the staff report. It's kind of where we started. Okay. Captain Emmett, back to you. Madam Mayor and members of the council and city staff. Thank you. So the security system that we currently have at the police department is is outdated. It's about ten years old. Its primary function is not to catch criminal acts. It is to help protect and to provide situational awareness to the employees that work in the building and for the citizens during normal times outside of COVID that would visit our building. And basically one of the issues that came up that was alluded to earlier, we did have a vandalism that occurred back in November of 2019. And the footage that was obtained from that vandalism was very poor quality. The cameras are old, and it did take some time to search through the DVR system that we have that records, all of the the motion activated footage. So that was one of the challenges. One of the other challenges that we have in that we're trying to increase is the offsite storage facilities that we use for our property and evidence. We do have two of those locations within the city that does house evidence that sometimes needs to be maintained for forever, whether it's a homicide investigation, sexual assault kits that we need to maintain. And we just don't have the space in our police administration building that allows us to keep it all in-house. We do have cameras at some of those locations. We would like to add a layer of security and add cameras in those locations to help to help us keep those safe. And if something were to happen at those locations, to be able to provide us some better quality footage that we can go back and look at at a later time if we needed to. Also, looking into the future, the city is has been working on a keycard access system for some of its buildings here. And the camera system that we are currently looking at does have the capability of being built into and working with those keycard access systems, which would also help to add a layer of security not only to our building but to our employees as well. So that that's. That's the reason we're looking at it at this moment. And to the city manager's comment, we did submit this back in August after a lengthy process with the vendors. Thank you, Captain. And Mr. Levin, is your hand up? Yes. If I could just add quickly and the reason we are bringing it outside the budget process, even though it wasn't budget, is because this is a replacement of a system that I was convinced is not functioning properly. If it was to ask for a new system and we didn't have a system in place, then I would be bringing it back with the budget. I held it because obviously with COVID expenses and COVID revenues and uncertainty, I wasn't sure if I felt I wasn't sure where we were economically. So that's why I held it for 4 to 5 months. I feel better economically today than I did four or five months ago, and I felt that we could handle it, although I can't guarantee where that money would necessarily come from because we have had salary costs that we that were, I assume just because COVID has hit us in certain ways, there's created salary issues in a variety of departments. Thank you, Mr. Levitt. Chief ended. You want to add anything to that? I think it was well covered. Again, just providing for the security of our employees and again, the citizens who use our facility, I think is of paramount concern here. Okay. Thank you. City council members. Any questions? Clarifying questions from the report. Vice Mayor Vella. So a few questions. One is a camera to which it would cover public parking. What's the the the. I guess my question is how far into that parking lot is actually being covered? Because that parking lot is shared with City Hall. Vice mayors, that camera that would be on the the southeast corner that would also capture the vehicle gate that our patrol vehicles come out of. I know in speaking with the vendor there, there is a way that we can angle the camera as such not to capture parts of the parking lot. That would be concerning. We also do have that storage garage that's in the city hall parking lot where that camera could also help to capture the comings and goings from that area as well. But it would. Which is. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's I was going to that was my next question. Was that camera. But specifically because. I just would say I would ask that we let one speaker finish before we pose our questions. Captain, I think you were finishing a sentence and then back to the vice mayor. About your property storage area there at the edge of the parking lot. So. So, were you saying that the camera. Yeah. It would help us to keep an eye on that location. And I think that we could work with the vendor to position the camera in such a way that we were not capturing parts of the parking lot that were not intended with the security camera purpose. So I'd like to confirm because are you talking about camera five, garage b two. No. So we're garage May one. Those would be cameras that were more focused on the doors to those locations and inside of the building. Okay. So you're talking about the camera that's out that's mounted outside of the motor cage. Yes. And I can. Do you want to do a screen share check? So confirming camera two is, though, is that one on the southeast corner there that would capture part of the public parking lot in between the police department and city hall. More directed towards our vehicle pedestrian or vehicle gate where the patrol cars and. Is there a reason we would need to capture the vehicle gate? It would be a security concern because that gate is pressure activated from the inside and does remain open. If someone was to walk in behind a vehicle that was exiting, it would allow us to view that. Okay. Councilmember I mean Vice Mayor Avila. For the and yeah I think it's hard to understand based off of has the has the vendor provided. You've said that there's ways to to angle the cameras. Has the vendor provided any diagrams or anything like that that would show what areas would actually be filmed in these in these public spaces? No. Just the locations of where they would be mounted. Okay. So potentially things that could be captured if mounted incorrectly or if the amounts change would include councilmember parking spots. Correct. As well as some public parking spots in the city hall parking lot. But it's not our intention to capture those spots. And we would do everything that we could to prevent