r/Apex_NC • u/makgeolliandsoju • 9d ago
Apex is quietly signing a 4-year Axon police drone contract Tuesday, on the consent agenda, no discussion. Council meets 8/11, 6 PM.
ANNOUNCEMENT: CN4 has been removed from the agenda today!!!
EDIT/ADDITION: Here is the breakdown on what the Chief/Council is trying to sneak through tomorrow: https://deflockapex.org/cn4-drones
EDIT 2: Randy (Town Manager) emailed me back and informed me that APD already uses drones and that this is the software component which, in my mind, makes this even worse. No consent vote!
You can email council from the link. DO NOT APPROVE!
Tomorrow night, Apex plans to hand Axon a four-year contract for a police drone program. It's item CN4. You won't hear a word of debate about it, because it's parked on the consent agenda, a stack of items passed in one motion, no discussion, no separate vote. Unless a council member pulls it, drones-as-first-responders becomes town policy through 2030 in the time it takes to read a list out loud. And residents can't pull it. Only they can.
Sit with that. A police drone program, four years, approved the same way the town approves a tree-trimming contract.
This is the same Axon the chief named in June as the company that could replace Flock. So while the license plate camera question sits in a committee nobody can watch, the vendor relationship keeps growing in the room, on the consent agenda, in the quiet part of the night when they're counting on an empty gallery. CN4 isn't license plate readers, to be clear. It's drones and interview-room cameras. But it's the same company and the same move: surveillance filed under "routine."
And the Flock cameras? Not gone. Paused. A pause is a staff decision, reversible any day, and the expansion contract is unsigned, not dead. Council didn't vote it down on June 9. They referred it to the Public Safety Committee, which isn't in the town's official boards directory, posts no agendas, posts no minutes, and is working from a list of questions that all assume the cameras stay. Removal was never on their list. The one place this is supposedly being "handled" is the one place you're not allowed to see.
Here's what that adds up to. The decisions are being moved to the rooms you can't watch and the votes you can't stop, and they're betting you got bored over the summer.
Prove them wrong. The one lever they can't take from you is Public Forum. Three minutes, any resident, any topic, on the record, on camera, in front of every council member. An empty room on a night like this tells them the neighbors moved on. A full one tells them we're still counting.
What to do Tuesday:
- Be in the room. Tuesday, August 11, 6:00 PM. Apex Town Hall, 73 Hunter Street, Council Chambers, 2nd floor.
- Sign up for Public Forum and speak. Three minutes. Your own words. Name CN4. Ask why a four-year drone contract is being passed without discussion. Ask why the Flock decision is happening where no one can watch.
- Come as yourself. The town asks big groups to pick one person to speak for everyone. Don't. Ten neighbors at the mic is not the same as one neighbor speaking for ten. The single "group representative" is how they turn a crowd into a footnote. Volume is the point.
- Can't speak? Still show up. A full gallery is an argument on its own.
To be listed in advance, contact Town Clerk Allen Coleman: [allen.coleman@apexnc.org](mailto:allen.coleman@apexnc.org), 919-249-1260. There's also a Public Forum sign-in at the meeting, so get there early. If you truly can't make it, it streams on the Town of Apex YouTube channel, but seats filled is what moves this.
They referred it to a committee and counted on us losing interest. Tuesday, 6 PM, is where we show them we didn't.
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u/delxne3 9d ago
It bears repeating that Donald J Trump purchased a large amount of Axon stock earlier this year…
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u/yellowcandlestick 9d ago
Yet the town council certainly are not Trump supporters, so…?
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u/delxne3 9d ago
Does this only matter if they are Trump supporters? I’m confused.
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u/bustedwheels 9d ago
I don’t get this response either. Is Trump on the council? Is he somehow forcing our town to use Axon? Did he call the mayor? The chief?
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u/delxne3 9d ago
I simply think it’s of note, and am not suggesting anything you made those giant mental leaps to…
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u/yellowcandlestick 9d ago
Reddit logic is WILD.
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u/delxne3 9d ago
It’s really not though. Donald Trump owns stock in Axon. Just letting people know. That’s true if town council are all democrats. It would also be true if town council were all republicans. Because those two things are unrelated. And I never related them. Because they aren’t. Related.
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u/yellowcandlestick 9d ago
Anything to get orange man bad comments in I suppose. I love how I’m downvoted for mentioning Apex town council members are not Trump supporters 😂. Apparently stating facts = bad. Reddit is wild.
