Health and Safety Committee Meeting - March 11, 2026: Axon ALPR Contract Postponed
Health and Safety Committee Meeting - March 11, 2026
Note: The transcript incorrectly identifies the meeting as March 18, 2026; the agenda and minutes show March 11, 2026.
The Health and Safety Committee of the Denver City Council met on March 11, 2026, to consider a contract with Axon Enterprise, Inc. for an Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system. The committee received a presentation from city officials, heard extensive discussion, and voted to postpone the action item to March 18, 2026, to allow time for review of the final contract.
Consent Calendar
- Approved Council Resolution 26-0231: a contract with Michael’s of Denver Catering, Inc. for $3,500,000 to prepare and deliver nutritious meals to children at Tasty Food Program sites, citywide, with an end date of 12-31-2031.
Discussion Items
- Presentation on Axon ALPR Contract (26-0246): Tim Hoffman (Mayor's Office), Commander Cliff Barnes (Denver Police Department), and Tara Segura (Technology Services) presented the proposed contract. The $150,000 one-year contract would provide 50 Axon Outpost cameras, hardware, software, and a 21-day data retention policy (reduced from 30 days). Key safeguards included: FedRAMP High security authorization, data encryption at rest and in transit, no AI training using city data, no data sharing with third parties without explicit opt-in, access limited to Denver safety personnel, and an immutable audit log. The administration requested a postponement to allow council members to review the final contract.
- Council Q&A: Councilmembers raised numerous concerns and questions, including:
- Councilmember Parady: questioned the timeline for decommissioning Flock cameras, the need for a contract clause preventing unauthorized feature additions, the accuracy of audit logs, the live streaming capability of the cameras, and the potential for data sharing with other jurisdictions. She expressed concern about entering the contract without a completed surveillance ordinance or updated DPD policies.
- Councilmember Cashman: requested data on the number of crimes solved by Flock cameras, emphasized the need for guardrails on data sharing, and expressed skepticism about Flock's 'decommission mode'.
- Councilmember Gonzales-Gutierrez: asked about the rationale for the 21-day retention period, the status of Flock drones, and the potential for public access to audit results.
- Councilmember Flynn: sought clarification on the interactivity between Axon cameras and other devices, the accuracy of ALPR alerts, and whether monthly audit logs could be shared with council.
- Councilmember Torres: asked about the process for updating the operations manual, the real-time crime center's staffing, and the impact of adding technology on the DPD budget.
- Councilmember Sawyer: highlighted the need to see the final contract before voting, noting that guardrails must be in the contract. She viewed the reduced number of cameras (50 vs. 11 Flock) as a pilot.
- Councilmember Parady (second round): raised concerns about Axon's history with an ethics board resignation, potential immigration enforcement ties, and the need to protect First Amendment activities.
- Councilmember Cashman (second round): asked about the trigger mechanism for cameras (heat signature vs. motion) and how data sharing with other jurisdictions would work.
- Axon Representative (Joey Domino): answered questions about camera capabilities (dual sensors for ALPR and live streaming, 98% accuracy, ability to search vehicle characteristics), data sharing features (case-based or reason-based sharing under development), and the transparency portal.
Key Outcomes
- Vote to Postpone: A motion by Chair Watson, seconded by Vice Chair Flynn, to postpone Resolution 26-0246 to a date certain of March 18, 2026, carried by a vote of 6-0 (Flynn, Gonzales-Gutierrez, Parady, Sawyer, Torres, Watson in favor; Sandoval absent).
- Expectation: The administration agreed to provide the final contract to council members by Friday, March 13, 2026, for review before the postponed meeting.
Meeting Transcript
To this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council. Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now. Good morning. This is the March 18th Health and Safety Committee meeting. My name is Daryl Watson. I'm honored to serve as the chair of this committee as well as the city council member representing all of the fine district nine. We have on the agenda this morning an action item for the Axon contract. But before we roll into uh this presentation, why don't we start with uh introductions by city council members starting on our right? Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. It's uh Kevin Flynn from Southwest Denver's lovely district two. You know, Sarah Hardy, one of your two council members at large from the entire lovely city of Denver. All lovely. Jamie Torres from uh West Denver District Three. Amanda Sawyer, District Five. Oh Cashman South Denver District Six. Good morning, everyone. Sadena Gonzalez Gutierrez. Uh also from the at-large lovely city of Denver. Awesome. Uh we'll turn it over to Tim Hoffman for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Alan, I'll just start uh introducing myself and then allow the rest of the team to introduce themselves as well. My name is Tim Hoffman. I'm in the mayor's office. I services director of policy. And good morning, Cliff Barnes, uh deputy commander over our Cyber Bureau. Uh Terra Segura, Dave Protection Officer Technology Services. And we're here today to talk about a license plate reader contract with Axon that we are proposing. Um flip through a couple slides and then I'll hand it over to Commander Barnes to talk through some of the specifics. Um the details before you jump in uh I kind of jumped ahead of protocol. I didn't review if anyone was online. Are there producers there? Are any council members online seeing none? Sorry, Mr. Hoffman, uh turn it back over to you. Okay. Um so the contract details uh here, it's a 150,000 dollar one-year contract. Um, obviously, the 150,000 dollar uh amount is below the normal $500,000 threshold that would trigger a council action. Uh the administration and the mayor are bringing this contract through the formal city council process, um, including a vote uh in this committee and at the full council based on the promises that the mayor made uh when we were going through the last vendor's no cost contract extension. The request today is to vote to delay this contract, which is resolution 260246 to a date certain of March 18th in the Health and Safety Committee. Um that is due to the fact that um we in our discussions with you all have um promised that before this uh this item appeared in committee, we would get you a copy of the actual contract for you to review and to be able to ask questions about. Um we are um getting pretty close uh to having that prepared for you, but it was not ready in a timely manner to present to you all um in advance to give you the time to review. Um, and so we are asking, we're gonna do the presentation today. We want to have a QA and a discussion on it and then um get you all the actual contract uh with a little bit more time to review it before it comes back to committee for um for further discussion before moving on to the full council. So just wanted to level set that that is the request today. So, Mr. Hoffman, with that we we at the end of your presentation and questions from City Council members, we'll put forward that request to delay the action item to next week. One of the things I want to insist upon is that that contract is received by Friday.
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