[0:00] Call to order the city of Lexington City Council meeting. The date is August the 24th, 2026. We have, we usually like to start our meetings with an invocation, and I have asked Councilman Curry to deliver that invocation for us this evening, whenever you are ready, Councilman Curry.

[0:20] Let us pray.

[0:22] Most holy and all our God, we come together this afternoon, thanking you for another day.

[0:27] We pray for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding as we go about this important work.

[0:32] We pray, God, it will continue to work together on one accord, doing the work that you have

[0:37] placed before us.

[0:38] We thank you for all blessings that we have this evening and we pray that you will cover

[0:43] each and every person here with your precious blood.

[0:46] For is it in your name, we pray, amen.

[0:48] Amen.

[0:49] Thank you, Council McGurry.

[0:50] If you're able, please stand and join us in the legible legions.

[0:55] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

[1:05] One nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

[1:18] Thank you. Next up, Council, just some housekeeping notes.

[1:22] First of all, as it relates to conflict of interest, please take a moment as I'm sure

[1:28] you have to review the agenda.

[1:30] Council members are reminded of their duty to avoid conflicts of interest.

[1:35] Does any member of the council have an actual or potential conflict of interest with respect

[1:40] to any matter on the agenda this evening?

[1:44] Thank you.

[1:45] Also, I wanted to offer to the public that there is a public comment signing sheet here at

[1:52] the best to the front, all public members, all members of the public wishing to speak

[1:57] during public comments. So please sign up to speak on the sign-in sheet at the speaker

[2:03] table in council chambers.

[2:08] And City Clerk, has there been any change at all to the agenda

[2:12] for this evening or is it as presented to council? Great. Sure, council's had an opportunity

[2:18] to look over the agenda for this evening and your meeting packet agenda. I need a motion

[2:23] to adopt the agenda as presented.

[2:26] So moved.

[2:26] Second.

[2:27] Emotion by Councilman Welburn.

[2:29] Second by Councilwoman Class.

[2:30] All those in favor say aye.

[2:32] Are there any opposed?

[2:35] The agenda is adopted.

[2:36] Thank you.

[2:36] Next up is the approval of minutes.

[2:39] And this is, these are the minutes

[2:42] that were included in your meeting agenda packet

[2:45] for the regular meeting on August the 10th, 2026.

[2:50] 26 are there any suggested revisions or amendments to the minutes? Seeing and hearing

[2:58] known the motion then to adopt the regular meeting minutes from August the

[3:02] 10th, 2026. Motion by Councilman Myers, second by Councilwoman Class, all

[3:09] those in favor say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Excellent. Next up council we have

[3:14] presentations, proclamations and recognitions. I did have a couple of guests

[3:18] that I wanted to recognize this evening.

[3:21] One is Miss Angela McDuffey, who is the sitting chair

[3:25] for the Lexin City School Board.

[3:27] Thank you for being here this evening, Miss McDuffey.

[3:30] And then also I noticed Miss Janice Hurley,

[3:33] who is the Executive Director of David's

[3:35] and Medical Ministries, and also DC Connect.

[3:38] Thank you for being here this evening, Miss Hurley.

[3:42] Next up, we have public comment period.

[3:44] If I could have the sign-in sheet, please.

[3:50] Anyone wishing to sign in that hasn't signed in yet?

[3:53] You have a couple of seconds.

[3:55] A few seconds, anyway.

[4:05] Thank you.

[4:17] Last name Murray on this sign-in sheet.

[4:21] Is it last name Murray?

[4:22] Is that correct?

[4:24] Yes.

[4:25] How do you pronounce your first name?

[4:27] Excellent.

[4:28] Kevin, please approach the podium, if you would like,

[4:32] and the Dress Council, we would ask that-

[4:35] Sorry, I'm on the agenda.

[4:37] I thought that was the sign up for that I apologize.

[4:39] That's okay, that's all right.

[4:41] So you don't need to address Council this evening.

[4:43] For public comments.

[4:44] Okay, great, thanks.

[4:46] I also wanted to make members of the public aware

[4:48] that this evening we also will be having a public hearing.

[4:52] So there'll be another opportunity to specifically

[4:55] talk about that item on the agenda if you so wish.

[4:58] And then next up we have

[5:00] Ms. Janice Hurley.

[5:04] Good evening. Good evening. Last week, I made a little faux pas with an email and didn't put lexington.nc. And so therefore, the city utilities did not get it. And so I thought they're ignoring me. How terrible. But rest assured, it was my mistake. And I just want to say how prompt even though I had made an error that our city was in addressing my utility need for a new building that we acquired.

