APPRO-2025-32 : An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $16,000 to the Police Department (#211) for evidence software.

Transcript (~10 min @ 47:08)

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▶ 47:09 Mark Garipay: I will get recommended to the full council. Thank you. Thank you. Julie Knight. Next up is ID 1 2, 6, 5, 0 and appropriation of free cash account 0 1 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 16,000 to the police department. Number two 11 for evidence software. We have Chief Alia with us tonight. Good morning. Uh, good afternoon, evening Chief. Darn

▶ 47:32 Speaker 1: It. You remembered my name though. That's good. Good, good evening. Now We're gonna let that one Down. Good evening everybody. Uh, I did have a memo and it's, it's relatively brief, so if, if you can endure door me for a minute, I will read it. And if you have any questions, obviously I can clarify. Um, so we're looking for $16,000, uh, for the purchase of evidence software. Uh, the 16 doll, $16,000 will cover the software licensing, the hardware that's gonna come along with IT training, and, uh, more, more importantly, the migration of all of our existing data, um, in our current system to the new system. Uh, and the system is called, uh, software is called Tracker Products, LLC. Uh, updating our evidence intake and tracking system has been a priority of mine since I became chief, excuse me. And with the upcoming move into the new police station a few years or so, it's even more of a priority. We have 6,000 plus pieces of evidence and properly property currently logged into our system, and we need to account for that accurately. Uh, certainly prior to moving and transporting the 6,000 pieces of evidence and property into a new station. And this particular product is vetted through numerous agencies across the Commonwealth, and I can attest to its value and its, um, its quality. Having utilized the same product in my previous employment in another agency, um, monitoring evidence and staying up to date is vital not only to protect the best interests of our personnel, but also to ensure that we as a city are doing what we can do to maintain the best industry practices as we move towards accrediting accreditation and complying with the continual changes and requirements of the law. We're, we're constantly, uh, asked to do more things, uh, you know, uh, tighten up things by, uh, statute and this will certainly get us, uh, to the best industry practices. I also met with our city IT department and they sat in with a couple meetings with the vendor, um, that we're looking to purchase this from. And they're all on board with it. And it actually saves a lot of, um, storage space and sort of a accountability on the city. And as far as this is all cloud-based secure, um, evidence that the city, uh, IT department will no longer have to store in our own server. And, uh, that's by memo.

▶ 49:48 Speaker 5: Thank you Chief Councilor. Jamal.

▶ 49:51 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Thank you Chief. Um, can you explain to, um, ask and for, uh, those that's watching, um, uh, the process of how, when that transition and when you're starting new, uh, software or how those evidence are being integrated into the new, uh, software and how, how much are we protecting confidentiality, uh, in a way? Um, that's my first question. My second question, you shared that there is different agencies that do have access to that. Is ICE one of them?

▶ 50:32 Speaker 1: Um, no, they wouldn't. The, so I can answer the first question first if you don't mind. Um, which now you threw me off a little bit. Oh, the intake. The intake and migrating and stuff. So, so the biggest thing in, when I worked in Medford for 28 years, obviously you guys know my history. So 11 years I ran detective division, which my primary responsibility on one of them was overseeing evidence and supervising that. And we migrated from, uh, our previous system to this one. No, no issues, no flaws, no nothing. And, uh, meeting with the vendors in IT and my own people, um, it's a very secure, uh, way they do it. Um, so it's vetted through, like I said, through other agencies. I just sent my, uh, evidence guys to, uh, a seminar to learn the updated rules, regulations, laws, and the, uh, vent, um, instructors that taught this. A retired, retired chief who lives in the city and another, uh, current lieutenant over at S pd. And they, they, they, they use the system as well as Bedford pd, the migration system, which I talked about briefly. What I didn't say was our current record management system, IMC software will now be integrated with this as well. So it'll, they'll talk to each other. Our current evidence systems is not, it will save man manpower issues where we're not doubly entering things. And as far as your second question, as far as if, would ICE have access to it? No, no other agency, even though they use the product, will have access to our Merose PD evidence. Uh, the way we operate, it's very strict. It's, there's only two people who have access to it right now, supervisor in charge of detectives and, uh, the patrol officer, detective who works for him that have administrative access, certainly every patrol officer, everybody in the department will get trained to use it and enter evidence. As far as protecting the sanctity of it, uh, no, it's, it would be just Merose Police. And that's actually one of the other advantages I talked about in removing pictures. Photos and stuff entering into Merrill's, uh, city of Merrill's soft, um, servers and computers. You know, that's quite frankly, not the best industry practice to begin with. So we'll be moving away from that where it's ultimately secure when no one can get access to it.