that from happening. We are focusing on the the paving and the the security of the. The police the police administrative building for. Those I'm sorry, the police administration building. And the reasoning for that camera in that position is to capture the vehicle gate and the pedestrian gate that's along that side of the police administration building. And I'm just going to interject that we will certainly have our council discussion about what direction we want to take. I want to hold out the consideration also that there may be security concerns for people who work late at night and come to their cars in the evening when it's dark, like I do oftentimes and oftentimes, even when I'm leaving in the evening with dark or cleaning, ladies who work late into the night are coming and they work into the early morning hours often. So we'll we'll have that discussion. But what other clarifying questions do we have? Did you have work? I still. Yes, I did. And so how long will the video be maintained? So video is maintained per state law and I believe it's in the report for any recordings for up to a year. Is that in compliance with our our data retention and privacy policies? I believe so. And who will have access to the footage? Is that subject to a public request for information? So one of the nice things about this system compared to the system that we currently have is the the access to our current system is extremely limited. We have one maybe to two people who can actually access the system. This system here does allow us to provide more access to employees. We can limit what their accessibility is. As I stated in the report, the the custodian of records will will do their yearly purge when it when we start that in about November. And they're the only ones that can actually delete information or or purge it. But it would give, say, a police officer at 3:00 in the morning who typically does not have access to our current system to be able to live view the cameras. If, say, there was a concern with something happening around the building or somebody at the front counter that needed assistance. Okay. And. In terms of changing the location that the cameras are focused on. What's the process for that? I'm not sure I understand your question. Can once mounted, can the cameras. The direction of the cameras be changed? And what is the process for that? Well, once the cameras are mounted, we want them in a certain location. If they were to move, it would it wouldn't be. What we intended for them to do. So we would have to call the vendor out, or we would have to call for a repair service to come in and reposition them. Okay. And what this is a question for the city manager. Do we have other another video surveillance system for other city buildings that we use? Or is this the vendor that we use? For surveillance. We have limited surveillance systems in other buildings. I think this is the only vendor we use. Can you. We do have the key card system that is currently getting implemented. I think that's a separate vendor bound deferred to the assistant city manager on that. Our public parking garage also has a video recording system. It's not working very well, and when it comes time to replace, it will likely look to the vendor that we've been working with, with the police department. I think the vice mayor's question and I don't want to speak for her is that is this vendor currently providing surveillance at any other city buildings or property? I need an audible answer. Sorry about that. Not at this time. Thank you. Okay. Okay. And so to follow up to that, and this is my final question. Other than the city. The parking garage for like where we keep our fleet or at other buildings. Do we have video surveillance? Or do we use other other technology? I don't need to know what that technology is. I'm just asking. We use the video technology. We have video cameras in the parking garage and at our maintenance service center currently, in addition to the police department cameras that are being. That the request is coming forward to. Replace. Thank you. Also, just one other location, Alameda point. We do have some cameras at Alameda Point as well. Thank you. The. The Civic Center parking garage, Mr. Bowden. The Army to plan. What was the. The second one you mentioned? Maintenance. The maintenance facility. Yeah. And our Alameda Point location, just so folks are aware, is it's a vacant building. And it's just to make sure that we are keeping an eye on things when we don't really have people around. And then inside city hall, folks know of the camera system that's outside of the city manager's office and the city attorney's office. So that's the that's the list. Q Thank you for the questions. Counsel before we get our public speakers, Councilmember Spencer. Add one more and mute. Thank you. Okay. So I'm not sure if you all answered this already, but this looks like the geography included in our fiscal year budget. And why was it not included? Was there some incident that recently occurred? Or was it just, you know, they had the money and city manager or any of these. I'll defer to the captain if it's okay, Mary. I defer to Captain. Captain to discuss why it wasn't submitted. It was the same as a proposal in the. In their two year budget. But. Kevin. Thank you. So initially, this project started back in November of 2019 when we had that first vandalism where our operator phone was ripped out of the wall. In looking through that footage, it was very clear that we needed to upgrade our system, which started the process of reaching out to vendors. As we were reaching out to vendors, COVID 19 hit, which put somewhat of a delay. I was not sure at the time if we were going to be able to move forward with the project. I fortunately came across the ICU technologies who is able to work with us during the COVID 19 issues that we were all having and experiencing. And by the time we went through that process and had reports completed, it was late August. So it wasn't it wasn't planned. And it was just a need that we came up, that we came across. And, you know, the project just kind of wrapped up at the time that it did. All right, so there was. I just want make sure we're talking about one incident in 2019. Yeah. And we've actually had two recent vandalism that have occurred in the last three weeks. We had some graffiti that was that occurred on the front bricks of the the front steps of the police department. And then last week, we had we had