[5:32] And so, I'm just really thankful because that is what I receive every time that I ask

[5:38] for assistance through the Utility Department and so, I'm very thankful for that and then

[5:43] I had to follow up within a couple of hours and they took care of it right away as well and

[5:48] I appreciate that.

[5:49] Thank you.

[5:50] Thank you, Ms. Hurley.

[5:55] Next item on the agenda is regular business.

[5:58] This is a, and council, this begins on page 18 of your meeting packet.

[6:04] It's public hearing and conditional zoning for

[6:07] Hollywood subdivision to consider an amendment to the street cross sections by ordinance 030-2026.

[6:16] We're going to have a presentation from Mr. Josh Monk from Business and Community Development.

[6:21] Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council.

[6:25] So, this is an application for conditional zoning from KLMland, LLC.

[6:31] It's for property off of West Hollywood Grove Road.

[6:34] You might be familiar with this property has come before City Council a few times.

[6:40] Last year was approved for up to 99 single family homes and following that, it came back

[6:45] to Council to approve the housing designs for that development.

[6:51] Just to give you a little refresher for what this development looks like, the original site

[6:57] plan is on the left hand side of your screen.

[6:59] As you can see there's two entrances and exits off a high grove road.

[7:04] What we're discussing tonight is just basically a change in the street design, not the layout

[7:10] of the street, but changing from curb and gutter to ditches and swells.

[7:14] On the right hand side of the screen is the new site plan, and as you can see it's the

[7:19] same configuration, same number of lots.

[7:21] Nothing has changed, except for the street cross section, it's going from curb and gutter

[7:28] to ditches and swells. So the reason we're here tonight is during our original

[7:33] public hearing. There's a specific question raised about the post-street design

[7:38] and specifically that was this is going to have curb and gutter and it was answered

[7:42] yes and because of that it because reflects in the minutes. This kind of change or

[7:48] this kind of request to go from curb and gutter to ditches and swells is considered a

[7:52] major change and requires the same approval process as before. So that's why we're

[7:57] tonight. The reason for this change is during the design phase following after they had

[8:04] their civil plans reviewed, they were doing some geotechnical investigations on the site

[8:09] and reportedly encountered substantial rock because of the amount of rock excavation

[8:17] that was required, it was significantly increased the cost of development and to help reduce

[8:22] use that call, stay one switched from, again,

[8:26] curb and gutter to ditches and swells.

[8:28] This is also allowed for any development

[8:30] that's considered low density, which this one is.

[8:33] So it is already allowed.

[8:35] There's already a process in place in our ordinance

[8:37] to allow this.

[8:38] But again, the reason we're here tonight

[8:39] is because of the original public hearing

[8:41] that was specifically asked and is collected in the minutes

[8:45] there.

[8:47] Again, here's the request of changes.

[8:49] And it just states you want to change from curb and gutter

[8:51] to a vegetated swells and ditches.

[8:55] They request this because they want the greater flexibility

[8:57] to reduce construction costs.

[9:01] Again, this is for on-for-seen field conditions.

[9:04] And the applicant also states, and this is correct

[9:06] when it pros development, qualifies its load density

[9:09] and in our zoning ordinance and in the Lexington

[9:11] infrastructure design standards manual that is allowed.

[9:18] And here, just as an example, what a three-crawl section is.

[9:22] At the top it shows a 50 foot right away with curb and gutter at the bottom it shows our street

[9:28] crawl section for anything with ditches or swells and that's a 63 foot wide crawl section

[9:35] and you still have a sidewalk on there, you still have your street trees, your utilities

[9:39] will be in between, it just requires a greater right away and the property itself allows for

[9:49] that type of a width in there.

[9:55] And then for any kind of changes, all of the conditions

[9:58] are going to remain...

[10:00] The same that were approved. There are a few small changes, though. So, for example, in one of the conditions, it will be amended to allow ditch-type local residential streets that's classified in our lids manual, which shown here. Another condition would require that the homeowners association include a provision of prohibits on street parking for any development that has ditches and swells on street parking is not allowed. And then we would also add a condition requiring the dedication of a green

[10:29] Greenway easement along Abbott's Creek, just because our Greenway plan is adopted by

[10:33] Council last year, it identifies a greenway throughout that section.

[10:39] And we do have the applicant here tonight.

[10:41] We also have our engineer, Kevin Murray, is the developer and Brent Newsome is the engineer

[10:47] from the Gattoms.

[10:48] I'm going to invite them off if they want to speak a little bit about this development, then

[10:51] we can have some questions.

[10:55] Hello.

[10:56] Thank you for your time.

