Jackson City Council Work Session: RTCC, Cameras, Park Rangers, and Animal Control - June 4, 2026
Jackson City Council Work Session: RTCC, Cameras, Park Rangers, and Animal Control - June 4, 2026
The Jackson City Council held a work session on June 4, 2026, receiving updates from Police Chief Michelle Brackney and other officials on several public safety and operational issues. Discussions focused on the Real-Time Command Center (RTCC) and camera system failures, park ranger deployment, fuel and overtime management, and the state of animal control. The meeting was adjourned early and rescheduled for the following week.
Discussion Items
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RTCC and Camera System Update: Chief Brackney reported that an audit of the city's camera system found that close to 400 of over 700 cameras are non-functional. Some of these cameras are outdated and may need replacement. The city continues to pay for utilities and SIM cards on the non-functional cameras. The vendor, Active Solutions, has not provided a maintenance schedule or timely repairs; the company owner claims maintenance language in the contract is a "placeholder," which the city attorney suggested may be a matter for potential litigation. Additionally, approximately 10 business or community partners with fusis systems have not had their cameras accessible to police. The chief noted that the RTCC has not been staffed 24/7, and she directed precincts to assign officers to cover it. A plan to move 911 dispatch into the RTCC is under discussion to improve coordination, and the chief expressed a need for professional (non-sworn) staff to monitor cameras, as using sworn officers is more costly.
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Park Rangers: Chief Brackney stated that park rangers have been redeployed from headquarters back to precinct roll calls to ensure they are actually working in the parks. There are only four park rangers for over 54 parks, and the council acknowledged this is insufficient. The chief clarified that all patrol officers are expected to patrol park areas, not just park rangers. The council also discussed using park rangers or patrol officers to provide security at the zoo to potentially eliminate a paid security position.
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Fuel and Overtime: The chief reported that the overtime budget appears depleted on paper, but some overtime costs are reimbursed through grants. For example, a Mississippi Highway Patrol overtime grant of $160,000 has only expended $18,000. She stated she will alert the council if actual overtime funding runs short. Regarding fuel, the chief noted that fuel cards are managed by the fire department, and she did not have immediate data on the number of cards or city vehicles. Council members raised concerns about employees taking city vehicles outside the 40-mile limit and using them for secondary employment. The chief confirmed there are no GPS trackers on vehicles and that she is reviewing secondary employment practices to recover costs.
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Animal Control: Chief Brackney described the current animal control facility as "not habitable for humans" and in poor condition. The city is exploring a new non-kill shelter concept called "Angel's Place," potentially funded through private partners and fundraising. Council members noted that the existing facility, though only about 22 years old, has poor location, no natural ventilation, and foundation issues. Councilman Foote provided a letter from the group JCARES requesting the city reestablish a functioning animal control service. The chief confirmed that animal control officers still respond to calls, but animals taken in are likely euthanized due to capacity issues at other facilities.
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311 App: Council members expressed frustration that the 311 app is not functioning properly, with citizen reports going unaddressed for months. The CAO stated he requested data on the app's performance from the city clerk.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken; the meeting was a work session for discussion and updates.
- The city will send letters to businesses and community partners whose fusis cameras are inaccessible.
- The council will revisit the RTCC, camera budget, and personnel needs during the upcoming FY27 budget process, which is due in approximately three months.
- The chief will provide a memo on fuel card usage and take-home vehicle policies.
- The meeting was adjourned early and rescheduled for the following week to allow additional time for Fire Chief Thomas's presentation.
- The council expressed support for centralizing secondary employment requests through an app and for creating an online system for citizens to request cameras.
Meeting Transcript
Test and test. All right, here we go. All right. We're not going to be real long today. Basically, Chief, we're gonna go through these agenda items. Do you have a copy of the agenda? Okay. And we're just gonna give some updates. It does say revised. All right, then I have the one in front of me, sir. Okay. Good job. All right. So we're just we have these items here. Um, and of course, some of these were you provide us some input on these, and so we're gonna start with an update on the RTCC. I know before you landed here, um there were some questions about staffing uh progress, and I guess one and two can be taken together. Uh so if you could provide us an update on the RTCC, I guess discussion items one and two, and colleagues will take together. Thank you. Thank you for that. Dr. Michelle Brackney, Chief of Police. Um, just a couple of see if your mic is working. I just need to be a little closer to the case. You can bring it to you. Uh there you go. Thank you, sir. And I'm making sure that my phones are turned off and that they do not disrupt. Thank you. Because 911 does not care whether you're in council or not. She's a teacher. She's a teacher, she knows. Thank you, sir. So there's a couple of things that are going on. Um, no pun intended in real time when it comes to the real-time command center, and I also have Deputy Chief uh Buckley here who um oversees that division now. As you know, um, under the leadership of Assistant Chief Grizzale, we stood up a what would be a real-time command center, um, which should have functioned as a real-time crime center and intelligence center at the exact same time. As part of that, we engage the community to ask them to support those efforts by um participating in buying fusis boxes. A fusis box is basically just a conduit which allows us to have access to your cameras with your permission. A lot of the community member groups have done that um for us throughout neighborhood groups have done that, business groups um also have done that. And so one of the first things that we did uh, and I believe it was even before I was um actually on site, is we had an assessment of the camera systems and then the contract that we had and what all of the um support systems that we should have received from active solutions along the way. During our most recent audit um and speaking with them, and then this can also just be um uh supported by Deputy Chief Buckley and some of the work that we've done. Out of the 700 cameras or so plus that we have done in our audit, we realize that um close to 400 of those cameras are down. And what does that mean when there's 400 cameras down? For each of the polls that you set up, they have approximately four cameras on each poll, uh, which means over a hundred are down, and which we still pay the light bill on them as well as the SIM cards on them, the ATT bills. Um, we have been in contact, and the uh owner of Active Solutions, uh, we asked for a meeting with him here to explain and go through the contract. Uh Chelsea can support um our conversations because we've been told up until this point that there has been no maintenance agreement and everything has been a gentleperson's agreement around how someone will come and fix our cameras when we said that there is an issue with them. And we discovered when we got the um contract that there is lines for maintenance and upkeep that we paid for, although the owner has said that that is a a placeholder, and it didn't really mean maintenance and upkeep. We also found that there um was issues that the um active and they would not give us a schedule to do that. In fact, they would only come as they were coming through uh Jackson area to then fix our cameras and had learned that probably had not been in the area for over a year uh to do some of our camera work. Part of that gentle person's agreement is that they were allowed to leave their trailer or their truck on our property and that they would fix these um lights as a uh uh uh agreement, come pick up their truck, go out and service them. The last time they were here, we asked them to service at least 10 cameras, i.e., which would have given us uh 40 cameras down.
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