VBT DDA votes 5-1 to allocate $95,000 over three years for FUSUS

The Van Buren Township Downtown Development Authority, at its regular May 23 meeting, voted 5-1 to allocate $95,000 over three years to help the township pay for a FUSUS security program for the public safety department.
The total township cost over three years is $225,000.
Mark Laginess, a member of the DDA’s finance committee, cast the only nay vote, explaining he has concerns about whether the program justifies the expense. He said the police department’s Flock program that takes pictures of license plates from the rear of cars, has done a good job and has had results.
He said there was only one quote presented for this new program and he would love to see competing systems, but he was told this is a sole-source technology and there are none competing.
Laginess said he supports the police, but he reluctantly must vote no.
Victor Delibera could not be present, but sent a letter voicing his concerns and asking for the program to be reassessed in a year. He asked that his letter be read aloud in his absence, but that was not done because the two-page letter was considered too long.
Delibera ended his letter with: “There is no disputing the fact that this system is an extra layer of surveillance. I believe there are some positive things for which this system could be used and I am not against this system in general. This is a new technology and a new system and I believe caution is the correct way in which to proceed with this decision.
“I am for allowing time to pass to understand better how this system could be utilized without interfering with any potential issues [as he had outlined in his letter]. I don’t believe we want our little town to become a dystopian surveillance state. I’m for readdressing this in a year to be conservative in our approach,” Delibera concluded.
The DDA’s May 23 meeting could not start for almost half an hour, as members waited for one more person to arrive to make a quorum for the 11-member board.
Van Buren Township Police Chief Jason Wright and Deputy Chief Joshua Monte were present to answer any questions on the use of FUSUS as they asked for a financial partnership for the FUSUSCONNECT program.
They asked the DDA for $35,000 for the first year and an additional $25,000 for year two and $25,000 for year three.
The total cost of the project is $75,000 per year, they said.
In addition to the cost of the software, the DDA was asked to consider covering the first year of the cost of the first 20 devices at $350 each that would be offered to businesses within the DDA district and their first year’s subscription of $150 each for a total of $10,000.
On May 2, a joint work-study meeting had been held for members of the Van Buren Township Board and the DDA and the details were described for almost an hour.
At the DDA meeting, Township Supervisor Kevin McNamara said Van Buren residents look for security, as a No. 1 issue and good schools as #2. He said they have an accredited police department which is paid well and well taken care of.
He said other communities are looking at Van Buren Township for information on their department. He said the township is a freeway town, with exits and entrances, and this will tie the community into surveillance.
Supervisor McNamara said the FUSUS people came to the township and the $130,000 a year price was a bit much, so the township said no and they came back to the township with a better price. He said they came to Van Buren because is is one of the few police departments that embraces technology.
McNamara said the program is not intrusive and only uses people who let the police use their cameras.
Chief Wright said FUSUS provides a dashboard software that integrates other people’s cameras, if the people allow it. He said police won’t be buying cameras.
He said it is a sole-source technology. It’s a box and businesses plug in whatever cameras they want police to have access to. He said they don’t want to control cameras. If something happens at that business, you can go back and get that and could draw that out as evidence.
He said if police put it in its file, it’s able to be accessed through the Freedom of Information Act.
There is the live link part of the program that allows a dispatcher to ask for access to a cell phone and the dispatcher can send that to squad cars en route to an incident. It’s recorded and can be put in a file, he said.
The panic button part of the program could be used in local schools, where a teacher could hit a panic button on a phone and the first three cameras closest to the phone turn on.
Chief Wright said also, if anything happens at a business, the police would have a floorplan if the business had allowed the police to have it on file in advance.
He also said the camera registry part of the program allows people to register their Ring cameras and if police need to find out who has cameras around a certain incident, they can send out emails or call those who have registered to get permission to access the cameras. Or, a person could check his camera himself and report there is nothing on the camera.
“I equate it with the Flock cameras,” Chief Wright said, noting those cameras collect data all day long and nobody looks at it. He said if a victim reports a crime with a red Mustang involved, for example, they can follow up and find the car.
He stressed that there will be strict rules for use of the program and no officers will be checking on their old girlfriends. He said when they use the law enforcement information network (LEIN), every stroke is tracked and the state could deny them access to LEIN if rules are violated. He said when they go into Flock, everything in its use is recorded: who, when, the reason. He said there are mechanisms to control use.
Dep. Chief Monte asked where is it needed and answered that by saying 22% of the crimes are between Tyler Road and the Belleville Bridge on Belleville Road. He said between Jan. 1 and May 1 there were over a thousand cases.
He said a business on the North I-94 Service Drive recently was broken into and police couldn’t review the surveilliance cameras until the next day. He said the Wayne County Prosecutor wants departments to use video as much as possible in cases, since it’s better than an eyewitness.
He said there will be no command center and the images from cameras will be displayed on the screens in dispatch.
Chief Wright said FUSUS gave them 17 free boxes they could give to businesses outside the DDA dispatch area to use.
He said Van Buren would be the second place in the state to have FUSUS if it is approved. Kalamzoo is the only one in Michigan that’s` close to being on. There are many throughout the South.
Supervisor McNamara said he talked to the leaders of the NAACP and they see no problem with the program as far as racial profiling goes. He said London is considering the program because it wants to get away from its camera system.
The motion to approve was made by Joyce Rochowiak and seconded by Joe Baskin, passing 5-1. Also voting yes were board vice-chairperson Carol Bird who led the meeting, Velon Willis and Supervisor McNamara. Laginess was the no vote and he asked if the DDA could get out of the agreement if it chose to in the future and that was added to the wording of the motion with everyone’s approval.
“If the DDA wants out and Van Buren Township is in, the township will refund your money,” McNamara said.
Absent from the meeting were Delibera, Jim Chudzinski, Dawn Chappell, Chris Brown and chairman Craig Atchinson.