Sarah, we're ready to get rolling.

Okay.

Yes.

Welcome everyone.

We haven't done this since COVID.

So we're gonna try do our best.

Um call the meeting to order.

And councilwoman um Spatola, if you could lead us in the pledge, please.

Whoops.

I had to get my flag.

Okay, everyone.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And the Republicans are the Republicans one nation.

Justice for all the thank you, everyone.

And if our council clerk can now read the call of the meeting, please.

The chief of police of the city of Middletown, greetings.

By authority of the state of Connecticut, you are hereby commanded to summon and notify Vincent J.

Lefredo, Jeanette Blackwell, Darnell Ford, Grady Bachner Jr., Kelly Sweeney, Anthony Manchiefo, Linda Salafia, Anthony S.

Gennaro Sr., Jonathan Polino, Leslie Spitola, Shine Fulton, Ava M.

Hart, members of the Common Council of the City of Middletown to attend a special meeting of said common council for the purpose of holding the questions to directors to workshop on department agenda items for the regular common council meeting.

Said meeting shall be fully remote via WebEx at Join a Meeting Event 2333209905 on Monday, August 3rd, 2026 at 6 o'clock PM.

Hereof, fail not, but make due service and return to the clerk of said city three hours prior to the time of fixed meeting.

City of Middletown, July 9th, 2026, attested by Honorable Eugene Pinocchio, mayor.

City of Middletown, July 30th, 2026.

I hereby certify that I have delivered an attested copy of the foregoing order and attached agenda of the common council meeting to each and every council member named above via electronic mail.

Attested by Eric M.

Costa, Chief of Police.

Thank you.

And now our question director's workshop open up questions to the council.

At this time, I'll look for your hands.

Who would like to go first?

Council Councilman Ford, please.

Thank you, Your Honor.

I'd like at this time to call up Chief Costa.

And if necessary, Chief Albert.

Hello, Council.

Good evening.

Evening, Chief.

Chief, how are you?

Thank you so much for coming up.

So what we have on our agenda today under the mayor's report regarding Flock Drone.

There has been some continued discussion and some concern.

I know that we have made some amendments to the contract to make it stronger to address some of those concerns.

There still seems to be some concerns.

Can you please just answer some questions towards uh the subjects of why we chose Flock, where it's being utilized uh positively, at least the process and the operating systems that we're utilizing and looking to utilize it here in Middletown.

And please be specific as to how we will be utilizing it because of some of the concerns expressed is that Flock will have data collection using opportunities to collect on immigrants.

Uh, some of the things that we've discussed about in public safety, which included reading uh license plates, identifying and searching for folks, and then taking and utilizing that data would be uh captured outside of Middletown's purview.

Yes, uh I can um I think the best way for me to start if it's okay is to bring everybody up of why we're doing this first, and I have no problem answering the questions that you um that you've asked uh those questions.

Uh first the drone uh came up after some discussion after a very busy February here in the city.

Um we had um at the beginning of the month had a couple of calls, uh four to be in particular, um uh attempts uh or um successful attempts to take their own lives on the river, uh cars being driven into the river, uh, people jumping off the bridge uh and into the river, uh, which um we had rescues and then we obviously we had um some fatalities um based on that.

A discussion had begun between us and uh the myself and uh the fire department in regards to our emergency response, not just uh you know, for the instances on the river, but what we've seen in our experience here in the city and uh what we're seeing regionally and around the country.

Um so the reason um for that being said, um that was the reason for the for the contact of having a first responder drone, a drone that gives us the opportunity to have um uh eyes in the air or when responding to incidences and to uh better allocate our personnel.

Um I think we've seen in our history here.

Um we had just when I first came into the position of police chief, we had a significant fire in the South District of the City of the City that was a forest fire, and we had drone success when uh trying to identify the massive uh burn area of that fire and where uh the fire department was able to deploy personnel effectively to put that fire out.

Um we did that with our uh police drone and assisted them in doing that.

Um in regards to some of the things that we have going on in the city.

I spoke about the four incidences um earlier.

Um there are other incidents that have occurred.

We um uh about five to six years ago, we had an individual um that had uh thrown his baby over the the um the bridge, and um what had happened is that uh a long um multiple day um search had um started from that incident.

We feel that if we had drones um at the initial call, the drone would go out there and give us eyes on the scene to where we could better deploy marine units and opportunity for success to be to have better success at rescue and not recovery.