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Redwood City council readopts military equipment policy and approves expanded Axon contract for body cameras and drones
Summary
Council received the 2025 military equipment use report, readopted the military equipment policy under AB 481 and approved a five-year Axon amendment that expands body-worn cameras, evidence systems and the drone-as-first-responder program; council and public debated privacy, audits and long-term funding.
The Redwood City Council unanimously received the Police Department's 2025 military equipment use report, readopted the city's military equipment policy as required by AB 481 and authorized a five-year amendment with Axon Enterprise to modernize the department's body-worn camera program and expand integrated public-safety technologies.
Lieutenant Jesse Castro and Sergeant Jeff Boyce described the department's experience using drones and specialized vehicles and summarized 2025 activity: four Skydio X10 patrol drones plus supplemental systems carried out about 1,700 flights across 608 incidents, largely as drone-as-first-responder (DFR) missions. Boyce said DFR reduced response time substantially on certain call types and highlighted case examples where drones shortened searches and reduced resource needs.
The proposed Axon amendment bundles hardware refreshes, life-cycle support, evidence storage and new software tools (auto transcription, redaction assistant, policy compliance analytics) and funds expansion of the DFR infrastructure (additional docks, interior drones and detect-and-avoid radar). Staff estimated the contract at approximately $3,560,000 over five years, not to exceed $3.7 million; about $2.1 million of that is already identified within current departmental budgets for the first two years.
Public commenters were split. Ernie Schmidt urged modernization to protect officers and the public; an advisory-committee member (speaking on her own behalf) warned that the accumulation and centralization of video and telemetry increases privacy risks and called for strong reporting, audits and limitations on backend access.
Council members pressed vendors and staff on security and auditing. Axon's representative described routine penetration testing and cloud security practices and Skydio noted a five-year warranty with a three-year hardware refresh for drones. Chief and command staff explained that video is encrypted end-to-end and access is limited to defined administrators; the Police Advisory Committee reviewed the draft report and raised questions about public safeguards.
Motion to adopt the report, waive first reading and introduce the ordinance readopting the military equipment use policy, and contingent on that adoption, to authorize the Axon five-year amendment, passed unanimously.
