Covington residents asked the city government for greater clarity on its new contract with Axon Enterprises this week.
The Covington Board of Commissioners voted to approve the contract with the company earlier this month. However, residents who attended this week’s meeting of the Covington Board of Commissioners were concerned the public had not been given access to the newest version of the contract.
“I was just hoping that we could get a timeline as to when the amended contract will be posted and what that revised contract amount looks like and then the staff recommendations on transparency,” said Erin Masters, who had spoken at the public meeting on the contract earlier this month.
The original version of the contract had come before the board at the end of August. That version included four combination mobile license plate readers and dash cam devices for squad cars, a new police drone, tasers, new AI-integrated tech and other equipment for the department. The city had set aside money for this tech as part of its budgeting process earlier this year.
Public outcry led the board to pull it from its initial vote date and schedule an extended public comment session at a subsequent meeting. That hours-long meeting yielded several changes to the originally proposed contract, namely:
- The complete removal of squad car license plate reader/dash cameras
- The banning of future automatic license readers mounted on poles under city jurisdiction
- Changing the term of the contract from 10 years to a single year with an option to renew it for the subsequent nine years
- A new requirement for the police department to submit a report to the city manager and board of commissioners every 30 days on the use of the technology
- Opting out of automatic software upgrades to prevent the tech from being altered without the city’s control
- Mandating keeping drafts of any police reporting that employs AI assistance so as to discern between AI-drafted reports and human-drafted reports in the public record
- Opting out of any sharing of data with Axon to train AI models
- The creation of an online transparency portal, where members of the public could follow how the new drone was used, where it went and when.
Several of these caveats (although not all) were enacted via a municipal order, which you can read here, at this week’s meeting. However, residents still expressed concern about the new contract.
Chris Kelly, who also spoke during public comments earlier this month, expressed worry about discounts, pricing and termination clauses now that the contract would have to be renewed every year. He asked the board to produced an itemized cost comparison examining pricing differences, including any discounts it may forfeit, if it didn’t renew the contract after a year.
Toward the end of the meeting, after the residents had spoken but before the commissioners had cast their votes for the municipal order, Commissioner Tim Downing inquired with City Manager Sharmili Reddy about posting the new contract.
“We have told residents that have reached out that they can submit an open records request to get the contract,” said Reddy.
“I understand that we can submit an open records request,” said Downing, “but I also think there’s a matter of public interest on this one, so making that available for the public to be able to take a look at, I think, is completely appropriate.”
Downing did not make his request a formal municipal order.
LINK nky will publish the new contract once it’s available.
