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Auburn council approves six-year Skydio drone program for first-responder use
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Summary
The Auburn City Council voted April 21 to approve a six-year contract with Axon/Skydio to deploy semi-autonomous drone docks for police and fire use. Staff said the system will speed response times, include a public transparency portal and be used for officer safety and firefighting support.
The Auburn City Council on April 21 approved a six-year contract with Axon Enterprise Inc. and Skydio to purchase and operate semi-autonomous Skydio X10 drones and docking stations for first-responder deployments.
Will Matthews, Public Safety Services executive director, told the council the contract covers four Skydio X10 drones, four docking stations and supporting software and services, with a cost listed in the agenda as $89,782.90 for year one and $180,543.66 per year thereafter for a six-year total of $992,501.20. Matthews said the package includes implementation, training, cellular connectivity, maintenance and an equipment refresh midway through the contract term.
Matthews said the system is designed to launch automatically from a pod and arrive on scene in under a minute in some cases, giving responding officers and incident commanders immediate aerial video. "We consider it a force multiplier," Matthews said. He added the drones have thermal sensors and parachute safety kits required for beyond-line-of-sight public-safety flights.
A presentation showed proposed pod locations—two docks at the Public Safety Building and two at Water Resource Management—and a coverage map that omits the airport control zone, where flights would require prior coordination with air-traffic control. Matthews said average X10 flight times are roughly 25 to 30 minutes and that the system is intended to supplement the city's existing aviation program, not replace it.
City staff emphasized officer safety and firefighter support as primary uses. "We can fly a drone there within 60 seconds and see that there's nothing around the pole," Matthews said, describing a use case for blue-light emergency phones on campus. Chief Harris and other staff said the technology has helped agencies locate suspects and find missing persons during tests.
Several council members asked about privacy and oversight. A council member said the devices must not be used to "spy on our citizens." Matthews described a public-facing "transparency window" that will publish flight dates, times and flight paths (but not call details or private addresses) so residents can see when and where the drones flew. He also said video captured by the drones will be integrated with the city's existing evidence system (evidence.com).
Matthews described operational controls to limit launches to specific call types and said the system is not intended for generalized surveillance or intelligence-gathering operations. He said drones can be set to launch for defined incidents (for example, robbery or burglary calls) and that a supervisor or dispatcher can authorize launches as needed.
After questions and a company demonstration video, the council voted by voice to approve the contract.
The contract now moves to implementation steps, including placement of pods, staff training and finalization of operational parameters that will determine which call types trigger autonomous launches.