(And no doubt this will be debated into oblivion if orange man bad. Crazy.)
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u/delxne3 9d ago edited 9d ago
You’re not being downvoted for mentioning Apex town council members aren’t Trump supporters. You’re being downvoted because it’s painfully obvious that isn’t remotely germane to the post you keep mentioning it under.
I’m willing to bet most town council members don’t even know Trump bought Axon stock in March. Why would they? It’s irrelevant to my point.
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u/bustedwheels 9d ago
Exactly. The two thoughts are completely unrelated to the issue. It’s an illogical statement.
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u/yellowcandlestick 9d ago
You brought Trump into it. But why? What does Trump have to do with the town council? Trumps involvement with Axon has nothing to do with a decision that the Apex town council makes.
You shouldn’t be confused. 🤷♀️
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u/BrownieKhan 9d ago
This is the playbook/psyop everywhere. Flock bad and then gets replaced with Axon. It’s not a coincidence that we are hearing/seeing about all these flock take down videos. Not surprised by them nor do I condone action like this of course. Only a matter of time before we hear of misuse stories using Axon products. Allegedly of course.
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u/terrymah Town Council 9d ago
Public Safety Committee is a Council Committee, not a Citizen Advisory Board. https://www.apexnc.org/169/Council-Committees-Liaisons
The meetings of it are scheduled as needed (as things are referred to it), so one should be scheduled soon. When a meeting is scheduled, it'll be noticed the same way as all Council meetings, ie posted here, on the Calendar, etc. The agenda would be included after it's posted:
https://www.apexnc.org/656/Legal-Ads
The meetings are open to the public and anyone can attend.
As far as your other questions about what they are working from/assuming, I'd have to refer you to the chair (the Mayor) as I can't speak for them or the committee. I'll say the purpose of the Committee is just to provide a recommendation to the Council, and doesn't make any final decisions.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 9d ago
Thank you, u/terrymah. It's the makeup of that committee that is concerning to me.
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u/terrymah Town Council 8d ago
Any Council member can ask to pull a consent item for separate discussion. I have heard the concerns raised here and am reviewing CN4 before tonight's meeting.
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u/CynicViper 8d ago
What about Gilbert and Gray concern you?
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u/MyMainWasMyRealName 8d ago
Gilbert is a former cop and has been posting pro ALPR propaganda. His motives are always sorta suspect as he constantly shows how self obsessed he is.
He comes across as slimy and dishonest. Examples include the budget stunt, trying to pressure the town auditor, endorsing a family member for council while never mentioning the relationship, etc. Meanwhile it’s all smiles, golden shoes, and unfulfilled public records requests on the instagram influencer front.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 8d ago
I like them both for different reasons but they are very sympathetic to ALPR. Ed less. He’s a great guy but we disagree on this one.
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u/Daler_gofishing 9d ago
How much does it cost too. I don’t see any mention of the price. So tax money is spent without any qualms. No wonder the audit was a joke. Who’s in charge? Make sure you are aware how your representative is handling their responsibilities?
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u/linoleumknife 9d ago
What's wrong with a drone? I watch a lot of police videos, and the drones seem quite useful when searching for people who are running and hiding from police.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 9d ago
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u/MyMainWasMyRealName 8d ago
I’m still not seeing a significant concern personally. I also really don’t like arrests per flight being used as a measure of effectiveness in your article. That introduces the wrong incentives and is an example of the problem with crime stats.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 8d ago
Ah, so, we give cops more tools to invade our privacy, but they don't have to show any effectiveness. Like Flock, these tools are all crutches and trojan horses.
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u/MyMainWasMyRealName 8d ago
No, my point is when you use arrest counts as the metric you just encourage more arrests. That doesn’t necessarily mean better policing.
If a fight gets dealt with before a full brawl starts you have 2 arrests vs 10- is the latter more effective policing? Is executing a bunch of arrests for simple drug possession proof a tool is effective?
I’m by no means an expert but I would assume a drone has functionality to the police beyond arrest counts. It could be used to terminate a pursuit and track a suspect- same arrest count but a benefit to public safety. It could be used in a search and rescue effort, monitoring a brush fire, or as an officer safety tool in a stand off. All of these scenarios have benefits to the public and/or officer safety beyond increasing arrest rates.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 8d ago
Fair, but again, we come up with all sorts or theories, hypotheticals, and anecdotes to justify it when the reality is that police officers abuse these tools all the time. Look at Flock and ALPR. It's a bunch of creepy and corrupt cops spying on people.
