City Council Regular Meeting

URBANA CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MINUTES DATE: Monday, November 1, 2021 TIME: 7 : 0 0 pm PLACE: *Via ZOOM, 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, IL 61801 The City Council Committee of The Whole of the City of Urbana, Illinois, met in regular session Monday, November 1, 2021, at 7:00pm virtually via ZOOM. ELECTED OFFICIALS PHYSICALLY PRESENT: Diane Wolfe Marlin, Mayor; Phyllis D. Clark, City Clerk ELECETED OFFICIALS VIRTUALLY PRESENT: CM Maryalice Wu, CM Christopher Evans, CM Shirese Hursey, CM Jaya Kolisetty, CM Chaundra Bishop, CM Grace Wilken, CM James Quisenberry ELECTED OFFICIALS ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Jason Liggett, Darcy Sandefur, Carol Mitten, Bourema Ouedraogo, Scott Tess, Carla Boyd, Dave Wesner, Sheila Dodd, Bryant Seraphin. OTHERS PRESENT: Executive Director of Ella Baker center Zachary Norris, CBRB Chair Ricardo Diaz, CBRPB member Colum Wilson 1. Call to Order and Roll Call With a quorum virtually present, Mayor Marlin called the meeting of the Committee of the Whole to order at 7:19 PM following a public hearing. 2. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meeting October 18th Minutes. Motion to approve by CM Wilken and seconded by CM Wu. Vote by roll call: AYE: Wu, Evans, Hursey, Kolisetty, Quisenberry, Wilken, Bishop NAY: None 3. Additions to the Agenda CM Evans motioned to add a 10 minute presentation on ALPR by Zachary Norris after CPRB presentation. Seconded by CM Wilken. Vote by roll call: AYE: Wu, Evans, Hursey, Kolisetty, Wilken, Bishop, Quisenberry NAY: None CM Wilken proposed we switch discussion order. No action was taken. Mayor Marlin expressed condolences for the passing of former alderman Eric Jakobsson. 4. Public Input and Presentations a. Civilian Police Review Board 5-year Report by Ricardo Diaz, CPRB Chair and Colum Wilson, CPRB Member Presented by Ricardo Diaz CPRB chair and member Colum Wilson on the last 5 years of CBRB cases report. Provided statistics on review case outcomes and trends. Questions and discussion ensued. Page 1 of 3  b. ALPR Presentation from Zachary Norris Presented by Zachary Norris the executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Human rights and safety are reinforcing. Shared a story of a traffic stop in which he and his family were wrongfully stopped due to a mistake with ALPR technology. Questions and discussion ensued. c. Public Input Carol Ammons highly encouraged council to read “locking up our own” a book used by other legislatures. Provided a legislative update on state level efforts to address the gun violence public health crisis. Spoke in opposition to ALPR. Allan Max Axelrod spoke in opposition to ALPR. Donald Owen spoke in opposition to ALPR. Expressed that ALPR data may be subject to FOIA. Tracy Chong expressed concerns about the formatting for public input at the ALPR town halls. Expressed concerns about pictometry. Urged council to look into Taser review incident. Chris Hanson expressed concerns about the Taser review process and ALPR budget amendment. Theresa Michelson spoke in support of ALPR being one tool. Brandi McCoy spoke in opposition to ALPR. Eddie Pratt Jr. spoke in opposition to ALPR. Julie Watkins spoke in opposition to ALPR. Emmett Sanders provided 4 reasons why he opposes ALPR. Ben Theobald spoke in opposition to ALPR. Phyllis Clark as a resident of ward 3 spoke in support of ALPR. *Motion to extend public input for 30 minutes by CM Kolisetty. Seconded by CM Wu. Vote by roll call: AYE: Wu, Evans, Hursey, Kolisetty, Bishop, Quisenberry, Wilken NAY: Nay Sarah Nixon spoke in support of alternatives to ALPR. James Kilgore spoke in favor of investing in community needs based solutions instead of ALPR. Eldress Melinda Carr spoke in support of other alternatives to ALPR to address violence. Angel Johnson asked for alternative investments for the community like infrastructure and a community center. Tanya Parker spoke in opposition to ALPR and echoed support for community based solutions. Kanittha Fay spoke in support of both investigative tools and community programs. CM Kolisetty read a letter on behalf of Peggy Patton. CM Kolisetty read a statement on behalf of Mr and Mrs Fellers. CM Kolisetty read a letter from multiple individuals. CM Kolisetty read a statement by Kelly Wiggin. CMs agreed to send all remaining letters to be included in the record to the clerk due to time being exceeded for public input. 