Newberg staff proposes municipal AI policy to set guardrails for city systems
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Summary
City staff presented a draft municipal AI policy that distinguishes 'closed' and 'open' AI systems, requires supervisor and IT approvals for tools, prohibits putting personally identifiable or proprietary data into open systems, and emphasizes staff responsibility for any AI-derived outputs.
The City of Newberg's Public Information Officer, Emily Salisbury, presented a draft AI policy (Resolution 2025-4002 draft) on Nov. 17 that would set standards for staff use of artificial-intelligence systems and require supervisory and IT oversight.
Salisbury described two categories: "closed" AI systems that run only on city-controlled data (examples include controlled Copilot implementations that do not call external services) and "open" AI systems such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini that operate on internet-connected models. She said the policy would allow closed, enterprise-managed tools subject to IT approval and supervisory sign-off and would restrict use of open systems for sensitive or personally identifiable information.
"Anyone in the city, anyone that works with the city is responsible for what they do," Salisbury said. "If we need to ask you for your work ... you can't just say chat GPT told me to." She said the policy emphasizes human-in-the-loop review, accuracy checks and staff accountability for final decisions.
Councilors raised questions about vendor-provided AI features that can appear in cloud services — for example, accounts-payable vendors adding invoice-recognition AI — and how the city controls those enhancements. City staff and councilors stressed the need for training and for clear internal processes that identify when a cloud vendor uses AI features and how those features interact with city data.
Salisbury said the task force that drafted the policy consulted National League of Cities guidance and other municipalities' approaches and will bring a final resolution back to the council for adoption in December.