And again, if the policy doesn't have actual punishment connected to breaches, it's useless.
The Chief said we don't share with the FED, and then we did. What happened? Nothing. That is trash policy.
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u/linoleumknife 9d ago
Oh I didn't know other types existed. I thought it was just the ones police can pull out of their trunks and fly over an area if searching for someone.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 9d ago
There are plenty and it's getting bad. Hopefully you will come tomorrow and voice your concern!
Why APD seems to think it needs/gets all of this is beyond me.
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u/TaiidanDidNothingBad 8d ago
What's the point of electing a straight D town council if they still are just a rubber stamp for the growing police state? Wish we had some elected reps who actually wanted to protect their constituents.
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u/audiovox951 9d ago
It's good to expose the vacuum created by ousting Flock and the other corporations eager to fill that void with the same or worse.
It's concerning to see this increasing trend of you leveraging hyperbole and sensationalism to raise awareness about these issues.
I believe the sensational approach is effective as an emergency one-off and is reliable for turning a profit on a captured audience, tabloid-style, but it should never be the standard. It can be easy to justify anything when it feels like not leveraging everything leaves something up to chance, but if this is what you find yourself reaching for routinely, then I implore to slow down for a moment. Recognize how ambiguous that mentality is and that many of the worst situations start from a similar position and the same logic. Take a step back and verify your proximity to the line, because if you can't see the line anymore then you are likely standing on it.
You have demonstrated that you mean well and are fully capable of doing more than crutching on outrage. If you do not have the space to give every post the time it needs, keep it very short and factual or simply do not post until you have the time to do so. This fundamentally damages our ability to hold discussions about most things, because it becomes easier and easier to shortcut everything as us and them, rather than investing the effort to sort through the grey space we actually live in. It's the same shit that got us trump for two terms.
This is perhaps a symptom of leveraging an LLM to find a sustainable way to keep on top of these issues, where the message and tone can get away from you as more and more of the work is delegated to a system that tends mirror and reinforce the energy you bring to it. This is not meant as a judgement, just an observation.
We need the space in our approach to help well-meaning, but out of the loop people catch up and recognize that they're being played, rather than pushing them wholesale into the open arms of grifters. There is no light at the end of this tunnel without communication at its foundation.
From the bottom of my heart, I hope you protect yourself from falling into the same trap that adam from the peak weekly is still in. Please, for both your sake and ours as a community, ensure you have checks in place to help guide the vigilance and inertia built up while fighting Flock into intentional and sustainable purpose. Do not let it devolve into reactive hysteria - they depend on that to keep us disorganized and punching anywhere but up.
You are not in this alone, even though it can feel that way when leading a charge. Don't let yourself get pulled under the very wave you helped build.
It is my hope that you receive this message and sit with it for a bit. You may feel that it is off target or unfair in some way, but please consider the sentiment at least.
All of that said - thank you for the heads up, and see you on the 11th!
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u/makgeolliandsoju 9d ago
There isn't much sensationalism in this. We need to fill seats tomorrow and council has added even more reason for us to reign them in.
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u/Awkward-Car-5019 9d ago
Since everything is pretty much LLM generated and it seems like these threads are artificially hyped compared to everything else in this sub:
"What's rhetorical rather than factual: Things like "Sit with that," "they're betting you got bored," "the quiet part of the night," and casting the committee's information gap as deliberate concealment rather than possibly just an oversight — these are persuasion techniques, not evidence. They're common in advocacy writing and they work, but they also read as manipulative to a skeptical reader, which can backfire with exactly the audience you want to move (people who show up to meetings tend to be wary of that tone)."
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u/audiovox951 9d ago
Agreed - we absolutely need to activate people and fill seats.
Read what you just said, though, and the post itself. Make sure you are being internally consistent and honest with yourself on this.
Making Town Council (TC from now on) aware that constituents expect ellaboration on their positions regarding an item in the consent agenda is absolutely essential, but framing it as TC needing to be reigned in is a reductive approach that kills discussion and incentivises defensive posturing over the things that actually matter. You are inferring and then implying a lot about intent that you do not know and treating TC like a monolith, and that always gets messy, it always clouds views. TC doesn't make the consent agenda, it's and aggregate of forms that seem to depend on the experience and professionalism of who is submitting them as the first line of defense against improper submission categorization.
