City Council — October 6, 2026

Hello, hello. 633. Lompoc City Council meeting October 6th, 2026. Open session roll call please.

Mayor, the City Council met in closed session to discuss the one labor negotiations item on the agenda. There was a discussion of the item and the council gave direction to staff but there was no reportable action taken.

Lord smooth out the path of those who serve you And cling to truth. Bless our police, bless our firefighters, direct staff and city workers and grant these faithful servants impact and success in what they do. Lord provide opportunities for grace and mercy to those who confess their mistakes and weaknesses. Protect lovers of righteousness with your unstoppable power.

There's hope in you alone. There's wholeness in you alone. Because you are the salve for our souls. We rest in you, amen.

Please remain standing until the President begins. Ready? Begin.

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.

We had a couple of presentations elsewhere. Council Member Ball, did you want to read yours in? What you did?

Let's see. Sorry. Pull it up right now. Our internet is slow. Let's see, where is this at here?

Yes that's me. Okay on September 17th 2026 I had the honor of presenting a certificate of recognition to Fidel Villanueva, Maribel Landeros and Heather Woolsey in honor of receiving the 2026 Healthy Lompoc Coalition Partner Award.

Good deal. On October 5th 2026 I wasn't there but I did present them To present Certificate of Recognition to Maisie Brown and Violin Solario in honor of being a citizen of the 83rd Session of the American Legion Auxiliary California Girl State at the University of California at Riverside. And now, we get a presentation to SPCAG for the 60th anniversary. How many people know what SPCAG is? Santa Barbara County Association of Governments?

Okay yeah, very important. Very important for our community. Pass-through agency from Israel, grant funding to keep our main streets and roads and stuff together, and the lane in the train right? Whiting of the 101, whole nine yards. So join me at the podium Thank you. It's interesting how, I've asked them actually to attend more often so they can do presentations. They also help us with our airport land use plan and what are some of the good ones you guys? We're doing a Lompoc Valley study coming up. Yeah, the Lompoc Valley study that's triggering of what a lot is happening at Vandenberg, at the main gate that's happening over there. So they're the agency that helps connect the dots with our asphalt So it's, yeah, Measure A. That's a big one.

Measure D before that so it's important and Lompoc was one of the beginning partners 60 years ago in putting this together where the whole community works together to also get revenues for grant funding so we can actually enhance what's going on. And we'll read this proclamation, whereas for six years local governments throughout Santa Barbara County have worked together through a regional partnership to address shared challenges and advanced solutions that cross jurisdictional boundaries. And whereas the city of Lompoc joins Santa Barbara and the cities of Carpinteria, Guadalupe, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria to establish the Santa Barbara County and Cities Area Planning Council which held its first organizational meeting on October 26th 1966 beginning a regional partnership that continues today.

And whereas created during a period of significant growth and change the organization evolved alongside the region it serves assuming important state and federal transportation planning and funding responsibilities And in 1990, become the independent public agency known as the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments or SBCAG. And whereas today SBCAG brings together the five members of Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and representatives for each of the county's eight incorporated cities, Builton, Carp, Goleta, Guadalupe.

Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Solvang to coordinate on issues affecting the region as a whole. And whereas through regional planning funding advocacy and partnership including locally controlled transportation investments approved by county voters through Measure D in 1989, Measure A in 2008. SPCAG has helped advance highways, local streets and roads, public transit, passenger rail, bicycle and pedestrian connections and other improvements throughout Santa Barbara County while leveraging state and federal resources.

And whereas while Santa Barbara County has changed considerably over six decades, the principle at the heart of SPCAG remains consistent. Some challenges extend beyond jurisdictional boundaries and communities can accomplish more by working together. And now therefore I, James Mosby, Mayor of the City of Lompoc, hereby commemorate the 60th anniversary of SPCAG as the City of Lompoc is a founding member of its regional partnership recognized six decades of collaborating with other cities in the county center to address shared regional needs.

