Eight days before the vote, this is what was said in the room.

“One of the things when I came in as chief that I really wanted to address was how we police. Currently we're policing today the same way we policed 50 years ago and what that means is we're reactive to a lot of things.”

Chief Derek Wright

“If we try to do proactive policing we don't really have a whole lot of data that we can pull from. A few years ago we upgraded our software system to a new system called Tyler. We are just now getting to the point where we can pull data from that and be a little more informed about how we handle business on the streets.”

Chief Derek Wright

“I became aware of flock about seven years ago. There was a small town locally that invested in their cameras or traffic cameras and the dividends that it paid for them was really really good. It cut down a lot of their investigative time and a lot of man-hours on that.”

Chief Derek Wright

“I've been working with Colby and with Jordan from flock on a package to present to you all tonight. I really think the improvement in efficiency and effectiveness for us is almost intangible.”

Chief Derek Wright

“I mean it the cost savings I think in the end for the amount of man-hours we're gonna cut down on, the amount of crimes from a customer service perspective to our citizens, it's really gonna benefit the city in where we'll be able to investigate crimes we otherwise may not have had time to with our current personnel.”

Chief Derek Wright

“worked with a lot of government agencies and Springdale is by far the most efficient professional that I've experienced to date. So between Anna, legal, Colby, Chief, everyone has been incredibly diligent.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So super high level, Flock has a really bold mission which is to eliminate crime completely.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So if a crime is solved today in the United States 15% of the time it's because of Flock which is pretty dang impressive.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So if you look across the United States there's over 5,000 communities that are being protected by Flock.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So what is Flock? Internally we call it a collaborative policing technology. What that means is hey how can we use technology to enhance the efficiency of the officers that you guys have and the resources that you guys have.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“these things don't sleep, they don't get sick, they're operating 24-7 and ultimately it's going to be a force multiplier for all of the resources that you already have.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“one is hardware devices that collect evidence and then the other side of it is software that kind of decodes that data and makes it actionable for the Police Department chief and his team.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“what we're trying to do is to say hey can we gather actionable evidence, can we respond faster and if we can do those two things clearance rates are going to go through the roof.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“I think this is a chance for you guys for Chief to really make a bold statement and saying hey we don't want crime in Springdale and we're making a stance to really make this the safest town in Arkansas altogether.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“so Flock's core product what we were kind of built on it's called license plate reader cameras. This was the foundation of our company however this is not all that Flock does. I would say we are the most innovative public safety technology company to ever exist but it was built on the foundation of having license plate reader cameras.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“What these do is basically take pictures of vehicles. They're infrastructure free so they run on solar and LTE and they're connected to alerts. So think amber alerts, silver alerts, NCIC, anytime a bad actor crosses one of these cameras PD his whole team is going to get an alert to take typically a reactive situation say a stolen vehicle, a known bad actor that's up in Bentonville into a proactive one.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“Hey we know where this person is right when they enter Springdale altogether.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“I think the cool part about Flock is when you're buying into Flock you're buying into a network.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So around Arkansas altogether there's over 600 LPR cameras in the state. Not to mention all the cameras nationwide over 5,000 agencies. So if there's a known bad actor in Little Rock, Jonesboro, Bentonville that gets put on one of these lists, crime moves, comes into Springdale we're gonna use that network to our advantage to solve more of these crimes.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So these cameras do a lot. Don't think I'm gonna be able to play this video because I'm not driving my computer but one of the cool things that they do is traffic analytics. Just an additional value add outside of just the LPRs.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“For you guys specifically it's gonna be able to give you guys detailed reads of who is coming into Springdale. So traffic counts, where are they from, you know, when's the busiest time of day, month, year and then are they coming from in town, out of town, ultimately for better traffic monitoring, better resource planning, better emergency response.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So that's the foundation of FLOCk. How do we take this to the next level? We call it FLOCk OS as the second layer of this. So this is going to be Chief and his teams single pane of glass for all of your guys's tech.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“If you guys drive through Springdale you probably see cameras everywhere, right, on the intersections, at the parks. The problem is if these aren't working together then ultimately it's a fragmented system and response times are going to suffer. So OS, really simply put, it's gonna connect all those pieces into one map.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So live video, third-party video, LPRs, you're gonna be able to see all your devices in one spot and it's the foundation for what the industry calls a real-time crime center. So as things happen in real time how can we gather as much info as possible. This is connected to CAD, body-worn cameras, everything that they use all in one single place for that efficiency.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“the next piece of the equation is an investigative tool that Chief's investing in. It's called FLOC NOVA. So think of this as your single-placed pane of glass for data. So FLOC OS being the single pane of glass for devices, video, LPRs, etc. NOVA is your single pane of glass for your RMS, your OSINT data, shared RMS compstat.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“imagine an officer goes to serve a warrant. Instead of having to call Detective Nash who may be on vacation or is out of town or it's midnight, right? They can simply put in this address and figure out, hey this guy was actually associated with abuse of firearms or whatever it may be to keep him safe before actually going to it.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“since we've been chatting, Sergeant Nash called me at about five o'clock on Tuesday, said hey we have a case, I need access to the Flock Network and we got him access within an hour. There's obviously no devices in Springdale but he was able to determine that this high-profile case, this guy had been in Indianapolis, he had been in Memphis, he had been in Kansas, stopped at Lowe's all along the way and now he's in Springdale.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“A sex offender was at the hospital with a minor that was not associated to him at all. He got a call from the hospital, said hey they left with this minor. First line of defense for Sergeant Nash and Chief's team was to go to Flock and say hey we got a vehicle description, we've got a license plate, where is this guy now? Found him in Fort Smith because of that shared network of cameras.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“so just to get ahead of this, so all of this was built with privacy in mind. So Springdale owns all the data, so whatever data that you guys collect on these devices, it's your guys's, it automatically gets deleted in 30 days.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“And then the last piece is there's no individual data associated with these at all, so no personal data, just vehicle descriptors and we try to make this as transparent as possible.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“We can even create a transparency portal for you, look something like this, where every search in the software that Chief and his team are going to do is auditable, so your community can even come in here and say, hey these are the things that we're using this for, stolen vehicles, drug cases, right? We're not looking up where my girlfriend was last Tuesday [after] after a fight or whatever it may be, right?”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So right now, Chief you can jump in here if you want, we've got ten license plate reader cameras and eight live video cameras and then six community cameras which are just basic surveillance cameras.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“Are the live videos at the same location as the license readers?”