someone break one of the windows to our front doors. And, you know, those incidents were were captured on our current system. And again, the quality of the footage is, in my opinion, insufficient. All right. So if we don't. Yes, yes. Thank you. So if we don't approve it tonight, does this come back? When does it come back? I guess it's going to be in a mid-year budget or something. When when would we see that? It would. The mayor. Mary, can I have two things? It would either come back in either the mid-year budget or come back as far as the next two year budget, which is coming this spring. Okay. So how soon is the mid-year budget coming to us? The mid-year is scheduled to come on February 16th. So you're bringing this now. Otherwise it's going to come February 16th. We? That would be an option. You could come forward in on February 16th. So other departments will be bringing their additional requests February 16th. That. That would be correct. All right. Thank you. Okay. Any further questions? Clarifying questions. Okay. Let's hear our public speakers. How many public speakers do we have, Madam Clerk? We have six. Okay, so with six. They get 3 minutes. Each, so get 3 minutes. Okay. If another speaker comes up, please let us know, because the time will change. Okay. With the razor. Hello, Mr. Fraser. Hello again. I have to. Say, it makes me so happy to go first. I'm a middle child. I'm always. Overlooked. So being first three times. In one night, this is like my night. Anyway, I agree with everything Councilmember Knox said, and I believe that the. City manager knows his stuff. And so if he says you can't pay employees or you can't find money to pay employees, I would listen to that and not buy. A security camera system. I might add that I have a security. Camera system and watched my truck roll out of my front driveway. APD has that footage too, and I haven't heard anything back, so I'm not sure footage would help. At least it doesn't sit with citizens. So I would encourage you to wait on that item. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fraser, your next speaker. We now have seven additional speakers, so we go to. Typically get 2. Minutes and Grover Wieman Brown. Good evening again. Good evening. Please do not spend any more of. Our public. Dollars on. Surveillance of our community that would just go directly into the police department. Security cameras don't prevent crime. And for me, my personal experience is that they don't keep me safe. They make me feel anxious and worried about privacy and who's watching me. And specifically, they don't prevent crime. They just. Record crime. If crime happens. As it's happening. And so. I just really this is a lot of money and it was put on consent, which worried me. And I just ask you to put on the brakes. And if this is really important to the upkeep, let us have a community debate about it as part of the budget. It's a lot of money to spend to surveil us as we walk around the sidewalks and come to protests outside of the police department for what has been mentioned as graffiti or a phone being pulled out of the. Wall. At a time when so many people in our community need desperate help and funds to keep their businesses open, to feed their children and to stay housed. How many people could stay housed with that amount of money that's being proposed? If we were to shift those funds outside of a police camera to support our actual community members that need it badly right now. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Madam Clerk. Like the Abbey. All right. Good evening. This abbey. Good evening. I strongly urge you all to vote no on approving the new security cameras for APD. I can't help but continuously think of what almost $275,000 from the general fund can do for this city, for the folks that have lost jobs or housing due to COVID. For the public services on this island that already have an astronomically lowered budget than APD. Or maybe we could hire proper mental health workers to respond to mental health calls instead of cops or basically tons of things. It's also concerning that all of a sudden, after protests and rallies that have transpired over the past year, protests that often pass by or are outside of APD or nearby at City Hall, they've happened. And now all of a sudden there was a pressing need for security cameras. APD already gets almost 40% of the city's budget. There are current committees looking at and bundling services, and it doesn't make sense for them to take this almost $275,000 from the city's general fund. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker. Ginny Sanderson. Good evening, Mr. Anderson. Good evening again. I just want to I kind of echo and I agree maybe it's for the first time and only time ever with Councilmember Herrera Spencer on asking why this isn't part of the regular budget process, which is coming up in less than a month, apparently. I you know, we had this whole debate over the summer about police accountability and racism, and we were told nothing can be done until these steering committees come back with their recommendations. And now the steering committees are starting to come back with their recommendations. And we're doing all of this budgeting stuff for APD in the interim. You know, and then I'm curious. City manager Levitt said that he was convinced this system doesn't work or it or doesn't work. And then Officer Mean says that it does work right now. So I feel like, you know, if it does work, it can work for another month until we address this budget in the regular budget. I also, you know, there's a lot of departments that are going to be cutting funds because of COVID. And as other speakers mentioned, there's a lot of needs in the community. So I'm just wondering what APD would be willing to cut in exchange for almost $275,000, maybe some trainings, which we've been told is incredibly expensive by APD themselves, perhaps some overtime, one or two officer positions or maybe an armored vehicle. Thank you. Thank. Thank you. Mr. Anderson. Our next speaker. Laura Katrina. Good evening, Miss Katrina. Good evening again. Council Members and Madam Mayor. As an Alameda resident, I ask that you do not approve these new security cameras for APD. The request is for almost $275,000, and it states that it would come from the city's general fund. And it seems like this upgraded system is a nice to have not need to have all the cameras. I'm just also curious, are the cameras being replacements entirely