Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Maplewood council delays vote on $14,815 drone after months-long questions about legality, liability and vendor origin
Summary
Council members debated a proposal to buy an M30T drone for multiple city departments and voted to postpone action to March 25 while staff prepares a general operating order and additional information about legal and procurement concerns.
Mayor Greenberg brought forward Resolution 25-8, authorizing the city manager to accept a $14,815 bid from DSLR Pros to buy an M30T drone for use by Maplewood departments. Council members spent almost two hours questioning legal limits, training, cross-jurisdictional use and whether state-level restrictions on Chinese-made drones could render the purchase unusable for some purposes.
The drone purchase was presented as a multi-department tool: “Public Works, Fire, Police, and community development” would all use the device, a staff member said. The proposed unit includes an infrared camera, remote access, loudspeaker capability and a small payload capacity, features staff described as useful for roof inspections, identifying hot spots for fire response and locating missing people in low light.
Council members raised several concerns.…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