A council member

“They are not. We put these at parks, so it's something I didn't cover in the presentation because of time. These live video have the capability to give them alerts as well, so we put these in the park to say, hey if someone's in our park from, I don't know, midnight to 5 a.m., let's get an alert and then the camera's smart enough to follow any movement, whether it's a car or a person, to gather that evidence.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“Will these coordinate with our existing cameras and with our existing databases?”

A council member

“Absolutely. That was a big piece of it. So you guys got a ton of tech already in Flock OS. We're just bringing that all under one umbrella.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So it would go ahead and communicate like with the existing body cameras, with existing static cameras?" / "Yes, sir.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“you mentioned how that one individual was located in Fort Smith. Is that done only via your Flock cameras or do you have satellites? What do you have?" / "Yeah, just Flock cameras. So the network is...”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“But with each community that actually uses them now, correct?" / "You got it. If municipality isn't using them now, there's no way of tracking them there. Yeah, so you're buying into the network.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“We have the ability to extend it if your local laws align with that, but typically people just delete them after 30 days.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So we can extend them, but the only reason you'd keep them is if it was associated with a case.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“But the extension is always tied into Flock. It's not like that. Data is there and then locally we could go ahead and retain portions of it for, say, for child abuse, etc., for a data bank.”

A council member

“Yes, what we found is that 30-day window covers the majority of our investigations with a rare exception and so as we come across anything that might be evidence in a case, an active case, we'll pull that off into our electronic case file.”

Chief Derek Wright

“So the total cost, what we negotiated, and Colby can give the details on that. A lot of that happened when I was out of town. But the total cost on it is $532,800. That's for a three-year cost paying up front.”

Chief Derek Wright

“is there any additional maintenance cost to flock for maintaining the, or is that it, that cover all the?" / "That's correct. That covers all the support. All the support, all the permitting, all the installs, if something happens, we're out here.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“One thing I'll add to that, the reason we wanted to purchase it this way is we were able to negotiate a better deal by paying cash up front. Normally this would have been $699,000. We were able to save $166,200 by being able to do this.”

Colby, Chief of Staff

“Is this stored on the cloud or is it stored on local?" / "On the cloud, yeah.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“I'm assuming you guys have talked to Bentonville and Rogers about how this has impacted them. Have you also talked to them about the cost? Is this in line with what they paid?”

A council member

“The exciting thing for me for you guys is our software just keeps getting better and better and you guys are in this package that just keeps growing as we grow. So as we get new software, you guys will continue to get that, which is really cool and a great tool for chief.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“Yeah, the other piece are called community cameras. For the sake of time, we didn't go into the details, but the premise is, hey, that gas station, that apartment complex, they want to give access to their cameras to Chief and his team, right? If there's an issue, they want to have immediate real-time access to those. What these community cameras do, we can put these up strategically around town, but now if that gas station, apartment complex, restaurant wants to buy a new surveillance camera, they can buy a flock one and it's going to be directly integrated with his system. So now, hey, we get a call from, I don't know, apartment complex X, hey, we've got a camera there, let's pull that up real-time to see what's going on.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“Can those community cameras be moved around?" / "Yes, sir. Everything can be moved around. There's a little bit of a fee, but we've got a whole team that develops these plans and we've been working with Chief on where these all should go.”

Speaker not identified in the transcript

“It basically provides a single pane of glass, a single screen to look at instead of now we've got cameras on five different servers and different software programs.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“Do you ever have to do any kind of educational things once you install this for the citizens?" / "For the citizens kind of up to you guys in terms of how transparent you guys are with that. But in terms of education, no. It's very common. Like I said, it's all across Arkansas already.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“about six years ago, we bought, the number eludes me right now, but we bought several cameras that do have an LPR, a license plate reader function, on them. And we've had those up and deployed for a variety of reasons. The LPR function doesn't work, but we do have a 30-day look back on those cameras. And we've used them several times at intersections.”