or that we adding to the system? The cost of replacing an operator full on removing graffiti and replacing glass seems like it would cost a lot less than $275,000. And I agree with the comments that have already been made around waiting to see where we go with the recommendations from the committees formed this summer so that we don't make that investment now. But it's our moral documents and how we spend money as a city demonstrates what we value as we continue to fight a pandemic. And citizens needs increase due to economic hardships exacerbated by COVID, that $275,000 from the general fund to be used elsewhere. I know that the FT Alameda program just launched, and if we were to take that $275,000, that would be the same as 11,000 meals that can be delivered to folks who are hungry during this pandemic, especially when APD budget is almost 40% of the city's budget. I think we need to defer this decision. And if APD wants new cameras, they need to allocate that in their own budget and not coming from the city's general fund. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.. Couture. And our next. Speaker, Melody Montgomery. Good evening, Miss Montgomery. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I think that most of you all know that we're doing the committees. We're working hard out here with the reforming and the unbundling. And we we believe that you're all city council and city manager on our side and believing that this is a thing to be done. And if this is true, I'm asking that you respect the committee's work. Wait until we turn in our. Reports. And then see if this money can be found through unbundling services some place else rather than just try to throw it in early on. Something that we all know. The community said we didn't want to spend more money on police right now. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Montgomery. Our next speaker. Isobel Sullivan. Good evening, Mr. Sullivan. Hi. I urge you. To not approve. This new security camera system for the Alameda Police Department. This new system would cost nearly $275,000 coming out of the general fund at a time when many people are experiencing experiencing economic hardship due to COVID 19 and are without jobs and housing. And when many of your constituents are demanding a divestment from policing and a reinvestment in communities. Those $275,000 must be spent where the public. Is in need. A PD's budget accounts for nearly 40%. Of the city of Alameda. Total budget. If if. APD needs. A new camera system, APD should pay for it out of its own budget. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Sullivan. Our next speaker at bowling. Good evening, Mr. BOLLING. Hi there. Yeah, I'm just a little concerned with that. This was brought up in in concern item and that in I respect like the LAPD may have done some research into finding vendors but this isn't a open bidding process to potentially look for something that may be cheaper. I just kind of cursorily Googling the vendor here and not to speak to all of them, but it looks as if they're a reseller of just algun camera products, Motorola along camera products. And if there's other vendors that sell those for cheaper or what their value add is on top of that, I'm curious to hear or if there's other products in this space. This seems like a a lot of money to spend on cameras and camera systems that I would like to see, like if there's any competitive bids out there. That's mostly what I've got. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bowling, our next speaker. Steve Peres. Good evening, Mr. Peres. Just you. Thank you. Good evening. Here we go. Hi. I'm just a mute. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak. I just would like to echo what my fellow Americans have said, and just I would like to encourage the council to look into the process for acquiring the cameras, maybe have a more thorough review process as part of the annual budgeting process as well. And also would echo the fact that we at the city spend what I think is an inordinate amount on policing. And I would encourage all of you to take a look at how we spend our funds. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker at Cali State of new. Good evening. Yes. Hello. Good evening. Again. So I would also like to echo my fellow constituents that this budget request should be denied. People are hungry, they can't pay their bills, they're losing housing. And this request just seems so out of touch with this reality. And I would rather see this money used towards under funding, underfunded city services that are proven to increase community safety like health care, food security and housing security. I'm also very concerned with these cameras would be used to surveil protesters, especially given the timing of this request after a summer of protests in front of APD. And I believe that this request was first made in August 2020, right at the end of that summer. I also don't understand why we're considering this request right before the committees come back with their recommendations, just out of respect for the committees and also for the public. We should have an opportunity to weigh in on this before it's considered. Thank you. Thank you. Just for clarification, either, Captain Ed, Mr. Levitt, I. I don't think it was first came first came to us in August 2020. Didn't I hear date? It didn't come to the city council. It came to me for as a request and then through my review and look. When was that? Mr.. That was that was in August is when the police submitted it to me. But I didn't move it forward because I had concerns with the budget based on covert COVID at that time. Okay. I must have imagined hearing in November of 2019 was that not date night. That Madame Mayor. Kept captain? That was when I initiated looking into replacing our current system. Right, right, right. I did hear that. Okay. But I understand. So we're all correct. All right. Our next public speaker, Madam Kirk. Meredith Hoskin. Good evening, Ms.. Hoskin. Hello. Good evening, everyone. I also want to express my opposition to granting additional city funding to the Alameda Police Department at this time. I feel the 275 K in city funds would better support our community, particularly amidst the financial crisis many are facing during the COVID 19 pandemic. As the police department already has nearly 40% of the city's budget, I'd recommend they use those funds for their technical needs. Additionally, with the recent violence