Asking forgiveness instead of permission, Cleveland Public Safety Director Wayne Drummond took the heat for the city bypassing City Council and extending the contract for the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system for another year at $853,000.
“I take the onus, the responsibility, for not talking to you” Drummond said to Council Member Mike Polensek at the Wednesday meeting of council’s Public Safety Committee, which Polensek chairs. “I should have come to you and the council president and that will not happen again.”
Drummond said it was his decision to rely on a portion of the city code that allows department heads to extend software contracts without council approval. The city’s Board of Control, which is made up of members of Mayor Justin Bibb’s cabinet, approved the extension at its April 8 meeting with no discussion.
Last year, the Bibb administration wanted to replace ShotSpotter with similar technology from Flock Safety. But it paused that effort amid grassroots pushback (Flock also makes the controversial license plate readers that Cleveland uses) and Polensek’s objection that the city had not sought other proposals.
At Wednesday’s committee meeting, council members chided Drummond for the end-around.
“Finding loopholes does not sit well with me,” said Council Member Richard Starr. “Your decision has caused an erosion of trust,” said Council Member Stephanie Howse-Jones. Council Member Joe Jones and others said it might be time for council to amend that section of the code. (Most contracts over $50,000 require council’s consent.)
No council members asked why that section applied when ShotSpotter is not just software. It relies on acoustic sensors scattered around the service area, as well as analysts, employed by the company, who review sounds captured by the sensors and confirm that they’re gunshots before sending an alert to police.
