Sebastopol City Council takes a stand against the “surveillance state”

In this recap of the Sebastopol City Council Meeting for Nov. 1, the council limits the city's use of surveillance technology

Nov 09, 2022

All council members were present at the October 18 Sebastopol City Council meeting, including Mayor Patrick Slayter, Vice Mayor Neysa Hinton, Councilmember Una Glass, Councilmember Sarah Gurney and Councilmember Diana Rich.

Note of Conflict of Interest: In addition to being the co-publisher of the Sebastopol Times, the author of this piece is also a part-time contractor for the city of Sebastopol, where, as coordinator for the Relaunch Sebastopol program, she has a mandate to increase tourism, support local business and increase civic engagement. The news reported in this article, and any opinions reflected therein, are not dictated by or reflective of the opinions of the city council or staff of the city of Sebastopol.

This remarkably short (under two hours!) council meeting focused primarily on how the city should deal with surveillance technology. But first, there were the usual preliminaries:

In Memorium: Mayor Patrick Slayter memorialized two individuals who had been active in the Sebastopol community, both of whom died at the end of October: the Senior Center’s Nick Vannucci, and Helen Shane, a member of the Committee for Small Town Sebastopol, which had opposed the CVS development downtown.

Proclamations: The mayor read a proclamation for Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

Public comment:

Kate Haug urged voters to vote for three city council people in today’s election. She also took issue with the city’s support for HorizonShine, the homeless RV Village at the north end of town, in light of the fact that one of the residents there is involved in an ACLU lawsuit against the city over the city’s parking ordinance.
Roberta from Luther Burbank Heights and Orchards wanted to makes sure that the traffic coming from the soon-to-be-built Woodmark Apartments on Bodega Avenue was properly mitigated.
Linda aired her usual complaints about electromagnetic frequency radiation (EMFs) and accused the city’s former city planner of corruption, which irked councilmember Una Glass so much she launched into a spirited defense of him and the whole staff.
“I often disagree with my colleagues and I often disagree with staff,” she said, “but I never think that they're corrupt. There's a difference between having a difference of opinion about policy or even a difference of opinion about how people are executing on their job, but that's not the same as being corrupt. And I just wanted to say that, partly in defense of our former planning director with whom I very frequently disagreed, but I would never ever say that he was corrupt...We need to be mindful of the service that all of our staff provides, even when we disagree with them. They all work really hard.”

Consent Calendar

(Note: The consent calendar consists of items that are routine in nature or don’t require additional discussion, often because they’ve been discussed extensively at a previous council meeting.)

The council awarded a contract for the Bodega Avenue Digouts and Repair Project to Ghilotti Bros. Inc.
The council approved the removal of language from the Municipal Code that prohibits businesses that offer coin-operated play devices from serving alcohol on premises when minors are present.
The council approved a sponsorship request from the Sebastopol Chamber of Commerce for the Chamber’s Holiday Movie Night in Ives Park to the tune of $1,500. They also waived the fee for use of the park for this free public event, which happens on Friday, Dec. 2.
The council approved a change to the First Street Water Main Replacement Project and an amendment to the Capital Improvement Budget for Fiscal Year 2022-23 to account for the $43,844 increase in the cost of the project.
The council approved plans and specifications and gave authorization to bid out the Highway 116 ADA Ramps on Bodega/Florence/Robinson Pedestrian Improvement Project.
The council approved an out-of-service-area agreement for a sewer connection at 286 Eddie Lane.
The council approved revised job descriptions for Police Department (sergeant, lieutenant and captain) and recruitment for a police aaptain.
The council approved a Fee Waiver Request for $1,220 for the Sebastopol Community Church for their Microshelter Temporary Use Permit. According to the staff report, “The Shelters are 60 square feet and large enough for one person or one couple. The shelters are also insulated and designed to protect the occupants from the weather. The units do not provide any water or electricity, but occupants will have access to limited church facilities. This project is designed to help with the homeless problem by providing two additional options for people in addition to the safe parking program the church already administers as part of their mission.”
The final item on the consent calendar - a letter to the county in support of funding for HorizonShine - was waived because the county had already approved funding in the amount of $330,000.

Regular Agenda: Limiting the spread of surveillance technology in Sebastopol

The only item on the regular agenda was a discussion of a draft ordinance regarding the acquisition and use of surveillance technology by city departments, mainly the police department.

The ordinance was drafted by Police Chief Ron Nelson and attorney Omar Figueroa, acting for the local ACLU.

The ordinance takes a three-pronged approach to managing (some would say limiting) the introduction of surveillance technologies into the city of Sebastopol: requiring public discussion, council approval and ongoing oversight.

(Although the language of the ordinance addresses the use of surveillance technologies by “city departments” broadly, everyone agreed that it mainly applied to the police department, so we will use the police department as the example in describing the ordinance.)

If the police department wants to acquire surveillance technology of any kind, the draft ordinance would require them to submit a request to the city council. The city council will then hold a public hearing on the request and the council would have to vote to approve that particular use.

For each proposal, City staff is required to create two documents: a Surveillance Impact Report and a Surveillance Use Policy, which would provide information on the purpose, authorized use, data collection, data access, data protection, data retention, training, public access, third party data sharing, auditing, oversight, and maintenance. In addition, there would be an annual surveillance technology report to the council each year.

The draft ordinance also bans city departments from using any of the following technologies:

biometric surveillance technology
predictive policing technology
facial recognition technology
Or any information obtained from biometric surveillance or predictive policing technologies.

(Interestingly, the reason given for this ban was not that these technologies are Orwellian, but that they discriminate against minorities.)

The ordinance also forbids city departments from contracting with outside agencies or companies to get information gathered through the use of surveillance technology.

Diana Rich asked what effect the ordinance would have on the limited surveillance equipment – video cameras – already in place in city hall, the police department and (maybe) at Ives Pool. Chief Nelson said they would simply be included in the annual report.

The ordinance makes an exception for emergencies, allowing the police department to use surveillance technology for limited time during “exigent circumstances.”

Council watcher Kyle Falbo thought that exception for undefined emergencies left the ordinance wide open to abuse.

“There's not really a lot of teeth here,” Falbo said, noting that the very loose way that the ordinance’s “exigent circumstances” are defined “will grant the police many, many opportunities to be using this technology under the claim of these types of emergencies.”

Both Figueroa and Nelson said that unknown emergency circumstances couldn’t be more tightly defined because they were by their nature unknown.

“It would be pretty much impossible to enumerate all of the possible circumstances,” Figueroa said.

Councilmembers and supporters of the draft ordinance, who made up the vast majority of the speakers in public comment on this issue, were quick to praise the ordinance.

Lauren Mendelsohn, speaking on behalf of the Sonoma County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said, “We feel that it does strike this important balance between the need for public safety and the need to protect our privacy. Both of these are critically important things.”

Councilmember Una Glass praised the collaborative effort that produced the ordinance.

“I'm extremely grateful to Mr. Figueroa and to our new Chief of Police, Chief Nelson, for their collaborative working on this,” she said. “This is the kind of thing that we need in our community, where we're seeing collaboration between our police department and advocates for social justice. So kudos to both of you for working together and making something that works.”

The council voted unanimously to put the draft ordinance on the agenda for a “first reading” at the next city council meeting on Nov. 15.

You can watch the whole council meeting here: https://livestream.com/accounts/14608643/events/10572937/videos/233601494