at our nation's capital on Wednesday, January six, and knowing some reports that representatives from police departments and public agencies from around the country were among the culprits involved in these attacks. The city of Alameda should not grant any additional funding to APD or other city departments until confirmed whether or not any of its officers and administrators were among the group of individuals who participated in the violent attack, violating their oath to uphold the Constitution and responsibilities to protect and serve. So please take that into consideration as we head into a mid-year budget. Thank you, Mr. Hoskin. Our next speaker. Vinny Camera. Good evening, Mr. Camarillo. Hello. Yeah. You're right. On. Hello. Good evening. I actually serve on the Unbundling. Police Services Committee, and I am here in opposition of giving almost $275,000 to the police department when they already get 40% of city funding. They could use their own funding to pay for this absurd amount of money that would come from the general fund. And I believe that this is. Such bad. Timing when we are about to. Bring out. Our recommendations just six weeks from now. And when I heard that it was brought to city manager Eric Levitt in August, right after the major protests that me and a few others. Had organized it. The timing just seemed really off, and I'm concerned about. If protesters faces will be. Shown and their idea. I want their identities to be protected. And I just hope that you. Vote against this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Camarillo. May we have a next speaker, Madam Clerk? Morgan Bellinger. Good evening. Good evening. I just. I just like to say that vandalism is cheap to fix. Terrorism is not. I don't understand how this can possibly be a focus of the police department when there's a white terrorist on the loose. Let's give the kids a wall to spray paint if they need a wall to spray paint. But let's let's find our terrorist first before we worry about kids vandalizing buildings. Thank you, Mr. Bell. And to our next speaker. That was our last speaker. We have no more speakers. All right. With that, I will close public comment and we will open it up to counsel discussion. I am going to just throw out a suggestion and you can see what you think. Counsel, I'm thinking maybe this isn't the right time to take this up for a number of the reasons stated and also the fact that we are coming up on budget hearings just next month. But I also want us to keep a couple of things in mind. I do think the timing is unfortunate for a number of reasons. There are a lot of issues that get conflated. However, I also take seriously the need to protect buildings where evidence of crimes, evidence that will be used to hopefully convict people of very serious crimes are stored. So whatever we do, let's make sure we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If there are other ways to go about this funding to reexamine the scope and the nature of this request in the not too distant future, I think that that is something the Council might want to consider. But I, I actually look forward to hearing from everybody on the screen. Our representatives from our police department. City manager. Assistant city manager. And my council colleagues. So who wants to go first? Councilmember Desai I think I saw your hand up. Then I saw Councilmember Knox White and I think I saw the vice mayor said, okay, so does that not take Vela in that order, please? Very well. Thank you very much. I have to believe that when our city manager and his department heads along with staff people who are charged with preparing reports, I have to believe that when they prepare a report with a recommendation that they're they're doing so for serious reasons. And so the recommendation is to move forward with these cameras. And it's occurring tonight on on January 19th, 2021. There has to be a reason. Otherwise, no doubt that they would among themselves have talked about, you know, holding it back until February, if not May or June, when we do the two year. So so from that vantage point, I'm inclined to support the staff recommendation. I don't think there's support for the staff recommendation. I think there's support more for holding it off for several weeks. And I respect that. I understand that. You know, but from my vantage point, though, I think what what I'm weighing heavily is, is that that a recommendation is being made tonight for us to deliberate over and make a decision. And I have to believe that it was a serious. There is a reason that that our our staff made that kind of recommendation. There have been some issues that have been raised with regard to the equipment itself, issues regarding privacy. But in reading the staff report, clearly the staff report indicates that the equipment, if and when implemented, would be consistent with our city's privacy data collection and facial recognition policies. So so I think that issue is taken care of. But I do think, though, that that the need is there. I mean, given the number of of of of vandalism against the police department building, I think there's certainly a need for it. I think certainly there's there is debate among ourselves tonight whether the need should be decided on tonight or perhaps in three weeks in the context of other mid-year items, or perhaps deliberated in several months in May. But but I'm going to go with the staff's recommendation and supporting this for tonight. So I do think that we should move ahead with this, and that will be my suggestion. Thank you. Councilmember Desai. Councilmember knocks way. So assuming that's not a motion, I'll make a motion that we can discuss, which would be to continue this item until the mid-year budget cycle. But I would like to include direction that we wait until after we have heard from the community groups about the work we asked them to do back here that they were asked to do back in July of last year before making decisions about how we're prioritizing funding moving forward. So I think it's up to the city manager whether he wants to do it as part of the two year budget that comes to us in April and May and is approved in June and available in July. We've waited ten years. We were able to wait over a year for this to start being thought about to come into here. My guess is we can wait another four months without it. We've not heard that this is a major public safety issue. And so I would like to remember. KNOX Well, if I could