The evening's second major item came at the end: a unanimous vote to approve a $414,301.36 contract with Axon Enterprise for a police department body-worn camera program. Officers had been testing cameras from both Axon and a competitor over the past few months, and the department recommended Axon. The program covers cameras, cloud storage, and multi-year licensing.

The body camera approval followed months of discussion by the Police Advisory Committee, which had explored the issue alongside broader questions about department staffing and community relations.

if there is somebody who can speak to that, who's present in the meeting go over that now. I'm I mean, these cameras record when they're put on. They they will automatically go on if the taser's drawn. That's why we wanna get the axe on the same one. We'll also have a switch on the weapon holster. They'll come on then. The body cameras can be put on and off by the officer, but they will automatica…

Sure. As we usually do, I'll read the resolution first, and then we'll open it for discussion. Okay? Whereas the colonel Hudson Police Department has been investigating the implementation of a police department body worn camera program, and whereas implementation of a police body worn camera program has to support of the village's police advisory committee. Whereas proposals for such a program wer…

I probably could, but I'm just curious how much of this is, like, somebody A lot of the traffic enforcement we tried to do was through in town. Route 9 is a major thoroughfare through through our village. We handle all traffic accidents out there, so we do spend time out there also because lowering the speed helps with traffic, you know, helps with traffic accidents. It helps us, diminish the numb…

Second. Second by trustee Slippin. And, chief, do you have anything you wanna share? Well, I mean, I just wanted to say that, you know, we have, embarked on this body cam project because of the request from the board and the PAC committee, many years ago with police reform. Over the past several years, we have kept applying for grants, we finally got one last year. Actually, it was a year before. …

Well, once we get them and they're set up, they will like, the the car cameras will activate as soon as the emergency lights go on. Okay? There are there are other switches to where as soon as the officer gets out of the car, it will activate. Mhmm. They can also activate it themselves. There's going to be a switch on their sidearm, so that whenever it comes out of the holster, it will automatical…

We're probably once we once we actually get the funding in in June, we're gonna actually be able to order these now once the contract is signed. So production takes a while. I'm hoping maybe we can have these in use by October, November, you know, before the end of the year. Pretty good. That's that's our hope. But That's better than the four years for a fire engine, I can Oh, yeah. Yes. How do th…

You know, that's And they're not I mean, they're not activated all the time. That it's not like it's eight hours of footage.

Chief policing in today's day and age. Yeah. Yeah. Chief, I was wondering what you know, of course, this will be in in our capital plan, the actual funding. But what's Axon telling you in terms of delivery time?

staffing required Yeah. For this. Yeah. It's also gonna take a lot of manpower to review, which is Yeah. Why I guess I always ask for more manpower. So I'm gonna throw that out there tonight. But it is it it is time consuming, and we have to do it. And it's also gonna put a lot more, stress on the stuff that we need for court Yep. And stuff like that. So, you know, all these cameras are gonna have…

now. And I don't know if I'm right on the $75.25. I don't know. You, but, you know, I mean, no matter if you're may find out, they're familiar with You know, if that's if if this is gonna impact morale, I think that's important to know. Listen. It may it may not. But, you know Right. Even jobs that it did affect morale, like I said, I mean, you know, you get a complaint against you that you know y…

Acknowledging that a "vocal group of residents" opposes any government cameras in the village, the PAC decided to hold a special discussion on all village cameras at its March meeting. The goal is to develop a public education campaign explaining exactly what the village's License Plate Readers and proposed red-light cameras do, how long data is stored, and who can access it.

Detective Fielding clarified that LPR data is stored at the County Real Time Crime Center for about three years, is not shared with ICE without a judicial warrant, and cannot be used to track the daily behavioral patterns of residents. The PAC will also ask the Board to mandate warning signage near any red-light cameras.

I had voices similar concern. Didn't even chat with you about it, but to to the and it was more not it was it was totally supportive of this. It's just I had to get through reading all the budget materials, and I just didn't have the time to even read the proposal. So it's great that we worked out a solution here and we could, you know, hit the savings and still put it on an agenda. My ask is, I I…