[10:57] I'm a first time developer, so hope to get it in fewer than three meetings next time.

[11:02] I was thinking earlier that when I first started working this my daughter hadn't started

[11:06] kindergarten in the day was her first day of second grade so hopefully won't be back

[11:09] here for third grade on the same one.

[11:13] You know, we wouldn't be back here if we had another way to engineer a way out of this.

[11:18] We looked at a lot of different options.

[11:20] The site has some meaningful challenges.

[11:22] We did one geotechnical study, uncovered some rock as we got further into the process.

[11:27] We did a second one and found it was more serious and more concentrated than we had

[11:31] imagined. We looked at a lot of different options to try and solve it and

[11:35] ding through the UDO and the LIDS. This is where we landed. So we are here, again,

[11:40] to ask to please move from Kirby gutter to open swollen ditches to unlock this

[11:47] project. And I can't speak to the technical stuff but I got Brent who's done a lot

[11:51] more of these in terms of the width of the street, the paving of the street. What's

[11:59] the, what's the current distance. So the council accepts this condition. So for the width for

[12:07] originally that was approved is 24 feet of asphalt and then you have 18 inches east side for

[12:14] the carbon gutter. This one is still 24 inches or 24 feet of paved street. You just don't have

[12:20] that 18 inches of carbon gutter on the side and that's one reason we don't allow for on street parking.

[12:26] the carpool is off, it could be a substantial drop, it's stuck in mud, it's just something

[12:32] we don't allow.

[12:33] So that's a condition that's being added in, is that correct?

[12:36] That is correct.

[12:36] Thank you.

[12:38] Councillor, are there additional questions that you all have?

[12:43] No, not allowing that.

[12:45] Ones free parking is a good sign.

[12:49] Who would be responsible for maintaining the ditch?

[12:52] Is that the property owner?

[12:53] for the lot or is that H.O.A. because I know you've got the sidewall, and then the

[12:58] ditch, you know, between, so just curious about that.

[13:01] Right, so typically after a development has been built, where all the infrastructure has

[13:06] been accepted into the city, any other stormwater infrastructure that is within that right away

[13:11] is typically maintained by the city.

[13:15] Now we do have it in the ordinance that anybody, any of the property owners must mow their

[13:20] properties and that includes within the right-of-way so I'll be still knowing within the ditches but we would still be responsible for maintaining those ditches as well.

[13:28] Thank you.

[13:29] And so from that's a good question, Councillor Wilburn.

[13:32] So changing from a carbon gutter would require then the city to maintain the ditches and swells. Is that going to be increased costs for us as a municipality?

[13:45] So typically ditches and swells are cheaper to maintain.

[13:48] With curb and gutter, you have to underground infrastructure and that does have to be maintained, it's not like mowing every week during the summertime, but eventually that infrastructure needs to be replaced and that could be very costly.

[14:00] Great. Thank you.

[14:03] Additional questions from council?

[14:05] And the setback on the house, I was trying to look it up from the street to the property.

[14:10] Does that change?

[14:12] It will change a little bit.

[14:14] We do require that this setback be measured from the right-of-way line and not the edge of pavement.

[14:21] So it might push the house back, you know, 7-8 feet on each side, something on those lines.

[14:27] Okay.

[14:29] And did this conditional, this change in conditions, did this go to planning and zoning or this come directly to council?

[14:35] Yes, this went through planning and zoning, there was some conversation, but it was approved unanimously or recommended unanimously to go to council.

[14:45] This also went to staff TRC meetings, two or three times for discussion.

[14:51] Great, thank you.

[14:54] So it looks here that the suggested action is to receive the presentation.

[14:58] Thank you, Mr. Murray.

[15:00] We're to receive the presentation and then city council is to hold a public hearing concerning ordinance zero three zero dash 2026 related to amending unified development ordinance zoning map city of Lexington with an amendment to the conditional zoning for holly for the holly group subdivision. Is that correct, Mr. Monk? That is correct, mayor. Excellent. So at this time, the city clerk would recommend we open a public hearing. All right. We now open the public hearing.

[15:28] Anyone wishing to speak on behalf of the public, please feel free to come to the podium and address Council at this time.

[15:45] Seeing that no one wishes to address Council during this public hearing will now close the public hearing.

[15:52] And then did you want to raise the statement of consistency and reasonableness?

[15:57] This is a council.

[15:58] This is the statement of consistency and reasonableness that you need to consider for approval.