5. Staff Report Carol Mitten announced Dec 2nd and Dec 3rd for tentative council sessions from 5:30 -7:30. Provided an update on equity and quality of life project. Diane Marlin announced governor made gun violence a public health crisis and the state will be making funds available for solutions 6. Ordinance No. 2021-10-046: An Ordinance Authorizing Sale of City-Owned Real Estate: 1407 Wiley Drive (92-21-16-352-006), 809 South Glover Avenue (92-21-16-181-007), 1811 East Florida Avenue (92-21-16-481-061), 1106 North Wright Street (91-21-07-251-002)– PW Presented by Scott Tess of public works. Following presentation council discussion lead to the removal of the Wright street property from the ordinance. Motion to approve to send to City Council minus the Wright street property by CM Wu and seconded by CM Hursey. Further discussion ensued. Vote by roll call: AYE: Wu, Evans, Hursey, Quisenberry, Bishop, Kolisetty NAY: Wilken Page 2 of 3 7. Ordinance No. 2021-09-044: An Ordinance Revising the FY2022 Annual Budget (Budget Amendment #3) – HR/Finance Presented by Chief Bryant Seraphin. Discussion and questions ensued. Following discussion council decided more time was needed to decide. *Motion to extend meeting to 11 PM by CM Quisenberry and seconded by CM Hursey. Vote by roll call: AYE: Wu, Evans, Hursey, Kolisetty, Quisenberry, Wilken, Bishop NAY: None Motion to keep item in committee for further discussion by CM Wu and seconded by CM Evan. Vote by roll call: AYE: Wu, Evans, Hursey, Kolisetty, Quisenberry, Wilken, Bishop NAY: None. 8. Discussion* a. Procedures Related to Action Items by Council (Continued from October 18) – CMs Bishop and Kolisetty b. Public Safety Evaluation: Scope of Work Discussion – CM Bishop * Due to the lateness of the hour the discussion items were sent to a special Committee of the Whole meeting on 11/8/2021. 9. Adjournment Having decided to resume business in a special meeting following the next scheduled City Council meeting on Monday November 8th Mayor Marlin adjourned the meeting at 10:57 PM. Darcy Sandefur Recording Secretary This meeting was video recorded and is viewable on-demand HERE. Minutes approved: 11/15/2021 Page 3 of 3 From: Lynda Minor To: !City Council Subject: Citizen Statement to City Council Date: Monday, November 01, 2021 12:39:33 PM *** Email From An External Source *** Dear Mayor Marlin, Alderman Quisenberry and the entire Urbana City Council, I am unable to attend this evenings council meeting. Please accept my electronic citizen’s statement: Since my arrival to Urbana 28 years ago, I have lived in wards 5, 4 and currently reside in ward 7. I have seen many aspects of our community from the perspective of a single-professional, health-care worker, Student Affairs staff member on campus, parent in the public schools, and community volunteer. Urbana is a very giving community which supports many services and programs and I am proud to call it my home. In spite of this tremendous support, citizens are asking for help of different kind with the use of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs). In response to increases in gun violence in our community, Urbana City Council began discussing the use of cameras as an investigative tool 4 to 5 months ago. Alderman Shirese Hursey and community member Linda Turnbull submitted a petition recommending the purchase and use of such a tool with over 400 signatures across wards, including an overwhelming presence from ward 3. The most impacted wards by gun violence are 3 & 7. It seems that the members of city council resisting the approval think they are protecting Black folks from “over-policing,” as well as protecting their constituents from an “invasion of privacy.” In reality, they are disregarding many Black and Brown voices, not to mention the fact that the petition was in favor of a more invasive camera and anyone with a cellphone in current times has already sacrificed more privacy than ALPRs would impose. I have listened to Alderwoman Hursey speak of what she and our neighbors live every day and they have discerned that this tool is the best option for helping them feel safe in their own homes. Yet, community activists and city council representatives speak as if they know what’s best for Black and Brown citizens. Furthermore, it appears individuals’ desires for privacy is being given higher priority than Black and Brown citizens’ basic needs to feel safe. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, safety impacts growing into self-actualization. How is this liberating, let alone equitable? Put action behind your Black Lives Matter yard sign; STOP, LISTEN and YIELD to the constituents that are most impacted rather than using the Black Community as a political football. Approve the purchase and use of ALPRs; the work of perfecting a policy will be ongoing. That’s how policies and procedures work. The longer Council waits to take action on installing ALPRs, the more Black and Brown lives are lost, and families, friends and neighbors are forever traumatized. Sincerely, Lynda Minor Resident of Ward 7 From: Theresa Sweeney To: !City Council Cc: Mark Sweeney Subject: Please Read the email below at tonight"s meeting Date: Monday, November 01, 2021 12:42:58 PM *** Email From An External Source *** Please Read the email below at tonight's meeting. Thank you! November 1st, 2021 Dear Mayor Marlin, Alderman Quisenberry and the entire Urbana City Council, My husband and I have been a member of this community for nearly 30 years. We moved to Urbana from Chicago, and we have raised our family here. Our children attend public schools, and we are public school educators. We are at home in Urbana. As we are all aware, communities across the nation are experiencing an increase in violence, and in particular, gun violence. There is a well documented increased in the gun violence that is being experienced by residents in Urbana as well as the surrounding communities.    