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Adelanto council hears vendor pitch for citywide AI camera network; residents urge caution on surveillance
Summary
A vendor told the Adelanto City Council that a newly installed 160‑lens camera and smart‑lighting network provides a foundation for AI applications including license‑plate reading and facial features; council members asked for a staff workshop and policies, while a resident warned of bias and environmental harms from AI systems.
Rami Devadne, executive vice president of Land 1 Enterprise, presented the Adelanto City Council on July 23 a completed installation of cameras, license‑plate readers and smart street lights the company says will serve as a foundation for “smart‑city” applications.
Devadne said the system includes roughly 160 camera lenses across multiple city sites, cloud storage of footage at City Hall, AI‑driven alerts for unusual activity and license‑plate recognition that can read plates at speed. “AI is doing the work for us right now,” he told the council, and described applications ranging from illegal‑dumping detection to live meeting translation and grant‑finding agents.
Council members pressed the vendor on accuracy, data sharing and law‑enforcement access. Councilmember Evans asked how the city would know how often facial recognition or license‑plate matches are wrong. Devadne acknowledged performance depends on the database and conditions but said, “95% it’s amazingly accurate,” while noting changes in appearance and camera coverage can affect results.
The vendor said footage is stored in the cloud and described technical controls: alert boundaries can be limited to specified areas, camera lenses can be adjusted to avoid recording neighboring private property, and staff can issue shared links to provide footage on request. He also said the system was isolated from the city’s network and had cybersecurity measures, including ethical‑hacking testing.
Mayor Reyes and other council members framed the system as a tool to tackle recurring problems such as illegal dumping, fireworks and traffic enforcement. The mayor urged using the infrastructure to pursue fines for dumping and to create targeted enforcement zones.
A member of the public who identified herself as Alexis told the council she was concerned about bias in AI training data and the carbon and water footprints of large AI systems. “AI can be created to have built‑in biases that reflect systemic racism, sexism and ableism,” she said, urging more community programs rather than expanded surveillance.
Councilmembers requested a follow‑up workshop so staff and the vendor can present detailed capabilities, likely costs and draft policies on law‑enforcement access and data handling. The vendor recommended city‑level AI and data policies to bound any automated agents and to ensure appropriate human oversight.
Next steps: council directed staff to schedule a workshop with the vendor and to return with policy recommendations. No formal ordinance, contract or surveillance‑policy change was approved at this meeting.