Yeah, people realize how important this really is. And I suggest if you ever get a chance to come to the meeting watch a meeting Get involved in it a lot of the changes that happen can take time But they're worth waiting for and it's one of the ways that we do connect a lot of the major projects as You started out with the third lane down in South County and now it's a billion dollar project correct It's now become a billion dollar project. But to be able to coordinate it without the group and the coordination of everybody, it would not be the project it is so.

Sorry kids come on down.

Thank you Mayor Mosby, members of the Council for this recognition. I'm Sarkis Kotchak, Director of Programming with the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments. Lompoc has a special place in our agency's history when the organization was formed in 1966 as the Santa Barbara County Cities Area Planning Council then Lompoc City Councilman Robert McClure was elected as first chair So Lompoc not only was one of our founding members, but a Lompoc leader helped lead this regional partnership from the beginning. So thank you for that.

And 60 years later the same idea of communities working together continues here in the Lompoc Valley. We're excited to soon begin the Lompoc Valley Transportation Needs Study In partnership with the city, the county of Santa Barbara and Vandenberg Space Force Base. So this study will look at how people move throughout the valley including Lompoc, Vandenberg Space Force Base, Vandenberg Village and Mission Hills along key connections on highways 1 and 246. So as the mayor mentioned as we embark on that study they'll be coming to our board with updates and updates to your council so we look forward to your input.

So while we look at what is working, there are going to be needs and improvements that can make the valley safer and easier to get around by car, transit, bike or on foot. We look to start that study in 2027 with opportunities for input. And so that's the kind of partnership that is at work in your neighbor... That kind of partnership is also worked in your neighboring communities as well. In Santa Maria and Orca, we're actually working on a State Route 135 study in partnership with the County, City of Santa Maria and Caltrans to look at what the long-term needs are there. And then in Santinez Valley, we're working with the cities of Solvang Along with the St. Denis Band of Chumash Indians on the St. Denis Valley Trail Project. So these are different projects serving different communities with different needs, but they reflect the same idea that brought our local governments together 60 years ago.

Some things simply work better when we work together. So on behalf of our board and staff, we would like to thank you for this recognition and for Lompoc's 60 years of partnership.

Thank you,

Mayor. I want to reiterate what SBCAG just said that they secured a grant for us to study our traffic here and it was a $400,000 grant and we super appreciate that. It's important. I wanted to invite everybody to attend a special meeting for Parks and Rec Commission next Tuesday, October 13th at 7. This will focus on our second community workshop gathering information to guide and plan improvements for Ryan Park, Johns Bonneville Park And it's essential for us to get that input from the community. It helps us secure the grant and we'll get more points, and it's better for us. So if you're involved in the parks, we encourage you to come on out.

Additionally I wanted to let everybody know that – I know it's a little bit early for the Christmas parade but it will be December Friday the 4th, and the theme this year will be Light Up The Holidays. And the applications for that are due to the Rec Department by November 16th. I'd like to invite everybody to submit their awards for this year's pumpkin contest at the library. This is a popular contest, you can drop off acceptable pumpkin carbons from the 14th to the 20th. Voting will be the 21st through 28th and the 29th they'll pick the winners and encourage everybody to come on out and do that.

Additionally they're going to have the Costume Bingo Contest return next Friday, October 16th. If you're interested you need to be in costume at the library at 5pm and this is a great event with a lot of turnout. Also want to take a moment to let everybody know that this week is National Public Power Week. We'll be celebrating it this week from October 4th through the 10th, where there's over 2,000 community power agencies that provide electricity for over 49 million and the City of Lompoc is award winner for the American Public Power Association Reliable public power providers, diamond award. So I'm really proud of the electric division and I wanted to thank them for everything they do to get our power staying up and operational.

Finally want to let everybody know that we'll be having an award banquet for our employees will be closed City Hall in the library from 11 to 2 on October 15th We only do it every other year so it's a good opportunity for us to recognize the people that have done number of years and done an outstanding job And that's all I have for now sir

Question for you, we have the skate park breaking ground. What day is that going to be?

I

think it was October 12th.

That's what you told me before, October 12th?

Yes, October 12 is the date that we're shooting for. And

then we had another groundbreaking coming as well.

The stage, yeah, we'll work on the stage. What are we waiting on Mario?