We are writing today to express support for the Automatic License Plate Readers as proposed by Alderman Shirese Hursey. This was initially proposed in July, and has strong community support. A petition was submitted that was signed by over 400 community members from various wards; a significant of signatures came from residents of ward 3 which is directly impacted by the overwhelming increase in gun violence. There is strong community support for the ALPRs as a tool for law enforcement to respond once a crime has been committed. Too often there are no witnesses or witnesses are too afraid to come forward for fear of retaliation. License plate numbers for vehicles present around the time of the incident will be one tool available to assist in stopping assailants; this will assist community members in being able to get some control back The ALPRs are not a permanent fixture in each community; they can be discontinued if they are no longer needed. They will not be used for other purposes such as finding out who has an expired license plate sticker. They also will assist in getting more information on who is actually committing the crimes; currently, there is not complete information. For the voices against ALPRs, one of their strongest arguments against the ALPRs is the overpolicing which has occurred in the Black and Brown communities. As indicated, this information will be used for the purpose of following up once a crime has been committed. Are the council members who are against the ALPRs truly listening to what their Black and Brown constituents are asking for to keep them safe? This “I know what’s best” mentality is not considering what the people who are most impacted are asking for and not considering what they deal with every day. For those worried about privacy, privacy has already been relinquished in multiple ways through our phones, computers/tablets, smartwatches, social media, and cars. There is no validity to this argument given the amount of technology permeating our daily lives. It’s time to take action for the people who need to feel safe and to support their needs. It’s time to represent all of Urbana and not just the vocal minority, who may or may not be community members, who continually push their agenda to the detriment of meeting the needs of community members. Sincerely, Theresa and Mark Sweeney Residents of Ward 7 From: Peggy Patten To: ! Kolisetty, Jaya Cc: !City Council; Marlin, Diane Subject: RE: ALPR public comment - revised Date: Monday, November 01, 2021 1:24:50 PM *** Email From An External Source *** Hello Jaya, Thank you for offering to read my statement during public comment tonight. I would very much like you to do so. I have spent the last 48 hours absorbing additional input about ALPRs....from local, state & national sources. As a result I have revised my statement about reluctantly supporting the City's investment in ALPRs. I have pasted my revised statement below. Please read this revised statement tonight. Thank you. Peggy Patten REVISED 11-1-21 Hello Urbana City Council & Mayor Marlin, I attended Friday's town hall meeting sponsored by the City of Urbana & the NAACP. I appreciate the information provided & the opportunity to ask questions & provide public comment. I especially appreciated the attention to the various ways Urbana is working to address the serious gun violence plaguing our region. I had to leave before the public comment period so wish to share my position on ALPRs in this email. After hearing the support of ALPRs from the City & Minnie Pearson of the NAACP & reading numerous concerns voiced about this new technology, I remain reluctant about the City's investment in ALPRs. My reluctance stems from two primary areas, both of which can be addressed by the City. 1) A significant area of concern over ALPRs has to do with mistrust of how they will be used. Articulated policies & verbal intentions only go so far. If the City moves ahead with ALPRs, I hope the City will put in place an oversight board that includes members of the community to regularly review the use of ALPRs. 2) A frequent statement made by the Mayor, Ms. Pearson & Chief Seraphin at Friday's Town Hall was that ALPRs are one tool to assist our police department in investigating gun violence & if this technology leads to even minor reductions in gun violence it will be sufficient. I disagree with that statement. Financial & human resources are finite. Any decision to adopt a new "tool" or new approach has tradeoffs: money spent on ALPRs is money not spent elsewhere. Staff time devoted to following ALPR leads is staff time not devoted to other known practices that help reduce gun violence (neighborhood supports, housing & infrastructure development, etc.). The question about whether ALPRs are worthy of the substantial investment of dollars & staff time is a valid question. I was disappointed that more information was not provided about the impact of ALPRs in other communities who have been using the technology for some time. Information from Flock is not reliable & a single anecdote from the city of Joliet shared at Friday's Town Hall was not convincing. We should want to know if Rantoul, Danville, Decatur, Springfield & Peoria believe their investment