Council briefed on proposed 10‑year Axon contract for body and in‑car cameras

Grandville — Police officials briefed the City Council on a proposed 10‑year consolidated contract with Axon that would cover body‑worn cameras, in‑car (fleet) cameras, cloud evidence storage and new features including live streaming and an AI translation assistant.

Deputy chief Reedman summarized the department's equipment and argued the consolidated contract would standardize services and provide predictable pricing. He said the department currently operates 28 Axon body cameras and 10 marked cruisers with fleet cameras and that the proposal would refresh body camera hardware every 2.5 years and fleet cameras every five years.

"What we're asking for tonight is just that you kind of listen to this," the deputy chief said, describing the proposal as a 10‑year agreement that would combine separate contracts into a single predictable bill and include licensing, storage and periodic hardware refreshes.

City Manager Griffin said staff does not seek approval tonight but plans to return with a formal request at the June 22 meeting and will circulate the presentation to council members for review.

Council members asked detailed questions about contract terms, alternatives and safeguards. Members pressed whether a five‑year option had been considered and how pricing and technology upgrades would be handled. The deputy chief said Axon offers different term structures but that a 10‑year contract locks a price and reduces the risk of steep increases over the budget cycle while still providing scheduled hardware refreshes.

Council members also raised privacy and access concerns. Staff said external access to video is governed by permissions and audit trails; prosecutors can be granted access for cases, and the proposed live‑stream/location tools would allow dispatch or a regional intelligence center to view footage for officer safety in limited circumstances, with logging and notification to the user.

The proposal would add a translation feature Deputy Chief Reedman described as supporting roughly 50 languages and enabling on‑the‑spot language detection so officers and non‑English speakers can communicate. Council members asked about accuracy, liability and court admissibility; staff said those questions remain under review and that they will provide additional documentation on translation performance and liability before any contract vote.

City staff presented cost figures in multiple formats: the quote was framed as roughly $70,000 a year (about $5,800 per month) and—presented another way—as an average per‑resident cost of about $4.13 per year based on the city's most recent population estimate. Staff said the current annual spend on the two existing Axon contracts is about $40,000 and that the consolidated proposal represents an increase that the administration intends to cover within the adopted budget.

The council did not vote on the contract. Council members and staff agreed to continue the review, and the City Manager said the item will return for a formal decision at the June 22 meeting.