Our windmills will be in a few weeks so we didn't want to start the construction until that was onsite

We've got a stage coming and the long-awaited $5 million in that skate park, correct?

Yeah.

Long awaited skate project so...

Quick question, Council Member Bridge. So the stage will be started what's the projected finish

date?

It's

on

contract

it's... I'm not trying to

get you to memorize the date but we're gonna have it done by Flower

Festival. Yes, it'll be done by Flower Festival.

So before I move on to public comment, there's some new people in here and after some of the activities at last meeting I'm going to ask the city attorney to read California Penal Code 403 into the record just as the first warning for public.

Yes, Mayor. California Penal Code section 403 is the penal code section that makes it a misdemeanor crime to disturb a public meeting and that section reads every person who without authority of law willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character is guilty of a misdemeanor

Okay, thank you. So we'll post a public comment on consent calendar. Consent calendar only, we have seven items on consent calendar. So number one, we have the approval of minutes from June 16th 2026 meeting. Number two is approval and ratification of expenditures for payroll August 28 for $2.18 million and a payroll September 11th 2016 2.2 million about your register August 24.

through 28th, 2026 of $2.89 million and a voucher register August 31st, 2026 September 4th for $1.4 million and a voucher register September 7th through 11th, 2026 for $987,000. Number three is adoption of resolution number 6851 parentheses 26 to close City Hall and suspend certain field operations December 28th to December 31st Number four is approval of amendment to Memorandum of Understanding of Public Risk Innovation Solutions and Management for Participating in the PRISM Health Program.

Number five is adoption of updated 2026 City Council meeting calendar. Number six, continuation of ballot drop boxes on city property and city hall and library parking areas. Approval of license agreement with the County of Santa Barbara. And number seven is award of a contract purchase order to Winter Chevrolet in amount of $394,000 for six new 2027 Chevy Silverado EV 5WT extended range work truck pickups for the water parks and rec Urban forestry streets and transit divisions.

Any of you on the council wish to pull any of those items? I had a quick question on number seven, and that is the Chevy Silverados. If you could come just with some quick questions and maybe you can explain why we're buying Seventy some-odd thousand dollar pickup trucks. Thank goodness we didn't get those other ones, but Fill us in real fast if you could

okay real fast December 2nd you approved Council approves We could get seven 2026 f150 lightnings December 15th of 2025 Ford discontinued them so That was plan a we had to go with plan B Just so everybody understands The ACF is Advanced Clean Fleets. That's through CARB and we have to follow that mandate. That being said, right now we have to purchase 50% of all our vehicles have to be EV. 2030 it goes to 100%.

So we are trying to be very strategic about what we do. I have become departments Like biggest thorn, biggest nightmare because they want vehicles now and we have to really think about what we're doing. So we've taken a lot of thought into this and what we're presenting is what we feel is best so we can try and purchase the vehicles we need. It ramped up in 2030 to 100%. We don't know between now and 2030 Where this is going to play out, you know. Come 2030 they could change it and be hybrids we don't know so we're just kind of doing what were mandated in the least.

I guess grabbing the low-hanging fruit that we can to follow the mandate, and then I can purchase the equipment that departments really need. We need bucket trucks. We need service trucks. We need things like internal combustion so if I get the electric vehicles, I can get those departments the vehicles they need. It's not an easy mandate to follow. Every vehicle that we get, we have to think about charging. We have two beam chargers right now.

We're currently trying to assess where we can put other chargers so we're looking at all of that. The trucks are due to be delivered probably early February. Maybe March, so they give us time to try and figure out some charging solutions. What we're looking at would be probably a level two charger to start out with. So we're really trying to be thinking about all of this.

And I'm going to answer any other questions that you do have.

You got mine. I just

wanted

the public to understand why we're doing what we're doing and I appreciate you...

Yeah it's not easy. I would love to buy the departments all the equipment they want, and I can't do that. I have to be very strategic about what we do. So we're going to try and do this, and then try and just every single vehicle think about not only now but the next 10 years. So really trying to think this through. That's why it's taken so long to come back before you guys because I didn't want to rush this.