in ALPRs was worth it & why. Thank you for hosting last week's Town Hall meetings. Please reach out to the communities using ALPRs to learn more about their impact on gun violence reduction & share that information with us. And if the City adopts ALPRs, please set up a system of accountability to insure they are being used as intended. Thank you for your service to Urbana. Peggy Patten 609 W. Indiana Avenue Urbana -----Original Message----- From: ! Kolisetty, Jaya [mailto:jlkolisetty@urbanaillinois.us] Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 12:58 PM To: Peggy Patten <mspeggypatten@gmail.com> Subject: Re: ALPR public comment Dear Peggy, Thank you for your email. I truly appreciate the time and attention community members are devoting to this issue. We are set to vote on this matter today, Monday, November 1st during the Committee of the Whole meeting at 7pm and I encourage community members to attend and share their thoughts. Please let me know if you would like this statement read during public comment. Here is the information for today's meeting: https://www.urbanaillinois.us/node/9697​. Sincerely, Jaya Jaya Kolisetty, MA, MBA (she/her/hers) Urbana City Council Member, Ward 4 ________________________________________ From: Peggy Patten <mspeggypatten@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2021 5:30 PM To: !City Council Cc: Marlin, Diane Subject: ALPR public comment *** Email From An External Source *** Hello Urbana City Council & Mayor Marlin, I attended today's town hall meeting sponsored by the City of Urbana & the NAACP. I appreciate the information provided & the opportunity to ask questions & provide public comment. I especially appreciated the attention to the various ways Urbana is working to address the serious gun violence plaguing our region. I had to leave before the public comment period so wish to share my position on ALPRs in this email. After hearing the support of ALPRs from the City & Minnie Pearson & reading numerous concerns voiced about this new technology, I reluctantly support the City's investment in ALPRs. My reluctance stems from two primary areas, both of which can be addressed by the City. 1) A significant area of concern over ALPRs has to do with mistrust of how they will be used. Articulated policies & verbal intentions only go so far. I hope the City is prepared to put in place an oversight board that includes members of the community to regularly review the use of ALPRs. 2) A frequent statement made by the Mayor, Ms. Pearson & Chief Seraphin at today's Town Hall was that ALPRs are one tool to assist our police department in investigating gun violence & if this technology leads to even minor reductions in gun violence it will be sufficient. I disagree with that statement. Financial & human resources are finite. Any decision to adopt a new "tool" or new approach has tradeoffs: money spent on ALPRs is money not spent elsewhere. Staff time devoted to following ALPR leads is staff time not devoted to other known practices that help reduce gun violence (neighborhood supports, housing & infrastructure development, etc.). The question about whether ALPRs are worthy of the substantial investment of dollars & staff time is a valid question. I was disappointed that more information was not provided about the impact of ALPRs in other communities who have been using the technology for some time. Information from Flock is not reliable & a single anecdote from the city of Joliet was not convincing. We should want to know if Rantoul, Danville, Decatur, Springfield & Peoria believe their investment in ALPRs was worth it & why. Thank you for hosting this week's Town Hall meetings. Please reach out to the communities using ALPRs to learn more about their impact on gun violence reduction & share that information with us. And if the City adopts ALPRs, please set up a system of accountability to insure they are being used as intended. Thank you for your service to Urbana. Peggy Patten 609 W. Indiana Avenue Urbana November 1, 2021 Dear Mayor Marlin and Members of the Urbana City Council: “White allies. We appreciate you, but please listen to us.” This is the plea I heard issued by Tracy Parsons, Office of Equity, Community and Human Rights for the City of Champaign, and Minnie Pearson, President of the NAACP Champaign County Branch, during a Community Coalition zoom meeting in June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd. Out of respect and a sincere attempt to understand my own bias, I strive to take every available opportunity to listen to our venerable Black leaders, which I fully admit is not often enough when we are all struggling to recover from the long-term effects of the pandemic and parenting through remote schooling and work, as well as increasing community unrest, violence, social media disinformation, and gaslighting for political gain. Most recently, I have heard the pleas from our Black community elders, Sherise Hursey and Linda Turnbull, who have publicly expressed they are feeling violated by the exponential increase of retaliatory gunfire in their own neighborhoods, and consequently submitted a petition with 403 signatures in May 2021 to support “installation of CCTV