Prosecutor to move forward with cloud-based evidence system; council approves proceeding with Axon implementation

The county’s prosecuting attorney requested permission to proceed with procurement of a cloud-based digital evidence system (Axon) to handle rapidly growing volumes of video and other digital evidence. The county council agreed to proceed and a motion to approve moving forward with the process carried.

The prosecutor said current in‑office storage (a 35-terabyte server) is nearly full and that larger, higher-resolution video files are exhausting capacity; he estimated the office could run out of local storage by year’s end. He presented a 5‑year Axon contract as a comprehensive alternative: cloud storage, integrated transcription and search tools, and features to streamline evidence sharing with defense counsel. Quote: the system can “generate a hyperlinked, editable, and searchable transcript in under 10 minutes immediately upon ingest,” as described in vendor materials presented to the council.

Cost estimates presented in the packet show approximately $87,000 for a five-year contract for the prosecutor’s office; a separate public defender subscription was shown at roughly $41,000 for five years. The prosecutor said he can apply unused salary funds from an unfilled deputy position (estimated at about $50,000 for the year) to offset the first-year contract cost and that Axon offered migration options if a future statewide system is adopted.

Information technology staff supported the recommendation and said Axon’s cloud storage would remove the county’s immediate need to buy and manage additional local servers and backups. After discussion about redundancy, access control and long-term costs, the council voted in favor of proceeding; the motion carried on a voice vote.