[16:04] Yes. So for the statement of consistency and reasonableness, it states that the proposed conditional zoning with the conditions herein is consistent with the 2022 land use plan, which states that a variety of residential building types will be supported to provide options and quality housing with emphasis on single family, multifamily and mixed use buildings in urban form options should include a range in affordability and fill will be designed in such a way as to protect the character of established

[16:34] neighborhoods, lot sizes, and densities will be commissarate with existing surrounding

[16:39] neighborhoods and higher density development and close proximity to low-density development

[16:44] should incorporate ample open space and edge treatments to reduce impacts.

[16:48] Great. Thank you. Council, is there a motion then to approve the statement of consistency

[16:53] and reasonableness as read by Mr. Monk?

[16:57] Second, a motion by Councilwoman Claes, a second by Councilman Welburn, all those in favor

[17:03] say aye. Are there any opposed?

[17:07] Thank you. So next recommendation then is to, it's for the

[17:12] Council to consider adopting ordinance 030-2026 to amend the City of Lexington Unified Development

[17:21] Ordnance Zoning Map to affect subject properties located along West Holly Grove Road and owned by

[17:27] KLM Land LLC identified by the Davidson County Tax Department as partial numbers ending in 0-0-9, 0-0-9-A, 0-0-12, 0-0-5, and his own Conditional Zoning District 0-3-0-2026.

[17:48] is there a motion from Council to consider a number?

[17:52] We make that motion.

[17:53] There is one additional parcel number,

[17:55] and that ends in 9A.

[17:57] It's 11339-000009-A.

[18:02] I thought I stated that.

[18:06] Okay, I just want to make sure.

[18:07] That's okay.

[18:08] I appreciate you catching me doing something right.

[18:11] Thank you.

[18:11] There we go.

[18:13] So was there another parcel number

[18:15] that needs to be included there then?

[18:17] It's just not up here.

[18:18] Oh, I see.

[18:19] It's on here.

[18:20] It's just not on the side of the paper.

[18:21] Thank you.

[18:22] So, for the record, we do have 009A.

[18:25] Thank you.

[18:26] And there was a motion.

[18:28] Oh, there's the room.

[18:28] A motion.

[18:30] Council, my heart makes the motion.

[18:31] Councilman Holloway is a second.

[18:33] All those in favor say aye.

[18:34] Aye.

[18:35] Are there any opposed?

[18:36] Excellent.

[18:36] That passes.

[18:37] And before you, just one additional question, do you know what the timing is associated with

[18:41] this particular development?

[18:42] Is this something that is going through development in terms of?

[18:47] approval and then ground will break at that point or is this one that's more

[18:52] speculative and will take some time? So they're working on the civil plans

[18:56] currently they're actually being reviewed at the moment and I believe once this

[19:03] was passed they're going to reach back out to one of the home builders here

[19:05] speaking to I don't want to speak for Brent or Kevin but I believe with this

[19:11] they would be possibly interested in development again, I want to speak for you.

[19:17] I would be interested in or the builder.

[19:20] The builder?

[19:21] Yes.

[19:22] Exactly.

[19:23] They're saying, hey, let me know how it goes.

[19:26] Okay.

[19:26] Got to.

[19:27] Excellent.

[19:27] Just want to make sure council is aware and the public was interested, they were aware as

[19:32] well.

[19:33] What's your daughter's name?

[19:34] Lucy.

[19:35] Hi, Lucy.

[19:37] So Lucy, you're welcome to come back anytime.

[19:40] time. You can come with your dad, but hopefully it's not related to this particular

[19:44] development, but you're welcome to come back anytime. We'd love to see you.

[19:49] Okay?

[19:50] Thanks. What's it?

[19:51] It is. That's my granddaughter's name too. I'll remember that for sure.

[19:54] Excellent. Thank you.

[19:55] Thank you all very much.

[19:57] Thank you.

[19:57] All right, Council. Thank you, Mr. Monk.

[20:07] All right, council. Next up is the consent agenda. And there are, let's see here, one, two, three, four, five, six items on the consent agenda. And this council is aware. You have the opportunity to, with one motion, pass and approve all items on the consent agenda. Or if there are specific items that you would like pulled,

[20:32] for additional discussion, clarification, that is absolutely your right.

[20:38] Are there any items that any council member would like pulled for additional discussion?

[20:44] No?

[20:46] Not at this time.

[20:47] Excellent.

[20:47] Thank you.

[20:48] So, at this time, would accept a motion then to approve the consent agenda.

[20:53] So moved.

[20:54] Second.

[20:55] We have a motion by Councilman Curry, second by Councilman Welburn.

[20:58] All those in favor say aye.

[21:00] Aye.

[21:00] Are there any opposed?