cameras, along with supporting aspects—increased lighting, clear lines of sight, security 24/7, security personnel to manage cameras, to be placed in the high crime areas of Urbana.” Were the requests of these 403 individuals met? No, but Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRS) are currently on the table for discussion as a compromise to address Ms. Hursey’s and Ms. Turnbull’s plea to address the 403 citizens’ demands for safety and security. As my family also hears gunshots and sirens several times a month outside our home in Ward 6, I have searched for best practice information on ALPRs across the country as many cities are clearly facing exponential gun violence and a crisis similar to our own community. While I understand and validate the privacy concerns proposed by the leasing of ALPRS, I am also perplexed by the pervasive insistence that citizens are entitled to privacy in a public thoroughfare—especially in the case of our own community gun violence such as a public school bus and 9-year-old caught in the crossfire between dueling vehicles. I am also confused as to why capturing a license plate on the back of a vehicle proposes anymore of a violation to privacy than the GPS feature on our cell phones, as just one example among many. Committed to listening, I defer to the following excerpt of an opinion piece from Terry Taplin, City of Berkeley, California Councilman in District 2. Councilman Taplin is self-described as an “openly gay, working-class Black man, community organizer, and social democrat born and raised in Southwest Berkeley.” His full bio and opinion piece in support of ALPRS can be found here respectfully: https://www.terrytaplin.com/ and https://www.berkeleyside.org/2021/10/09/opinion-could-cameras-make-berkeley-safer-reduce- gun-violence. Berkeley is experiencing a raging epidemic of gun violence similar to our own and most recently experienced a shootout in a neighborhood park surrounded by small children. In response, Mr. Taplin shared the following thoughts in the Berkleyside Nonprofit News on October 9, 2021, just a few weeks ago:  As I stood with my constituents in the park a few days later, listening to their stories of cowering in the park and hearing their frustration with the city’s safety response in recent years, I wondered, “are the needs and perspectives of the neighborhoods I represent being taken seriously?” It is hard to answer this question in the affirmative when the response I get to any immediate public safety measures the City Council proposes is that my constituents should simply wait for the world to solve income inequality…My constituents frequently ask me what the city can do immediately to reduce gunfire — naturally, they are already familiar with the social determinants of crime and have had plenty of practice imagining life without them. Yet a speeding car or a gun can end those hopes and dreams in an instant. Imagining a better world is still an important task before us, but we also have to assess possibilities that are feasible today. The City Council’s mandate as public servants requires immediate action. We have a commitment not just to ensure a better world for future generations, but also for you, right now. Some criticisms of several council proposals hold that rather than enforcing public safety more effectively with modern technology, we should be focusing instead on root causes of social unrest — systemic racism, poverty, inequality, and disinvestment. While I also work to address these interrelated social ills in my capacity as a councilmember, it’s pretty clear focusing exclusively on these long- term visions is not adequate. We can and must do all of the above….Protecting the safety of road users by holding drivers responsible for the social contract they sign up for when obtaining a license is hardly an intrusion into civil liberties — it is the bare minimum your public servants should be doing to uphold them. We do not yet live in a world where the rules establishing a peaceful society are imposed entirely by the gentle hand of positive incentives, voluntary cooperation, or sheer altruism. Unfortunately, we do live in a city where lawless violence — with cars and guns as the weapons of choice — has a disparate impact on Black and Brown communities and disinvested neighborhoods. If you can empathize with the generational trauma in the Black community, it shouldn’t be too hard to also empathize with Black people getting their cars stolen or hit or run over in crosswalks. Believe me, we’re not fond of those indignities either. In closing, I respectfully request the Urbana City Council fulfill their elected duties to listen and echo Councilman Taplin’s question, “are the needs and perspectives of the neighborhoods I represent being taken seriously?” I urge the City Council to vote in favor of the proposed budget amendment to lease 20 automatic licensed plate readers for the period of one year for all of the reasons described by Councilman Taplin’s opinion piece above. Sincerely, Julia Guth Urbana Resident  November 1, 2021 To the Members of the Urbana City Council: My name is Anita Chan, and I’m an Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. This is the first