And like I said, I hear from the departments constantly When can I order my vehicle?

Thank you. That's Robert Woolley, Fleet and Facilities Maintenance Manager. Anybody else have any other questions? I had a quick one maybe to the City Manager. I'm good with you. Nobody else for you. Thank

you.

I am trying to get you out in anthropology at the end. We did that to you last time right? Number five, not having a council meeting November 3rd. Is that going to put us in a pinch on items you have on the calendar? Are you going to be able to get through or what do you think? Yeah

we can just chalk these stuff around and there will be no problem.

You've got a lot of stuff on our

list. We do. Are

you going to give me a towing service agreement?

I think we'll be fine. You think we'll be fine? Load up the next one before and after.

Council Member Ball, you had a

question? I was just going to say since it is canceled, I assume Mr. Starbuck and myself at least weren't going to be here. It is election day so we're hoping people focus on voting. That's why we canceled it.

It's not canceled yet but that's your request. I just want to make sure the staff is able to meet what they need to get done. I support Council Member Starbuck's request to

cancel November 3rd.

Okay, I see nobody rise. Do we have anybody on phone or internet for public comment on consent calendar?

There is no public comment via phones or Teams.

Okay and nobody rising for comment on that. We will close that take it back for a motion on consent calendar.

Now go ahead and move on to consent.

Second. First by Starbucks seconded by Ball. Go ahead vote. Net passes barely 5-0. All right, staff presentation announcements request presentations for Lompoc Police Department with input and direction from the City Council regarding number one, the use of drone as a first responder

Well good evening Council, Mayor. We'll start with the Drona's First Responder program. We're going to bring up the transparency page for the Police Department website. So if you go to our website for the Lompoc Police Department, you will see at the bottom of the page these two icons. The flock safety is our transparency page for the ALPR cameras and the one to the right is the Drona's first responder transparency page So what I wanted to do, and if you could change the date at the top to start date.

There you go. So you can see that you can go through the different dates and change and see what activity was taking place with the drone as first responder. So in this case from July 31st to present, the drone has been deployed 250 Twenty-five calls for service. We had an 84% reduction in response time, the drone was that quick to get on scene for these calls for service that it responded to.

We had 144 subjects located because of the drone and an average response time of 98.1 seconds. There were 10 calls cleared without patrol resources. And of the calls, those 225 calls it was on scene first 61% of the time. To the right you can actually see the pie chart that breaks down the type of calls that the drone responds to. So as part of our transparency to the community and the use of this technology we have this up there for everyone to see and navigate on their own.

If we can go to the flights tab now? As a part of this program we also put up on the website The flight paths that the drone took in responding to those calls of service. So if you cursor down, you can see that all of the flights that it responded to and the exact path that it took to get there. And then at the very bottom, to go back in that date range, you'll see the different pages that you can navigate to be able to see what we're doing.

So it is our opinion that the program has been very successful for the police department and what I'm going to show to you now in just a minute is a seven-minute video of one of the calls for service that the drone responded to. So, the way that we have this program set up is that the pilot actually hears the call for service coming in and in the video that you're about to watch The drone pilot heard the call coming in and was able to launch the drone and fly to the location before the officers even got dispatched.

And in the course of doing that, the pilot was able to locate the suspects in this investigation. We have a clearance for calls for service unable to locate or gone on arrival And if you listen to our radio traffic, sometimes you'll hear that. That typically means that when the officer gets dispatched, gets on scene and starts looking for somebody and can't find them, the person was gone on arrival or they were unable to locate that suspect.

So we are seeing a decline in a drop in gone-on-arrival, unable to locate because the drone is so quick to get on scene. So if you could please play that video? You're going to hear some radio traffic. It'll be quiet in the beginning, but you'll hear when the dispatcher actually puts a radio call out. It's up top of the police department where the drones are housed and as the pilot navigates to the call location which is Home Depot he will approach and as he gets closer with the drone he'll start manipulating the camera to be able to start looking for the suspects

Are you guys still using your conventional drone? Is this taking the place of those?