[21:01] consent agenda is approved. Next up is the City Council's report. I just had a

[21:07] few items that I wanted to mention to council. On the 17th of August we had an

[21:15] employer support of National Guard and Reserve Luncheon myself as well as

[21:22] manager Taylor, the assistant city managers and both the police chief and the

[21:27] Fire Chief attended this particular event in Thomasville in support of Guard

[21:33] Reserve. Also wanted to let Council know that I was invited to be a guest

[21:37] speaker at the Davidson Davie apprenticeship consortium signing event and that

[21:42] was on the 19th was one of the speakers of that event. Also wanted to thank the

[21:48] members of Council who on the 21st of August showed up at back-to-back

[21:54] ribbon cuttings at the beauty lab hair company, the second company I'm that's right beside

[22:00] it.

[22:01] I'm blanking on that.

[22:02] Do you all remember?

[22:03] It's right beside it.

[22:04] I don't know.

[22:04] We cut the ribbon.

[22:05] We cut the ribbon.

[22:06] We took pictures.

[22:07] We can prove we're there.

[22:08] And then following that, Aspire Dental also opened up their new location on E-Center Street

[22:16] and want to thank everyone from Council who was there.

[22:19] Thank you as well as manager Taylor.

[22:22] and also wanted to make Council aware that there is a

[22:25] Lexington Pride Festival on Saturday the 29th from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at

[22:30] Breeden Insurance Ampitheater.

[22:33] Want to make Council aware that on the 7th of September that is Labor Day.

[22:37] City offices are closed and then the 14th,

[22:41] excuse me, of September will be our next City Council meeting.

[22:46] Those are the items that I had to update Council in the public.

[22:50] are there any other items that you all have?

[22:54] No?

[22:55] Excellent. So with that, we'll hand it over

[22:57] to manager Taylor for the City Manager's report.

[23:01] Good evening, Mayor and Council.

[23:04] I want to recognize all of the employees

[23:06] that serve us here in our community

[23:09] and the great work that they do

[23:11] to keep everything moving forward

[23:14] here in this great city.

[23:16] I also want to mention that we are accepting applications

[23:19] for the Lexington Academy, and we'll be doing so up until September 4, ages 16 and up for Lexington residents.

[23:30] So if you know someone that wants to really figure out how all these things work, please have them sign up for the program.

[23:38] It's a great program, and I think that it will be very enriching for those that participate.

[23:43] also want to mention that the fall program guide for recreation and parks is

[23:49] now on the city website so there's the old middle out version but there's also

[23:54] a digital version as well and please tune in for all of the activities that are

[23:59] taking place also want to mention that the uptown planners they're filling out

[24:05] that project is doing well so I want to give public ground special thanks for all

[24:12] the work they're doing to water those planners and hopefully things will continue to flourish in that

[24:19] area. That's key to it, keeping them water.

[24:25] And I also want to I have a special presentation

[24:31] that we like to share on tonight an education piece during this time and there are years chief

[24:40] We'll come forward and provide us with a brief educational session on a topic that has been discussed quite frequently.

[24:52] Good evening, Mayor and Council.

[24:54] Good evening.

[24:56] I'm here to speak this evening.

[25:00] About flock cameras. Okay. You're at the wrong meeting. It's, you know, I want to start off first by saying that flock is is nothing more than a brand. What we're really talking about is automated license plate readers. And we use flock as do many other agencies and also have our vision statement here for the police department. And I'll end with this for a very important reason. And that is

[25:29] is we pursue excellence in professional policing.

[25:35] Now, what does that mean as it relates to this topic?

[25:38] It means that we want to use the best technology,

[25:41] other resources that we can actually do

[25:43] to help keep our community safe.

[25:46] Also, under that umbrella of professional policing

[25:49] is how do we conduct ourselves?

[25:51] How do we hold ourselves accountable and be responsible

[25:55] in using these things responsible?

[25:57] is I'm going to touch on a little bit of that to see because from an educational standpoint,

[26:05] one, how does the technology work?

[26:08] So there's no video involved whatsoever.

[26:12] The cameras that you see from different places around the city that are flat cameras,

[26:18] those are nothing more than screenshots, screen captures, no video,

[26:24] No different than anyone standing out in a public place taking photographs of the rear

[26:29] of course there's no there's no expectation to privacy of that you're on a public road.

[26:35] Now what that does the system checks that tag the system does not have your information

[26:43] or the registered owner's information that does not have that what it does is it reads

[26:49] that tag, and it checks it against a checklist, like a database.

[26:56] For instance, NCIC or National Crime Information Center, see if it's stolen.

[27:01] The alerts that we get is nothing more than a system saying, hey, I saw this tag, I

[27:08] checked it against these databases, I see that this tag is on that database.