Chief Derek Wright

“we actually just installed a bunch of new cameras in the park that are positioned. And so this, I don't know if you call it a program or software, will allow us to use that guardian mode on that. So we have it set up as of today, actually, where any motion detected after the park closes alerts our dispatch now. Previously it didn't do that because everything has been so hodgepodged in cameras. Now that will alert, all of our parks that have cameras will alert dispatch now. And we'll be able to use the guardian mode from FLOCk to be able to track people as they move around the park.”

Colby, Chief of Staff

“The other thing I'd say is we make it difficult for vandalizers to do these. They're up, you know, you really have to get a ladder out there and have a serious effort. I've had one LPR taken from me in my time at FLOC. Guess what, they got GPS units in them. So, you know, pretty foolish. And like I think someone said, this is a crime deterrent once people know that they're on it.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“So one of your examples was if an officer went to an apartment or was going to someone's home and he could check to see, get information on basically what he's walking into. I think that was basically your example, right?" / "Mm-hmm, similar, yeah." / "So where does that information come from?”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“So that particular information comes through their FLOC 911 system that integrates with Tyler, our current software system. And what that does is that gives the officers the ability either through a phone app or on their in-car computer to live stream that 911 call directly to wherever they are. And so every officer will have access when they're going to a call.”

Chief Derek Wright

“I thought something was said about him being able to get information on [on] the people he might be coming in contact. Where would that information come from? Does that come from the state police or the FBI or?" / "So what would happen is FLOC OS would integrate the data from our system, from NCIC or the state, and the FBI. It could integrate data from some other third parties.”

A council member, and Chief Derek Wright

“So you said it can. Does it do that? Is that what we're getting?" / "Yes." / "It will do that.”

Speaker not identified in the transcript

“And there's some third party commercial open source Intel programs that we currently use and currently pay for. So that will offset some of the cost of this as well, because that will be integrated into FLOC. But that's where we can also get a lot of data that right now we're paying per user on some of those things. It gets really expensive really quick. This will actually allow more people to have access to that data.”

Chief Derek Wright

“And Jordan, where are you from?" / "From Indiana, but I live in Colorado.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“How does FOI, the Freedom of Information Act, apply to the data that comes in on these cameras?" / "So if we retain the data and it is subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act, then we'll redact it appropriately and release that information.”

A council member, and Chief Derek Wright

“So even though you say it's only held for 30 days and then it's deleted, if there's a request within that 30 days, we've got to provide it." / "Yes, sir. Same thing with our body cameras and car cameras now. Or same thing with cameras around City Hall. If somebody FOI'd that, we'd have to release that.”

A council member, and Chief Derek Wright

“Is that going to create extra work for us, Chief, to have to deal with that?" / "I don't think so. I mean, yes, it would create some additional work. We have two people dedicated to fulfilling FOI requests currently. But our talks with them, I think they can manage that without having to add personnel.”

Speaker not identified in the transcript

“But yeah, chief will get these notifications within 10 to 15 seconds of a bad actor crossing one of these cameras. So it is, when he's saying reactive to proactive, it's pretty much instant.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“Do you have an annual fee associated with this? Or is that all just this price that you're talking about, Colby?" / "Yeah, everything is wrapped into this pre-negotiated price.”

A council member, and Chief Derek Wright

“I guess that would be the time, too, if we like it and we wanted to, if we saw a benefit to expand it. Maybe other public areas, some things where we're, where we want to be sure we've got eyes on it if necessary. That kind of idea." / "That could be done at that time. It could be done any time." / "It could be done sooner.”

The Mayor

“I mean, we've already helped with two cases and we don't have any software or devices in Springdale today.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“if somebody has a bad actor and that person constantly changes vehicles in order to stop, stalk somebody, but they have the license plate that they change to the vehicles, would that be caught by your cameras?" / "Yeah. It's called plate swapping.”

A council member, and Jordan of Flock Safety

“So the biggest hurdle for us, we'll get you guys software real fast, but in the state of Arkansas, the permitting process for the license plate reader cameras does take some time. I'm seeing three to six months is kind of the runway right now, but that's the biggest hurdle before, you know, you're fully live. But as soon as you guys sign the contract, chief and his team are going to get trained on the software and start using it just without all the devices.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“We give short term access for cases like this where it's like they need this. This is very important. Let's give them access to the network because obviously, you know, situations like that we want to help out.”

Jordan, Flock Safety

“Anybody else have any questions? I would entertain a motion.”

The Mayor

“We have a motion and a second to forward this to council with recommendation for approval. Any other thoughts? All those in favor, please say aye." / "Aye." / "Opposed, same sign.”

The Mayor

“And that's out of the general fund, I assume, or is there any other?" / "It would be out of the unrestricted general fund.”

Speaker not identified in the transcript