ask you to make your motion and we'll get a second and then we'll do the further discussion, please. Sure. I'm just explaining my motion. So thank you. Okay. That was the direction to staff right now with the Times, with your motion. Yes. Okay. So do you have a second to Councilmember? Not why motion? Vice Mayor. L.A.. I'll second it for the sake of discussion. Okay, so we've got 2 seconds. So. Councilmember Knox. Wait, I. Was just trying to get that second in there a bit. STAFF Did you get the direction from Councilmember? That's what they want to find out if there was any more. And City manager. Do you want to chime in on whether because I think there was a possible choice offered as to whether you want to roll this into the two year budget or can be for us on February 16th pending obviously council approval. Which go through your. You're you're muted. I think. I think it was that it as I understood the motion and you can correct me if I misunderstood was that it could come either in the mid-year or as part of the two year cycle, but not to be implemented. It would not go forward or be implemented until after the police committees had come forward to the city council in March to give their recommendations. If approved by the council, obviously. Is that correct or something? That is a fair summation. Okay. Okay. So I would likely probably bring in the two year budget just because that would be coming closer to the committees, because the two year would probably come forward for council. Discussion in May is what I'm guessing. So you would bring it back. Did I hear you say in March? No, I probably bring it in the May budget because by the time they close. The committee report in March. Is that correct? Okay. And I had heard quite a bit of commentary with a preference for finding the funding in the police budget as opposed to the general fund. COUNCILMEMBER That's why it is that part of your staff direction. That would certainly be my preference. Again, I definitely believe that if we're going to spend money, we should. When we're going dipping into the general fund, we are not competing against Paks, against all the unbundled or additional things that we have been saying we want to do, homeless response, etc.. So I would like to know how we have prioritized this for additional general fund funding. As the city manager and many of our speakers also pointed out, the police department is funded by our general fund so that their budget is the general fund. So I don't want to say. Yes, there is the budget is the general fund. But there is also a separate segment that is specifically the police budget. You're you're giving the director I was just trying to understand it for clarification sake. So they went to the city manager to make the case. Okay, fair enough. And did you have any further direction you want to add? No, I think that's okay then. Vice Mayor Mel, vice mayor of L.A., you're the next speaker. So I mean, I have a few concerns. This is the second time there's been a presentations since I've joined the Council with a request from our police department to purchase surveillance equipment that was not you know, did not go through an open bidding process. So that's that's something that concerns me, that there's a lot of staff time being put in, and I appreciate the staff time, but typically the way that we see things is, hey, we like this technology. Then it comes to council, we approve a budget for it based off of some like early estimates. And then and then we go out to bid so that that process concerns me. But I'm not putting that on on anyone in particular. There were different people involved with each one. It's just that's the process that we use in for for a number of other things. I would like to see that used relative to surveillance equipment. The second thing is I, I have concerns about some of the areas that that want that there is a desire to film. I have I have concerns based off of whether or not surveillance of those areas creates free speech issues. I certainly I understand safety concerns. However, I also have concerns about who has access to the to the footage, what exactly is being kept. It seems like we want very clear footage of everything, the fact that we're filming the public parking lot. Well, you know, where we don't have diagrams of what's particularly being filmed in the areas in question, just the mounting pictures. I think that's you know, I would need more information about like what's the what what areas are we filming? I'm personally not comfortable with it. I think it's it's problematic for me, especially in light of the fact that we've had a number of demonstrations and people gathering in these areas. We have not had any issues to date of break ins that I've heard of. So it seems like we're spending or proposing the ask us to spend a lot of money for something that has not been a problem. I'm not saying that that's always the approach. Sometimes we want to be proactive, but I think the scope of what the request is is pretty extensive. And I also just wonder if we have or we know we're going to have other requests. We have technology. The reason I was asking the questions about what else or do we have video surveillance of, you know, it seems like we do this very piecemeal throughout the city where we acquire technology here and there and we do it segmented as opposed to kind of across the board upgrades. So that also is just something that seems odd that we would do it that way rather than have a coherent system. So that that is just another thing that I would like us to look at. I'm actually based off of the current proposal as is we can move this. I'm not prepared to support it. I think the expenditure is fairly high. I'd like to have the conversation relative to the two year budget. I would also like to hear from our committees. I wonder if this was presented to the committees or contemplated by them. I also think that the scope of what we're trying to film is fairly extensive and beyond what I feel comfortable with. And whenever we're surveilling members of the public, I'd like to balance the privacy concerns and the overreach concerns with the safety concerns, and I just don't see that being met here. Thanks. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Spencer, did you have anything you wanted to add? Yes, I could go ahead and take my turn now. First, I want to thank members not like for pulling this item. I'm glad we're having this discussion. In regards to the motion, I actually well, my concern goes to the subcommittees apparently are not going to come back until March. The Molly Watkins incident was May 23rd. And I really have a problem with the secret meetings. I'm sorry. They're happening behind closed doors. The public is not part of it. And this is really a public incident. It's a public issue. We have many speakers tonight speak in regards to our police. So personally, I have concerns about the ongoing subcommittees happening in private. I actually think it skirts the Brown Act and it definitely skirts the purpose of the Brown Act in regards to this is government. And I think they should be meeting publicly just like we are and to the public in calling, we've heard from many speakers tonight that have been have not been given that opportunity throughout the course of it. So I personally would like to hear from the subcommittee sooner rather than later. I, I do want to also hear from our police and I think and then our public so that we are having actually a public conversation dialog of where we are going as a city in regards to policing. But honestly, in regards to March, I don't understand why it takes so long incident with May 23rd. I think that needs to come back immediately because that is going to be a robust conversation. Rest assured, we've had probably ten speakers for each item that has anything to do with policing tonight, including the public comment early on. I expect many participants from across the you know, across the political spectrum on every issue of it. So I personally would like to hear from the subcommittee soon, immediately. So I don't I'm not going to be able to support it. So I have concerns about supporting the motion that waits until March and then April alone. Like not the let's focus on the direction of our police. Make that decision needs to be made council. It needs to come to council. Council needs to make the decision and then we need to move forward with it, whatever it is that's so personally, I. I don't know if there's any way to get the subcommittee to go public soon and we can hear from them. But then honestly, at some point it does come back to council councilors from our police, and then we decide what direction we're taking on all these items. And in regards to the police request from APD. What I was looking for was in regards to the public, the safety of the officers, the safety of the public, things like that. And I didn't hear that. I don't think many of us are installing masks or whatnot, whether we are calling cameras in our homes because we're concerned about safety. To rest assured, we're not spending $275,000 to do it. And it is my understanding that the quality of the film we're getting can be used as it's good enough for vandalism and assault. I didn't hear the concern that really low as to why we need to spend it now especially and when I heard a lot of things like that for incidents that happen. Sounds like November 2019 or something like that. So and so personally and I would say this was sitting out here, a few thought that this was urgent or whatnot. Then the money we should have found the money. If this is an urgent request, it was very is it really that level back when the issues came? This is not that I would actually be looking for a different motion. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Harry Spencer. So we had a motion in the second and I'm going to add my comments before we move on, although we did have a couple of questions. City Manager Leavitt, can you remind us? I do think there's some public forums having to do with the police reform process and subcommittees and seeking the public's input. Can you remind us when that is or assistant city manager and whoever has that information? I don't have all the specifics in from it, but I think that starting this week, reports from the committees are being released with a series of different surveys as well as public meetings. I think the first public meeting may be this Friday, if I remember correctly, or I think there's a different series as well as them going to the different commissions. I think they're going to be going to the Transportation Commission and Srgb, for instance. So I think they're going to a variety of different public bodies to report, as well as trying to get input and feedback from the public in different forums. And actually, like magic, I have heard from our our city public information officer, Sara Henry, who says the forum is this Friday, January the 22nd, this Thursday, January 21st. The reports and surveys will be released live. They'll be made live on the city's website, I guess. And what time is the forum? 6:30 p.m.. Thank you, Jerry. And so it's a Zoom forum like this one and. Okay. Yes. So if you go to if you search for police reform and racial equity, city of Alameda, okay, you land on the Web page and the Zoom information is there. Perfect. Thursday, the reports and the survey will be live. Okay. So the public survey has been out for a while. No. It's going out this week, I believe. Oh, okay. Got it. That's the reports will be released and the survey will be released. So this is the beginning of the public process just for members of the public who who are interested. And I hope and I am sure that there are many so that there's that housekeeping detail. And then we have a participant to the police department representatives. There has been there have been a couple of comments about the open bidding process. Was it was it followed that this was a single source or in any way it wasn't put out to public bid? Can either she Sen or Capt Emmett or. I think I'd start with you and this city manager. Assistant City Manager. Want to chime in? Captain Emmett and muted. So, yes, you're up. Thank you. I see you. Technologies as a GSA approved company which says. General Services Administration of the state of California. Correct. So they had to go through a vetting process to obtain that. That title. And what that typically means is that they are going to come in at or below the lowest bid that you would receive during an RFP process. Okay. All right. Did anyone want to comment on that? Councilmember Natalie. No. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. And. And then just talk to us about the concern that has been expressed about the facial recognition capabilities of any surveillance cameras. And the concern, I think, about people exercising their First Amendment rights, possibly outside the police department. Yeah. You're kind of on the hot seat, I think, unless who. Who kept an idea from you? I think it sounds like you're closest to this equipment, if that's correct. So even if the vigilant cameras do have facial recognition is it is not our intention to use that. We would we would not we would not use the cameras in that fashion. We would not use that technology. As far as the the concern for recording folks that are walking in around our building, whether it be for protest or just day to day moving in and about, it's it's not our intention to to have those folks recorded on security camera systems. Our intention, as is with our current system, is to help one, keep our employees safe, to provide situational awareness to the folks that work in our building and to help her protect or at least have a starting point of being able to go back and investigate if our property and evidence rooms were tampered with. And same thing with our access to our building. You know, even though it may not have, even though it hasn't happened, I think there's the whether the potential is smaller. Great. We would not want folks getting into our building when they weren't allowed to to be there. And the the new system would help again, to give us some situational awareness where we could live stream to certain parts of our department where they are staff 24 seven like our communication center, our records clerks. You know, right now during COVID, they do need to verify if people come to the building for a service. And this would help to readily identify those those folks and who they're meeting, meeting with prior to walking out the doors. And again, our intention is not to record peaceful protests. Any type of protest that happens in and around our building. It is to help secure the safety of our employees and our property and evidence that we do maintain. All right. Thank you for that explanation. So we've had a motion. We've had a second, I would add, with the permission of the maker of the motion, with your consent, if you agree. I would also like to add direction to staff to come back with a refined use policy for this equipment that would address, say, the the concerns about the facial recognition aspect of the of this equipment. Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to do that. Your comment, actually, if I may, reminds me, we have a surveillance policy that requires such a report to accommodate such a request for purchase of the equipment. So actually, while I appreciated that the staff report says this is consistent with all the policies, it didn't actually bring that. Councilmember Vela's comments in your request to remind me that it didn't actually come with that report. And so I would imagine that when it comes forward in the future that that required report that accompanied it. Was and that would maybe satisfy the concerns raised by myself and the vice mayor. That's not what. I would be happy to give that direction. Okay. And Vice Mayor, would you still be happy to second that? With with that direction. I also I still have the question of I get that they're GSA approved, but that GSA approved just means they're approved for a specific type of technology. And pursuant to the report that's required, making sure that they're compliant with that, I do still think that there needs to be some sort of process. So I do have a concern with saying this is the vendor that we are are in fact going to use. I'm just going to put that out there. So are you asking for this to go out to bid or again or. I just think that there could potentially be issues being compliant with the existing policy if this vendor does not meet the requirements that we previously set forth. Okay. I think that. If the technology or if the technology is not so, I don't know how to address that in the motion. I see. I see that right now. Right. Go ahead. Can I just recommend that we just ask staff when they come back to show us how to to confirm with whoever vendor they are recommending, whether through the GSA or through an RFP, that they understand the requirements of our surveillance facial recognition ban and other ordinances. What that what has to be turned on and off in order for this to be a compliant system and that they can meet that. Okay. Okay. You know, personally, I don't have a problem with that using the GSA process. It has its pros and cons, but in government, if we require an RFP, it's going to be another year and a half before we see we see this come back. And if it's deemed a priority, I don't want to set this back another 18 months. Okay. So okay, Stephanie, look into that. Okay. We've had a motion. We've had a subcommittee. We have a roll call vote, please. Councilmember de SAG. No. Not quite. Hi. Spencer. So I had a clarifying question. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I just. Real quick, I just wanted to confirm that we would, in fact, hear from the subcommittee prior to the mid-year budget. Yes, that's what this is. Do you want to run that by us again? You would hear from the subcommittee prior to this item being approved. The mid-year budget is actually coming, the second meeting of February, which is before the subcommittees come in March. But I would move this to the regular budget in May for you so that you'd have the subcommittees before you heard it. All right. So if if APD has any other financial request at the mid-year, then we won't be hearing them. Is that what I'm hearing? Say. You know what? Let's just stick to this particular item. So we're talking about the motion in front of it. Thank you. Okay. So where were we on the roll call vote? Madam Clerk. Spencer? No. Villa. I may or as the Ashcroft high that carries 3 to 2. All right. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I'm Captain Emmett, especially interim chief fan and Mr. Levitt and Mr. Burton, for all your input and counsel, for your good discussion. Okay. Moving right along. It has taken us a while to get out of a consent calendar. Is it okay? We have finished. I didn't quite see. So we move down to item five I and that was pulled by Councilmember Desert, correct? Yes. Councilmember Desai. Great. Well, thank you very much. This item has to do with a density bonus residential project around the intersection of Broadway and Santa Clara Avenue for the residents who are watching tonight and. It's it's the site of the old for those tennis tennis enthusiasts in Alameda, the old site of the drumline tennis instructions, the Murphey site.