[27:14] Okay, so that alerts us.

[27:18] What we have to do is we have to visually verify that, if we see that core, we visually

[27:25] verify the tag, we make sure it's correct, we check the source record.

[27:31] So we don't stop just based off of flock alert.

[27:35] We check the source record, this uses stolen vehicle for instance, it gets flagged, we get

[27:40] alert, stolen vehicle passed this camera, officers get in the area, they see the tag, they

[27:48] verify us the right tag, they call it into communications, just like they would any other

[27:53] time to say, can you verify this is stolen? So the only thing, which is a huge thing that

[27:59] flocked in that particular instance was this, it pointed us to something to look at.

[28:06] But we did not take action based solely on the technology.

[28:12] There's no facial recognition involved whatsoever.

[28:17] The technology is not track you.

[28:20] Now there's technology in this world that does that.

[28:23] This is not that.

[28:24] This is absolutely not that.

[28:27] It provides real-time alerts to authorize law enforcement personnel.

[28:32] It only our officers get alerts, the sworn officers and investigators, it provides a search

[28:39] function after a crime has been committed or a person has gone missing.

[28:45] So if we have a missing person and we have a vehicle that's associated with that person

[28:51] with the tag number, we can enter that in and say, this is a missing person and so if it crosses

[28:58] any of those cameras we get alerted. Just us alone have had two missing people

[29:04] found because of flock cameras. Just today we had a missing person with the

[29:10] mention from another county that was going through. We didn't quite get to

[29:14] them, but they found them in Davie County off of flock cameras. So the search

[29:19] function is one that not all officers have access to do. That's a very

[29:25] important piece of information, it goes back to being professional. The only folks that need

[29:30] to have access to do after-incident searches as our supervisors, because there's always going to be

[29:36] at least one on duty in case you need it, in our investigators. We don't just open it up for anybody,

[29:43] because you have to be able to manage it. We have excellent staff, wonderful staff,

[29:49] but you still got to manage things professionally, and that's one of the safeguards we have there as well.

[29:56] Now we implement these in September 2024.

[30:00] Since that time, flat cameras have been instrumental in leading to 156 arrests. Twenty-six stolen vehicles recovered. Not just our stolen cars, stolen cars from other jurisdictions. Two missing persons located in countless investigative leads. I want to highlight the stolen vehicles for a moment. That's particularly important to me, obviously the missing persons is important for obvious reasons. Let's talk about stolen vehicles.

[30:30] vehicles. I'm sure what everybody in this room knows, it doesn't take a law enforcement

[30:34] professional to know this, is that so many times folks steal cars in their driving and

[30:43] stolen cars because they want to go commit other crimes and go undetected. And so our

[30:50] philosophy is if we can catch a stolen car and someone in a stolen car, as soon as we

[31:00] I really believe, in all my experience, we don't know what we have prevented, because

[31:05] my experience tells me that those in stolen cars often are going to go do other crimes.

[31:12] So that's very important as well.

[31:16] Public Safety Impact is a force multiplier.

[31:20] What that means is, we've got that many more eyes out there, it's just scanning cars, it's

[31:25] just sending us alerts.

[31:26] It's not sending any information.

[31:28] All it's doing is checking tags against other things that's on different lists.

[31:37] Crime prevention, recovery storm vehicle removes tool frequently used to commit additional

[31:43] crimes.

[31:43] I've already mentioned that in 156 arrests, and I'm not saying in all of them, but I think

[31:50] you would agree that for at least a good portion of those, when your arrest individuals on

[31:55] outstanding charges, you may be preventing them from committing additional crimes.

[32:00] In other investigative leads, the flight cameras does not always provide just the main hit,

[32:10] as you would say.

[32:11] A lot of times it provides us a simple piece.

[32:15] We've had that happen, I'll spare, I can't speak to the details, but we've had that happen

[32:19] in two homicide cases in the city of Lexington since we've implemented them,

[32:23] and then since we, with other agencies, LPRs as well.

[32:29] accountability. So again I want to speak to the before any action enforcement

[32:37] action or stop we receive the alert officer visually verifies the license plate

[32:43] we check it against the source record and then we make a stop based on legal

[32:50] grounds and every time we do that we record outcomes. Anytime we actually get

[32:59] hit an alert and we find that car we always enter in the outcome so that we

[33:05] know. Oversight as I mentioned before only supervising investigators every

[33:11] single search, every single search is logged and it cannot be erased. We

[33:18] actually we actually utilize the flock operating systems out of the

[33:24] assist future feature that helps us audit search records. I myself do some of the audits

[33:31] Captain Davis is here. He's an investigation captain. He does them. So we'll watch this

[33:36] very closely. That's because we we audit it at that level because we know how

[33:43] available the tool it is and we know how important it is for people to feel safe

[33:48] from what we're using. So in for as the pictures, the snapshots that are captured in the database,

[33:55] those are automatically, these are only retained for 30 days, which is much brief, more brief

[34:00] than the state allows up to 90 days. 30 days is the standard retention period. So we have

[34:10] 15 cameras.

