Redmond Council awards roughly $1.3M, 5½-year contract to Axon Enterprises for police cameras and cloud evidence storage

The Redmond City Council voted to award a five-and-a-half-year contract to Axon Enterprises Inc. for body-worn cameras, in-car cameras and related cloud evidence storage, in an amount not to exceed $1,299,371.65. The motion was made, seconded and approved by voice vote.

Scott Brang, procurement and payables manager for the city, said the Redmond Police Department's current camera system is more than 10 years old and has produced ongoing customer-service and evidence-platform problems. "Tonight, we're requesting approval for a 5 and a half year, contract with Axon Enterprises for approximately $1,300,000," he said, describing the vendor as a leading provider and noting the cloud platform (evidence.com) would provide secure, scalable storage and local customer service.

Chief Devon Lewis said the department's on-site storage will become obsolete and that moving to a cloud system will allow faster sharing of specific evidentiary clips with the district attorney and other investigating agencies while maintaining department access controls. He said the new contract and cloud workflow should save roughly the equivalent of one full-time employee in staff hours and reduce redaction and public-records processing time from days or weeks to roughly 20–60 minutes for many requests.

Procurement staff outlined implementation costs of about $40,000 in the next six months and roughly $252,000 per year going forward; roughly $20,000 of the recurring annual cost would be charged to the airport for security-officer coverage. Council and staff clarified that the body-worn camera contract is not being paid from certain previously allocated public-safety savings (those funds were earmarked separately for radios and an evidence storage facility).