Council approves five‑year lease for cruiser and body cameras to centralize evidence storage

Newport — The Newport City Council voted Sept. 15 to authorize the mayor and police chief to sign a five‑year equipment lease with Axon that will replace the city’s aging cruiser camera system, integrate body cameras and provide cloud evidence storage and redaction tools.

Chief Travis Bingham told the council the current cruiser cameras date to about 2010–2011 and that parts and storage are no longer available. “This is for the cruiser cameras. It's called Axon Fleet. It'll upgrade the camera system that we currently have that is very antiquated,” he said, adding the system integrates on‑vehicle cameras, body cameras and the same cloud software used for redaction and evidence management.

Cost and budget: the five‑year lease totals $71,870 (about $16,000 per year). Chief Bingham said the vendor agreed to a first‑year amortization schedule with lower November and June payments so the department could absorb the initial costs in the current budget; the first November payment is just under $3,500. The chief said the lease is aligned with the department’s existing taser/body‑camera plan and will include replacement warranty coverage under the lease.

Operational benefits: Bingham said the system will allow automatic upload at the sally port, tagging, cloud storage and built‑in redaction software, which the department currently lacks. Council members and staff noted the purchase advances transparency and records management and reduces the need for physical drive storage.

Next steps: the council approved the signatures for the mayor and chief on the contract and asked the chief to present the paperwork at the next department meeting for signature and execution. The mayor requested the paperwork be brought to the department meeting the following morning for his signature.