statement of this kind I’ve addressed to the City, and I was not anticipating to do so today. But after attending one of the Town Halls on ALPRs last week, I was compelled out of genuine concern to share this statement. I teach on and research algorithmic systems and their social impacts. I also lead the Community Data Clinic at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and iSchool, and am a Faculty Affiliate at the Data & Society Institute. So I was surprised to hear a number of statements made about ALPRs that contradicted the standard literature on automated information systems during the Town Halls. The statements were misleading and left the public with a dangerously inaccurate impression of what ALPRs are. For the purposes of time, I will raise just 3 clarifications. Firstly: It was explicitly stated that since ALPRs cannot pan, stream, or capture images of a driver, that they: “are not surveillance cameras.” This is false. None of those criteria are necessary for surveillance systems to operate. All surveillance systems for law enforcement – whether a watch tower, electronic monitoring bracelets, or ALPRs – enable routine monitoring, and information tracking. The key difference with ALPRs is that the vast majority of those residents being tracked have no previous connection to a crime. Furthermore, as researchers have shown: concentrating ALPRs in minority neighborhoods amounts to greater surveillance and burden of suspicion placed on those residents. It is thus inaccurate to suggest that because ALPRs don’t “see” faces or race, that they cannot racially profile. Secondly: it was repeated that ALPRs are “just another tool” – equivalent to a carpenter’s speed square. But this is an irresponsible mischaracterization that mitigates their potential. ALPRs are not simple tools, but are complex technological systems that permanently connect neighborhoods to law enforcement, and then to a remote, third-party corporate processing infrastructure. Unlike other tools, they cannot be turned on and off. Once installed, they track information indiscriminately and at such a scale, that it is entirely possible to not just track, but to identify a driver’s routine activities, to infer and predict where they go for worship, for healthcare, or who their friends are. All this is possible to correlate without ever having to “see” a driver’s face; and it is certainly possible to do with just a month’s worth of stored data. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it was suggested various times that the city wants to take a very “data-driven” approach to this decision. But it was glaringly obvious that critical information was missing from the townhalls. No mention was made, for instance, of the numerous communities –across California, Arizona, Indiana, and New York – among others, that have recently rejected or canceled ALPR contracts, and no inquiry was made into why. (This was in fact the first thing a colleague in Engineering said to me when I mentioned the Urbana townhalls: “You know they are canceling the use of those things in other areas,” he said.) This should raise flags of the need for more earnest data collection and assessment by the City prior to investment. Indeed, here in Urbana, we have some of the strongest and most robust research capacities of anywhere in the state. This is an opportunity, as we are all part of Urbana’s research community. And on an issue of such critical import, that could change Urbana’s architecture, the City should ensure that the resources at the University of Illinois (the varied labs, data clinics, and interdisciplinary researchers) – as well as OFF campus– are engaged for collaborative and transparent inquiry and assessment. Hearing city officials voice their confidence in Flock’s product by citing the vendor’s own self- reported accuracy rates was heartbreaking. It does not indicate a serious assessment of proposed solution to a serious problem. Similarly, enumerating the neighboring cities in Illinois that are undertaking contracts with the same vendor is a grossly insufficient indicator of LPR efficacy. None of those communities have the kind of research capacity that exists here in Urbana. It might even be argued that we should be providing a service to our neighbors and the state by undertaking research of this kind that few others are well positioned to do regionally. As I hope is clear, this is neither a plea for, nor against, ALPRs. This is instead a request for more sound research grounded in earnest and transparent data collection around ALPRs - and around Flock’s or any other potential vendor’s system prior to any move. This is not a trivial decision, but is one that could be consequential to our neighbors near and far. And we owe it to them to be deliberate and thorough in moving forward. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Dr. Anita Say Chan, Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences, Department of Media and Cinema Studies, College of Media, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Director, Community Data Clinic Fiddler Innovation Faculty Fellow, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Faculty Affiliate, Data & Society Institute