Two Public Meetings
Bend, Oregon
Two Meetings. One Issue.
Show Up for Both.
If you helped stop the La Pine data center, this is the next fight — and it is happening in your backyard. On June 3rd, Axon surveillance contracts are before both Deschutes County and Bend City Council. The same principle applies: demand answers before infrastructure gets locked in.
Business Meeting
1300 NW Wall St., Bend
Business Meeting
710 NW Wall St., Bend
La Pine residents did not wait until the data center was built. They demanded answers before land, power, water, and public infrastructure were committed — and the council voted unanimously to reject the proposal. Surveillance contracts work the same way. A signed Axon platform deal can mean years of vendor lock-in, data stored in Axon's cloud, and capabilities that expand beyond what the public originally understood was being approved. The time to set conditions is before the contract — not after.
What Axon Actually Is
Axon is not just a camera company. It is a public-safety technology platform. A single Axon contract can bundle body cameras, tasers, in-car cameras, automated license plate readers, cloud evidence storage (Evidence.com), AI-generated police reports, drone integration, and — through its acquisition of Fusus — real-time crime-center software that aggregates feeds from public and private cameras across a jurisdiction.
Policy 428 Needs Council Review
Bend's ALPR policy (Policy 428) does not require reasonable suspicion or probable cause before use or access. It permits use during routine patrol, stores data in Axon's Evidence.com cloud, and allows sharing with other law enforcement for "legitimate law enforcement purposes." This controls location data on ordinary drivers — it is a public-governance question, not an internal police procedure. Council should review Policy 428 before any expansion moves forward.
Oregon's SB 1516 requires end-to-end encryption and limits retention to 30 days. But Oregon's Chief Information Security Officer has raised concern that agencies may not retain their own encryption keys under some vendor systems. Bend needs local rules — not just state minimums.
Four Things to Say at Both Meetings
This Is Not "Never Use Technology"
The ask is: no new surveillance without elected-body approval, a public impact review, strong encryption and key-control requirements, documented retention limits, access logs, and annual public reporting. That standard protects residents and limits the jurisdiction's legal exposure under Oregon law.
County (3 min): Sign up on a blue form at the door. State your name and address. Citizen Input covers topics not on the agenda — the Axon procurement item will be on the agenda, so address it during that item.
City Council (2 min): Lead with name and ward. State your ask specifically. The ask is accountability before the contract — not after.