Yeah, they can be used by the staff if there's a need and the pilot is not available. We do have officers that are certified by the FAA as pilots that they do take them out on patrol with them so if they need to use it for whatever reason, they can. It's within the

policy. But this has probably taken what, 90%?

This is probably the majority of the work when it comes to the drones now. So you can see the hospital coming into view and then Home Depot right behind it. So this is a reported theft by two suspects, you'll hear the descriptions in the radio traffic. This is true.

POD 22, 54. POD 22 and POD 25, stop listing just occur at Home Depot. RP is following the suspects now at Industrial and 9th.

Okay, copy. 64, 1-2. 64 Airport. Standby.

Fox 22, it's a white male adult in his 50s wearing a black shirt walking with a female. They took over $300 worth of merchandise. Air Force, go ahead.

Do you have the females on a police shift? Would it be in flight first? Air Force, this is 4-1.2. Where are they at right now? We're locking up the full stack off of 7th.

So what you're seeing here is that the suspects have now separated and the male half has gone to the south side of the building. The pilot manipulates... They're

both still making their way towards 7th.

Pilot manipulates a drone to maintain observations on this site. Confirming

on industrial. Okay, so they've left the building but they're both making their way towards 7th? Copy. No approaching sevens off the tetanus. So

the suspect's now approaching the 76th alleyway. The male half, female still on the street.

Heading north of the 76th Alley. 64423, 10-8. 10-81? 10-1. Nose film alley, 7-6, 3-1-4. Low volume. Nose protein, 8-4, in between the alley of 7-2-6. X-ray 1 is 10-7, out with 1.

So what you saw

there was a

A typical call for service that had the officers, you heard when the officers were dispatched. You heard when they went on scene 1097 Those people would have been long gone from Home Depot, two or three blocks away. And we probably would not have been able to find them in this case because of the drone and because of their ability to do what they can do. They were able to coach the officers into the area where the suspects were and we were able to take them into custody without incident. So this is a hugely successful program. And as your chief of police I was not a fan has grown up first responder until I started to really get into it.

and see the benefit to our community in that. We're having a great success with the program, I expect it to continue to grow and be well worth the money that the city is spending on it right now. Questions?

Is there anything in this technology, drone whether it's by flock or anyone else that's different than having a sheriff's helicopter with technology?

Cost. I mean if you were to ask the Sheriff's Department how much it costs to maintain an helicopter just to be able to fly plus the cost of the pilots, this city would never be able to afford that.

Thank you. Councilor Bridge.

On the trip from the police station to the initial incident report, is that a choice to be man-operated?

In this case, this was one of the first launches of the program. So the way that the system works, the Aerodome product has to connect to our CAD, Computer Aided Dispatch and Records Management. We have to work with both companies to make that bridge so that we can get the GPS location of the call for service to the Aerodome product. And at the time this call came in, we had not had that connection yet. But in the future, well as it stands right now, the pilot makes a decision to launch and sends the drone into the air. The GPS is already in it and it's flying to the scene.

Automated?

Other than response time, of course, in launching and stuff. You already had drone technology. I think the really improvement here is you're mapping it, you're guiding the transparency with the public with this. Thank you.

The officers that were responding to the calls, we're having to go respond to the call and then if the drone was needed they'd have to launch after they already arrived on scene. In the case in the situation that we're in now because we have the drones first responder as you saw in that video he The pilot was on scene before the call even went out to the officer. So we're able to better respond to calls for service, especially those high-risk situations where we need actionable intelligence as soon as we can get it. The other thing I'd like you to keep in mind is in many cases, it's an overwatch environment where if I have a single officer on a traffic stop, a high risk traffic stop while we're waiting for other people to respond because of the quickness of the drone, be over the top of that officer dealing with individuals during traffic stops.

In one case, one of our officers was in a situation and conducted a traffic stop and the suspect in that case tried to discard a meth pipe and the drone picked up on everything so we're able to coach the officers to everything. I've learned a lot since getting into this program and I think that for our community, this is a game changer. And it's going to make us as a police department to better serve our community.

