Last week during a public hearing, Fairchild and a variety of community members criticized the impact report police produced, saying it did not contain objective information suggesting license plate readers are effective law enforcement tools.
Dickstein, in response to a question from Fairchild this morning about the report, said, “I would say at this point in time I’m not going to sit and debate that two-hour meeting that occurred last week.”
She continued, “If you’d like to have a conversation with me about that, we can certainly talk about that offline — I don’t believe a business meeting is the opportunity to rehash that.”
The Dayton City Commission last week voted 3 to 2 to authorize police to use automated plate readers.
Commissioners Fairchild and Shenise Turner-Sloss voted against their approval.
Fairchild and other community members said the impact report did not appear to comply with city rules regulating proposed new police surveillance technology.
He and others said the report was not impartial or objective and did not meet other requirements.
This morning as Fairchild tried to continue to talk about the impact report, Mayor Mims banged his gavel to try to get him to stop.
“The purpose of this meeting is not to debate the city manager when we had all week to have these kinds of conversations,” Mims said.
Fairchild said he thinks this is an important subject, and he said he does not think the mayor has a legitimate reason to rule him out of order. He said he is allowed to ask the city manager questions.
Fairchild said the city claims to be a data-driven, evidence-based organization, but at times the commission is not provided with information anything like that.
The impact report “was just one example where it feels like we’re not getting objective data, but rather we’re getting a pitch,” Fairchild said. “The question ultimately for me is do we have a deliberative, legislative body here, or is this just simply a shark tank?”
Commissioner Chris Shaw —who voted to approve plate readers, along with Mayor Mims and Commissioner Matt Joseph — said this morning that the city makes decisions based on data, and the city thoroughly vetted questions about plate readers.
Shaw said he and Commissioner Joseph did a deep dive on the technology, and he believes it can be beneficial, though how it is used may have tweaked down the line.
“These license plate readers and other technology are a work in progress — I cannot say that enough,” he said. “We will make changes, where appropriate, based on data.”
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