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Council approves emergency purchase of body cameras, police chief thanks local American Legion for donation
Summary
Cortland approved an emergency ordinance enabling the police chief to buy body-worn cameras and cloud services from Midwest Public Safety; the police chief cited expected vendor price increases and thanked the Raymond L. Johnson American Legion Post 540 for a $5,000 donation to upgrade department equipment.
Cortland City Council approved an emergency ordinance authorizing the police chief to purchase body-worn cameras, accessories, and cloud-based services from Midwest Public Safety.
John, Cortland police chief, told the council the purchase was advanced as an emergency because the vendor warned of an imminent price increase tied to tariffs and other supply issues. "The company has informed us that they expect a significant price increase due to tariffs and all kinds of other things," John said. He said acting now aligns with available grant funding and will lock in current pricing.
Chief's acknowledgments and donations: John publicly thanked the council for approving the emergency purchase and expressed gratitude to the Raymond L. Johnson American Legion Post 540 for a $5,000 donation that helped upgrade department computers. "We'd also like to publicly thank Bob Mangold of the Raymond L. Johnson American Legion Post 540 for the $5,000 check to let us upgrade our computers... so we can run a new Windows program," John said.
Grants and costs: The chief discussed grant funding but did not provide a confirmed total for the grants covering the body-worn camera program. In the meeting he said, "I don't have that information. I'm sorry," and later said, "I wanna say it's 13,000 if that's the..."—an estimate he did not confirm. The chief said some department members already have newer-style cameras and the new purchase will replace older devices and move to cloud-based storage for easier access.
What the ordinance does: Ordinance O-39-25 authorizes the police chief to proceed with procurement and to accept and align purchases with grant funding. Council approved the emergency designation so the department can place orders before the anticipated price increase.
Ending: The department will implement the upgraded cameras and cloud storage and will detail final grant totals and purchase costs in follow-up reporting to council when available.