I got a call the other day and there was some confusion. I guess there's another person who's running drones out of the airport? And they were very, they were thinking it was PD. I went on your site and I didn't see you guys flying them. But maybe the city manager real fast because he could help with some of that confusion over in the Walmart area. I guess the guy launches them out of there or something and they're thinking it's your guys but they

aren't. Yeah so for our system, Sergeant Magillan is here. He's a supervisor of the drone program but there are geofences built around the airport that our drone can't fly into those areas unless we get prior approval from the FAA to do that. I think

we have a tenant out there that's flying. We do have

a

company that we lease one of the hangars to, they are deploying drones, they're registered and all that, and what they're doing is going up and down the coast looking for smugglers and illegal activity.

You had some public concern thinking that... And it's him launching out there so hopefully the people understand yours are all mapped? You never fly that out of there without being mapped or...?

Yeah it could take I don't know what the average time is, Sergeant Magill.

It's 24 hours from the time that we fly to the time it gets posted onto our portal.

Yeah but you're not launching without it being ID'd right? The trip is. Transparency sake that's pretty darn

fast. That's the purpose of the website. We want everybody to look at it and be familiar with it and there's nothing for us to hide. The

question, you said initially you had hesitation or reservations about any sort of drone stuff and then something changed. Can you walk me through that? Yeah

so I'm an old school cop. Using some of this technology, I look at it and go well what's the real benefit to us other than it's cool right? And this is definitely cool. But when you see the stats that we're putting up already in the first 90 days of this program and the response times to getting to calls for service and getting that actionable intelligence out to the officers quickly, that's invaluable And the potential for us to de-escalate situations and slow down my police officers if they're going to a hot call, in other words Code 3.

If the drone gets there quickly and sees that there is not a risk to life that would require us to respond Code 3 we can immediately slow the units down in their high speed response to the call for service so on a safety level it kind of opened my eyes to a lot The benefits it does bring to us and just seeing what I showed everybody here tonight, we would never have seen who those suspects were in that case. They would have been long gone.

So the officers probably aren't happy with it because they clear calls with gone on arrival unable to locate no paperwork. Those are gonna go away because this drone is making it easier for us to find people.

All right, carry on with the next one. Automated License Plate Reader

At the Council's request we put together a presentation on automated license plate readers. YLPD uses automatic license plate reader technology it's a focused investigation tool for vehicles connected to crimes missing persons and public safety alerts thank you ALPRs have been around for many years and they help officers move from a vague vehicle description, which we get when we're talking to victims' witnesses, to basically an investigative lead. And that's what this is. It's a piece of evidence, a potential lead in a criminal investigation.

It helps us to recover stolen vehicles and stolen plates, locate vehicles associated with missing persons alerts, identify suspects or victim vehicles tied to specific criminal cases and create say a reviewable record of searches alerts and follow-ups. That was quick. You're gonna have to do it manually. Guys get that? All the way back to the beginning again.

Go back one just to make sure. Yeah, keep going. Is that it? All right. So this is the inventory that the police department and the city has. I want everybody to understand that there is a trailer that the city purchased that is funded through the Parks and Rec's to help with some of their events. We do have access to that if we need it for criminal investigations or issues that were dealing within the community But currently the police department or the City of Lompoc with automatic license plate reader cameras, we have 10.

And those you'll see at the end of the presentation my goal with those was to place them at all the points of entry and exit in the city and one in the middle of the city. So these are just catching vehicles coming in, license plates that are coming in that are potentially associated with criminal activity or leaving Which helps us give a direction of travel if they're leaving to other agencies, if we're involved in those investigations.

There are 38 CalPERS which surround Santa Barbara County Housing Authority facilities. At their request and their funding, they had those installed and give us access to those. And then obviously we have DRONA's first responder but there are other cameras in the city. Home Depot has put them up around their facility. They give us access to them but they're not our cameras. And there are some housing areas that I think believe, I don't know the names yet. That are also doing it on their own. So it is obviously giving us access to data as those vehicles pass through and get photographed taking up a license plate. Next slide.

