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Resident warns council against $125K social-media monitoring contract, calls it a "CIA-like" tool
Summary
During public comment Michael Burnett criticized a proposed $125,000 contract for a social-media/AI monitoring service (item 16), saying it would aggregate residents' social media and resemble a "CIA kind of tool," and offered a lower-cost alternative he said he developed. The council acknowledged the comment; the item was on the consent agenda.
Michael Burnett spoke during public comment to criticize a planned city contract (referenced in his remarks as item 16) for a social-media monitoring and engagement service. Burnett said the city was "spending a 125k to get the hot new palantir of basically municipal media," alleging the service would monitor residents' social media broadly, generate surveys and AI responses, and "control city media more or less." He added, "it's more like a CIA kind of tool."
Burnett told the council he had developed a lower-cost front end that could index meeting audio and return short topic clips and urged the city not to pay for the more expensive service. The mayor acknowledged the comment; no council discussion or formal response was recorded in the meeting minutes. The contract was on the consent agenda (items 10'16) and the consent agenda, after a separate poll of item 11, was approved by the council that evening.
The meeting record does not include technical specifications for the proposed contract, the vendor's name beyond the public comment, or the city's procurement rationale; Burnett's claims were made as public comment and were not verified during the hearing.