[34:12] It cost annual cost of 455. That's the starting salary to current police officer.

[34:18] but it has a lot of impact. We've had proven results in professional accountability.

[34:26] There's no question that's what we're going to do. That's a mandate of myself.

[34:32] That's a mandate of the city leadership. And that's something we take very seriously

[34:38] in being a professional agency. Let's all have here be happy to entertain any questions that you might have.

[34:47] Yes, she from a job a couple of questions about this as it relates to like the efficiency

[34:51] of the process.

[34:52] Can you walk us through like you know a car stolen and listen Salem they're headed

[34:57] towards Lexington.

[34:58] How does their system come?

[35:00] I'm going to indicate with you in real time to note that there's a stolen vehicle. Maybe had it our way. All right, so here, good question. So one of the reasons why we went with the flock vendor when we did is because it was the only automated license plate vendor that had the authority to be integrated with the FBI's NCIC system. So anytime you enter somebody missing, wanted a stolen car, the automatically goes into what's called NCIC.

[35:29] And when you enter it in there, there's no need to enter in the flock, because flock

[35:34] is the, I'm not sure if it's the only one who still does, but I know this.

[35:38] There's C just compliant, which means criminal justice, information systems, IT compliance.

[35:44] I can't tell you all what that means, but I know it's a big deal to have that compliance.

[35:48] So what it's doing is it's checking against that database, which we use all the time.

[35:53] So in your scenario, sir, when you say how do we know how does a system know is because they're entering it into NCIC just like they have for decades.

[36:04] The only difference is is the LPR is a tool that picks up that tag. It checks against that database.

[36:13] Thank you.

[36:14] Yes.

[36:17] Thank you for bringing this information because people will come to us and they've seen something

[36:22] on Facebook or some other source and they're slamming it and all this other stuff.

[36:27] Thank you for this information so that we can counterbalance that and correct them and say,

[36:32] you don't have any idea how wonderful tool this is. Thank you.

[36:36] Absolutely. And listen, I will say this that I understand that folks may have privacy concerns.

[36:42] I'm reminded that every time I've scrolled through my phone and I'm seeing ads for things that I've done nothing more than read or talk about

[36:49] How do you search so I do understand I do understand that and that's part of professionalism on a highlight

[36:54] Is we don't ignore those concerns that we make sure that a professional agency balances those concerns with also trying to ensure public safety is the best way

[37:03] We can other additional questions for teeth also want to make counsel aware that we did have

[37:12] We did have a citizen who reached out to us about the city's use of

[37:19] flock cameras. I sat down in the meeting with Chief with our city manager,

[37:24] our city attorney, and this concerned individual. And by the end of the

[37:29] discussion, which had very similar content, I would say here, they felt a lot

[37:34] better about how we were utilizing the system in order to to deter crime. So I want to thank you

[37:43] for that too, Chief. Absolutely. Thank you. And I'm assuming that that in real time it's AI that

[37:50] is that's reading this in some way, shape or form. Yes, it's AI. It's doing that, checking that.

[37:57] And then we can do, you know, sometimes we may have a, you know, on the search function,

[38:03] you may hear folks speak to a vehicle fingerprint as well as people call it.

[38:09] And so what we can do is when we do searches, is we can search tag numbers, what we can

[38:14] search descriptions, say like, white, you know, look at this time frame, white pickup truck

[38:20] pulling the trailer, and it'll show us all of those.

[38:23] And then it's on us to go even further.

[38:26] Interesting enough, this is past Friday,

[38:28] we had something very similar to that.

[38:31] We had a call over road rage,

[38:33] where a suspect that allegedly poured a hand gun

[38:37] with an extended magazine on a road rage thing.

[38:41] We got a vehicle description.

[38:43] Couldn't barely a partial tag.

[38:45] Was able to run that through flock.

[38:48] It was such a clear distinct vehicle.

[38:51] it was able to get that, that led us to a Western

[38:55] Street extension where we ended up seizing not only

[38:59] that gun, but another gun, and we seized the vehicle

[39:02] because you ran from our officers once we was able

[39:04] to find them.

[39:05] So it was just Friday.

[39:09] Well, thank you.

