Thank you to those able to attend last night and those who signed up to speak. Following public comment, the council spent a period of time debating the merits of the devices, the legality, and ethics, etc. until finally Councilman Sherrick asked a very simple question that completely disarmed the debate.

"Why not simply ask the voters directly if they want to be surveilled with these cameras?"

The tenor of the discussion shifted immediately with seemingly unanimous support from the council to bring it before the voters and let us decide for ourselves.

If it does end up coming before us as a ballot initiative, the devil will be in the details. The PR spin and wordsmithing of the ballot question has the potential to be extremely slanted in such a way that opposition to surveillance is tantamount to opposing law enforcement and the police department.

We cannot allow the question or debate to be framed in this manner as this is completely untrue.

Ironically, this outcome would actually ensure that the public is made fully aware of the surveillance system's existence as I currently believe the vast majority of our community has no idea they're even there.

The advertising and PR blitz that will accompany a ballot initiative will ironically perform the public awareness campaign that should have happened long before they were even installed.

Thank you to everyone who remains engaged on this. Looks like there may be much more to come.

Josh