Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Data Privacy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Waynesville council approves Placer AI contract with policy safeguards after debate over data and public records
Summary
The council approved a three-year shared subscription to Placer AI for downtown and parks analytics after members raised concerns about public-records rules, potential private benefit to merchants, and staffing; approval included a stipulation that staff develop policies forbidding individual ad-hoc merchant reports until policy is adopted and quarterly usage reports be provided.
The Downtown Waynesville Commission (DWC) and Parks & Recreation sought council approval for a three-year Placer AI subscription to collect foot-traffic and visitor analytics for downtown, parks and events. Beth, speaking for the DWC, said the service will help measure event attendance and visitor origins to support grant applications and merchant outreach.
Beth said the subscription pricing discussed was $12,600 for the first year, $13,230 for the second and $14,000 in year three, with a non-appropriation clause allowing the town to opt out without penalty if funds are not budgeted in later years. She said the DWC intends to fund its share from its budget and to split the first-year cost with Parks & Rec.
Several council members urged caution about committing to a 36-month contract and raised two dominant concerns: how the town would handle individual-business requests for reports, and whether providing granular reports would amount to an impermissible private benefit under public-records or gift rules. One member noted that generated reports would be public records and recommended standard, publicly published reports rather than ad-hoc, merchant-specific analyses.
Town members discussed staffing and automation options; staff suggested automating a set of standard reports and distributing them on a cadence to limit ad-hoc requests and workload. Council members requested that staff draft procedures and policies governing report generation, access and dissemination, and that the board receive quarterly reports on system usage.
A motion to approve the three-year subscription passed by voice vote with the explicit caveat that staff not produce individual-business reports until the council adopts a policy and that quarterly reports on usage be provided to the board.
The council did not direct staff to provide merchant-level raw datasets; instead, members emphasized standardization, transparency and compliance with public-records requirements.