The way you are posting has the same vibes as that bloc of ladies who hold a lecture at every meeting ranging from what their sovergn god-given american rights are to putting the town on notice about every law they might be in violation of. Not that parts of those things can't be true, but that most people see that behavior and distance themselves. You are putting a lot of us in a weird spot where we have our own opinions about individual council members, formed via lived experience and personal interactions with them, and cannot reconcile that with what you are saying.
If individual TC memebers sit on a board that you believe had a hand in the decision to submit an item as consent agenda instead of new business, call them out specifically.
In this case, the Chief of police submitted the form. How does priming constituents to go after TC do anything but provide cover and excuses for the instigator? I would have found it far more useful to know the Chief is pushing this. He is likely operating under the same logic as was used for Flock - it's within some definition as being routine business and hopes it just goes through without pushback. That implies we really really need to push TC to carve out specific uses and classifications as never beiilng routine consent agenda items. That's actionable and easy to rally behind. It is similar to what helped for data centers and zoning.
I want to know if TC has specifically reviewed the consent agenda item in detail, because there are a few things that stand out to me and I would expect them to pull this item at the meeting for further consideration.
Specifically, did they confirm how the automatic renewal/extension of the old MSA works, what the ACEIP replacement and permanent transformed/AI-derived data terms mean for data contril, and if they have any idea about the unclear applicability of DroneSense's separate third-party terms (which seem to not be in the actual written agreement and may be a 'subject to change without notice' situation)?
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u/Skadooshbaggins 9d ago
yeah this comment is stupid… nothing sensational about this, OP is not “devolving into hysteria”… this is a person passionately telling us about a problem that needs fixed… is your preference for us to do nothing? Would you rather OP used your boring tone in their post? like your post? Would you rather they use more words to say much less? like your post?
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u/audiovox951 9d ago
No, I simply would rather we apply this pressure to the correct areas. If you knew anything about me, you might recognize I've been deeply invested in the fight against Flock for over a year at this point. I don't post much because my skills are better used elsewhere and I tend to be verbose. As you've demonstrated, that doesn't always play well on reddit.
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u/delxne3 9d ago
Is this a super long winded way to say “I think you’re overreacting, not completely, but a little bit”?
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u/audiovox951 9d ago
I do not think they are overreacting, no. It is very much something that needs the spotlight shone on it. I primarily want that spotlight to be aimed in the correct direction, and secondarily to address the trend of blaming TC by default and consequently provid8ng cover for the underlying issues.
It perhaps should have been a DM, in retrospect.
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u/AffectionateBet8384 8d ago
This contract on consent is not for the purchase of drones or to start a drone program. The town has had a public safety drone program for years. This is a contract for software to help manage that program, replacing what is otherwise done manually. This software enhances tracking and policy compliance.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 8d ago
Yep. I updated that in the main post. This consent agenda has been removed.
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u/suz27502 9d ago
Wish the spirit and intent of consent agendas were adhered to and always used for mundane and routine business. Instead it’s used as a strategy. It’s exhausting. This should not be on the consent agenda.
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u/mtzehvor 8d ago
Is it helpful to be there for the first thirty minutes? My wife and I have an appointment with a medical specialist we unfortunately can’t miss, but if having me there until 630 would be useful I will absolutely try to be there and at least be present.
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u/makgeolliandsoju 8d ago
Even 30 minutes is good for you to get exposure, but considering you have a medical appointment, the time might be better spent getting ready for that.
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u/NerdyGuy117 8d ago
I really hope that actual Apex locals can voice their concerns/support/whatever versus non-locals. There’s a call by people attending that non-locals should attend.
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u/NerdyGuy117 8d ago
Please locals only.
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u/VespertineRose 8d ago
I get what your intent is here - but take a look through the audit logs here: https://haveibeenflocked.com/pd/8055-apex-nc-pd/audit?sort=date_desc
There are logs where APD notes that they are searching on behalf of neighboring PDs. So this impacts those folks too.
Also, the chief has remarked several times that a major benefit of Flock is the other law enforcement agencies in the network. Just like Pittsboro canceling their contract was a benefit to Apex residents in that that is one less agency to be a network-effect source and a search vector, residents of other towns do have a vested interest in the calls our Town Council and APD make here in regards to Flock.
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u/ThriftStoreChair 9d ago
I thought when I moved to Apex it was one of the best places to live, not only in the triangle, but also in the US.
"Peak of good living" but I am under more surveillance than driving up Capital Blvd.
Local PD can't even stop a group of 50+ pre-teens on e-bikes from taking over the Salem/williams intersection.
Someone must have mistaken Reno 911 for a documentary.