[39:11] Can we have them here in Lexington and the county not

[39:14] have them?

[39:15] Yes, there's no, OK, so if other agencies

[39:20] have them benefit benefit us from the search function when we search like say

[39:29] we're looking for a certain car we can search their network because we're

[39:34] all intertwined we every agency manages our own data and who had that type of

[39:40] stuff so we can search against that as well so if they don't have there's our

[39:46] search capacity goes down, but so that is problematic for us, but it does not have anything

[39:53] to do with the alerts, because the alerts are a stand-alone that we have within ours.

[39:58] So, if they vowed against them...

[40:00] We can still have them. Absolutely. He's also saying that that our capability to be able to pull data, if they decide to not have them anymore, it goes down. Yes, because it's affected like that within the region. I'm assuming. So if we like like an incident Friday, you know, we, we're trying to raise to get everything we can. We would no longer have access to their camera data for that, but we could search, you know, if Thomas was got there,

[40:29] and ours, we could try to find it and that we still have to go through and it doesn't take all the work out.

[40:38] What it does is it kind of leads us to something to look at.

[40:46] Chief Ramadhan, I have one more question.

[40:48] And Councilman Black sort of alluded to it during his question.

[40:52] Obviously, you know, this is a great presentation.

[40:54] The cause doesn't seem to be anything that's written in our astronomical or anything like that.

[40:59] At the Councilman Black's point, there has been some rhetoric on Facebook to maybe the

[41:04] downside of this use of technology, that's someone who manages this technology.

[41:09] Have you witnessed any effects that you might feel will be detrimental or if you were given

[41:18] another police chief advice about, you know, they were about, they were thinking about starting

[41:23] the use of this technology.

[41:24] What would you tell him or her to be concerned about as it relates to this flock of technology?

[41:29] Well, I think the news as well documented that some poor implementation has been done with it in

[41:36] different places. That's the reason why we're so purposeful on what we do. In some of those things

[41:41] where officers have made very bad choices for lack of a better term, I think those could have been

[41:48] mitigated. Had it been implemented in a little better fashion, just my opinion, not naming names,

[41:53] but I think it would be. And I'll say to you point I will, you know, we have a very robust policy

[42:02] when it comes to oversight. And as being a member of the Board of Directors for North

[42:08] Class Chiefs Association, we're actually working on, you know, industry best practices. What's the

[42:14] best policy to try to go statewide on it so that everybody has it? So, yeah, there are concerns out

[42:21] there, but I don't really have them here because I know how robust our audit process is.

[42:27] And you know, also the other thing too, if I had concerns about the privacy of it, I

[42:35] think one of the things too that we have to remember is every single one of us and every

[42:40] single one of our family members ride by these every day because they're put in very objective

[42:45] of locations. If I had any concerns with that, then, you know, we're on the other end

[42:50] of it as well. So good question. Thank you. Thank you.

[42:56] Manager Taylor, thank you for having Chief Rommage address this is very timely. And we know

[43:02] that it can be controversial as well. But I think the more information we have, the better.

[43:07] So thank you for that. Can we assume then that your next presentation is going to be on

[43:11] data centers at the next meeting?

[43:13] I don't I don't think that's within my lane. Okay. That's all good. Thank you very much for the presentation.

[43:20] Absolutely. Thank you. That's all I have for tonight. Excellent. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

[43:27] So council next up on our agenda's closed session would entertain a motion to enter for counsel to enter closed session related to an economic development matter is allowed by North Carolina General Statues 143-318.11A4.

[43:42] and personnel matters as allowed by North Carolina General

[43:45] Statutes 143-318.11A6.

[43:51] So, the motion from Councilman Wilburn and the second from

[43:56] Councilman Curry, all those in favor say aye.

[43:58] Aye.

[43:59] You opposed?

[44:00] We are now entering in the closed session.

[44:02] Thank you.

[44:05] Have a motion to return to open session, please.

[44:08] Second.

[44:09] Motion by Councilman Myers, second by Councilman Wilburn, all those in

[44:13] favor say aye.

[44:14] Aye.

[44:15] Thank you.

[44:15] Any opposed?

[44:16] We are now currently in open session coming out of close session.

[44:22] The Council and Mr. Taylor have agreed to renew his employment contract and Council wishes

[44:31] to thank Mr. Taylor for all the support that he has shown the city over this past year.

[44:37] Mr. Taylor, thank you so much for that.

[44:40] With that Council, we are ready to adjourn.

[44:41] We need a motion for adjournment.

[44:45] We're adjourned. Thank you.

City Council on 2026-08-24 6:00 PM

Agenda

Transcript