Minnetrista staff seek council direction on citywide security camera and key‑card upgrade

City staff and a vendor presented options March 17 for replacing Minnetrista’s aging access‑control and video surveillance systems and asked the City Council for direction on procurement and financing.

Jasper, a city staff member who introduced the item, said the current system is end of life and “we'd like direction from city council on how to proceed.” The vendor recommended a cloud‑native package that combines card access, intercoms and cameras into one platform and covers locations that currently lack cameras, such as water treatment buildings and towers.

Chris Daniels, a representative of USA Security, told the council the current system dates to 2016 and is no longer supported: “One of the downfalls of service system like you guys have now is you have a single point of failure.” He outlined two pricing illustrations the city had received: a full refresh of multiple buildings at about $224,000, and a smaller, cloud‑only camera refresh for two buildings near $109,000. Daniels said a cloud system would remove the single server failure risk and provide onboard storage per camera, remote monitoring and an upgrade path covered by licensing and hardware warranties.

City staff told the council the recommended next steps are to prepare a bid package, obtain additional quotes to ensure apples‑to‑apples comparisons, and consider financing the purchase with an equipment certificate in 2025 or 2026 alongside other planned capital projects. Jasper noted staff could pursue an equipment certificate this year tied to the water treatment plant project or next year with a road project.

Council members stressed the need for competitive quotes and budgetary prudence. One council member said the expenditure is “a big animal” and that the city should solicit multiple bids; another urged moving sooner rather than later to avoid emergency replacement costs if the current server fails.

Staff estimated procurement to on‑site start about 10 weeks after award and an installation window of roughly 4–6 weeks, for a total of about 17 weeks from approval to completion. Staff also noted that some camera locations will require LTE service so towers and wells can transmit to the cloud without extending wired data lines.

Council direction: staff were instructed to prepare a bid package, obtain multiple vendor quotes, and return to council with financing options (including an equipment certificate) and an implementation timeline. No formal vote on procurement was taken at the work session.

The council will consider staff’s formal procurement and financing recommendation at a future meeting once quotes and a bid package are developed.