▶ 52:36 Maya Jamaleddine: Awesome. Thank you so much for clarifying, for the clarification. Um, and this could be, you know, indirectly related to this project, but what if other agencies like ICE would ask for to access, uh, those information? And

▶ 52:53 Speaker 1: I don't think they'd have a need to, uh, quite frankly, but if they were to No, they, they would be denied access to. They would be denied. Yeah. If, if, if any agency, quite frankly asked or anybody outside of our sworn personnel who have authorized access to it, they would not be allowed in. Awesome. Thank you so much. Sure. Council Stewart?

▶ 53:13 Robb Stewart: Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, thank you. Uh, chief Elliot, just to confirm, you, you are acquiring the cloud version, not the on-prem version.

▶ 53:23 Speaker 1: What, what, I'm sorry. You're,

▶ 53:25 Robb Stewart: You're acquiring the cloud version of the software and not the on-prem version of the software?

▶ 53:29 Speaker 1: Yes, everything's stored in the cloud. Yeah.

▶ 53:31 Robb Stewart: Great. Yeah. And just, and just for, I, I've been looking on the website, um, they do, I know this feel a little bit, um, they do have extremely stringent requirements. Um, so I, I will compliment your, your statements 'cause they're using a FedRAMP, fisma, those are all very secure lockdown, um, components that, um, I think is great to secure this information. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

▶ 53:58 Speaker 5: Anyone else? Councilor Williams?

▶ 54:04 Ryan Williams: Just two things. Um, if you could send like the quote or whatever so we can append it to the record so that we can just have it for posterity. And then I, I know that probably a lot of this cost is, um, the license. Do you know off the top of your head? Correct. I'm looking actually at a, at a, um, 2024 quote from the same company to a police department in Kentucky. That was about like eight $8,500 of a, of a, um, $14,000 quote. 8,500 was the, was the annual license? Correct. So that's about what we're looking at. Annual like

▶ 54:39 Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. 84 80. Um, so this, this, this $16,000 will cover FY 26. Got it. With the two licenses and all the migration training, et cetera, et cetera. FY 27 will have a cost of 84. 80 Okay. Per, per Year. Thank you. Yep.

▶ 54:55 Speaker 5: Counsel Vandiver.

▶ 54:56 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Um, real briefly, um, with the 6,000 pieces of evidence, um, is there a time horizon after which those get taken out of the system, or are they stored indefinitely?

▶ 55:06 Speaker 1: Um, they're, they're stored indefinitely for sure. And that's why I'm excited that we can get this ball rolling this year, uh, because we can do our full audit, full migration of everything, and now we'll know exactly what we have and if there's any inconsistencies, we can rectify that before we even pack up and, and move to the new location. Mm-hmm.

▶ 55:27 Kimberly Vandiver: Is there, is there any point in time at which, you know, the case has been over for long enough where I, I, I'm just wondering, you know, 50 years in the future, will this pile pile up? Pile up,

▶ 55:36 Speaker 1: Or, oh, you mean at some point? You mean physical, like the physical evidence? I thought you meant like the, the computer entries into the Yeah. Uh, no. Well, that's one of our projects that we have, we just started doing now, uh, is how much can we get rid of Okay. Prior to the move. Uh, and it's very time consuming. Um, and property is one thing. Evidence is a different thing. Uh, and you need, uh, court orders to do that. And it's, uh, it's, I went through it. It's, it's, it's gonna be labor intensive, but we're, we're gonna try to streamline everything that we can do before we

▶ 56:05 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. Great. Yeah, that's the direction I was, was asking in. And anything, even though it's labor intensive that you can do before the move and before the entry into the software did, kind of Hundred percent.

▶ 56:15 Speaker 4: Yep. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Sure.

▶ 56:18 Speaker 5: Anyone else? What's the will

▶ 56:23 Speaker 4: of the, uh, Stewart? Yeah. Mr. Chair, I make a motion to recommend to the full counsel.

▶ 56:28 Mark Garipay: Second. Second. I have a motion to recommend to the full council by council, uh, Stewart, seconded by councilor uh, Al on

▶ 56:35 Speaker 5: discussion, full vote, please.

▶ 56:40 Speaker 1: Vice chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Councilor Occhio. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Cameron Chetty. Yes. Cremsky? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. Present mere. Yes. Chair Gar Pay? Yes. Motion passes.

▶ 56:58 Mark Garipay: I will get recommended to the full council. Um, one more for you Chief id. 1, 2, 6, 5, 1. And appropriation of free cash account. 0 1 3 2 4 dash, I'm sorry, 3 2 4 0 0 1 in the amount of 90,000 to the police department for the purchase of a new cruiser?