What is an ALPR camera? What does it capture? It's a point in time vehicle event, not a person's identity. License plate images and plate characters from the rear of the vehicle, not the front of the vehicle. The vehicle make model body type color invisible features. The state that the plate was issued out of. The type. You can read all that yourself. And examples of visible features like a roof rack, toolbox, stickers trailer or any damage. Next slide.

So I think it's really important that everybody understand these are not video cameras. These are still photograph cameras, and ALPRs are just focused still images of a license plate and a vehicle giving descriptions that are searchable. There are within the system the ability to create alerts So if the Lompoc Police Department is looking for a vehicle associated in a criminal act, we can place an alert. And if that license plate shows up somewhere in the city or with another city within the state of California that we're allowed to have access to, it will alert us and let us know where it's at.

The video trailer, it is a video camera system but it also has still photographs It's a different retention privacy policy on that. And we only deploy it under any, whenever we deploy that it has to be done under the rules and the laws of the state of California. This has been pretty useful for major events and specific types of investigations. And I'll share one of those with you at the end or shortly.

And Drona's first responder, we just went through all that. So this is a separate aviation policy. All of our pilots are FAA certified. We use it for situational awareness or actionable intelligence as you heard me say earlier. There are evidence handling requirements that apply to this but this is not the same as an automated license plate reader. Next slide.

I want to stop the confusion when it comes to these cameras right? What flock license plate readers do and don't do. They do not use facial recognition, they do not identify drivers passengers race gender or other demographic traits. It does not contain DMV names addresses social security numbers or driver records it does not predict crime or assign a risk score to the vehicle And searches are based on vehicle details and documented investigative reasons.

Who owns the data? We as a City of Lompoc own the data. FLOC provides that infrastructure to us, they do not sell our data and every search requires a documented reason and it is logged for review and audit. LPD will retain ALPR data only for the period authorized by policy, contract and the law. Let's go back one. So recently FLOC has changed their ability to access and do searches.

And a perfect example in this is I was going to take and search the system for my police vehicle to show the public and the council what the actual photograph looks like that is taken by the cameras. But when I logged into Flock, it wouldn't allow me to do that because you have to have a crime so I couldn't search for my own city vehicle. So you'll see a photo later on that's AI generated because I wanted to show the public what the general look is of that photograph And we also with those changes that they made recently for all the new customers coming into FLOC and using ALPR, they now have a seven-day retention policy for those new customers. We are currently on a 30 day retention policy and that's hugely valuable to stay at 30 days as a chief of police.

That is my recommendation to this council It may take more than seven days for us to get the case through to the detectives, to be able to do the searching that they may or may not need. So if you were to require us to change that timing it could affect our ability to investigate so just keep that in mind. Generates a flock alert. Alerts come from official sources or authorized agency hot lists, reported stolen vehicles, missing persons, agency hot lists and wanted vehicles. Next slide.

Searches must be connected to an authorized law enforcement purpose. Stolen vehicle, suspect vehicle, victim vehicle et cetera. The user must document or the officer must document the reason for the search. The offense type, the case and incident number. Access records should include date and time, query terms, user identity and agency affiliation and search purposes.

Every search is reviewable in an audit and can be researched by management. No searches for personal curiosity, favor civil disputes or non-criminal purposes, no immigration enforcement or reproductive care searches. as prohibited by law, specifically the state of California. And no anonymous browsing or just checking searches. No sharing outside of authorized channels with approved agreements in California law. Next slide.

The Lompoc Police Department controls our access to our data. FLOC does not decide who receives LPD data. Any sharing must comply with our policy, Approved Agreements in California Law. California law restricts us From sharing or transferring of ALPR information, customer agencies decide whether and how to share. Sharing is not automatic nationwide access. LPD does not share its data nationwide or with federal agencies. It just doesn't happen. Next slide.

Here are the California ALPR requirements. ALPR operators and users must have a public usage and privacy policy We must have security and safeguards, reasonable operation, administrative technical and physical safeguards on this topic. When we first got into this I as a manager, I think we started when I was a captain and then I became chief, I recognized that it is very important that we maintain this data in a secure environment and that we have checks and balance system into who has access to it So unlike other departments in the state of California who give their patrol officers access to this information, we do not.