Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on Colorado's Morning News. Some Denver residents are angry
with Mayor Mike Johnston following his decision to extend the
city's license plate reader contract.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The mayor said that he's extending the contract with Flock
Safety for five months with the understanding that no data
will be shared with any federal immigration authorities. Joining us
on the KOA Common Spirit Health hotline is Denver Mayor
Mike Johnston. Mister Mayor, appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
As always, good morning, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We look at this flock camera contract extension. There is
a big fat zero next to the budget line. But
why did you decide to move forward with this five
month extension when the Denver City Council unanimously rejected a
two year extension earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, I think there's misunderstanding about that. First of all,
the reason the council voted against the measure was I
asked them to when we first said, let's take time
to rework this contract to address the concerns. And so
there's plenty of support on the City Council from various members.
There's tons of support in the community for this. There's
a small number of loud voices that are opposed, but
the very issues they raise were the ones that we address.
(01:04):
Most important thing to know is this is a critical
public safety tool. This is what we've used to find
serial rapists. We've solved nine murders with it. This is
why you remember two years ago all folks were talking
about was the auto theft problem in Denver. We have
cut auto theft by ablest fifty percent across the city
because we have these license plate readers that do not
take photos of your faces, they do not track people
(01:25):
that are in and around the streets that similarly can
look for a license plate for a car that has
been stolen. And we had a child that was abducted
last week in the metro area. We could track that
and so it's a core public safety tool.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
L End.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, you had concern productions.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, yet you had concerns when you asked them to
reject the contract. What were those concerns.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, those concerns were the things we fixed in the
new proposal. And what we've done is we've had them
build a model just for Denver, which says no one
outside of the state of Colorado has access to the data,
No federal agency or federal employee can ever access the data.
No one outside the city of Denver as access to
the data. It's only Denver Police Department officers, and it
is only for listed crimes in the city and County
(02:11):
of Denver. So no one could ever use it for
immigration enforcement. No one could ever use it to track
a woman who's trying to cross state boundaries to receive
abortion care, which was one of the hypothetical concerns that
has never happened in Denver. So we have addressed and
then the company will pay financial penalties if there's ever
a breach of any of that data. And so I
think we put in place exactly the protections folks asked
(02:34):
us to put in place. I think now we both
will protect privacy and we can protect public safety.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Mister Mayer. Nine News had a new article posted and
a new University of Washington Center for Human Rights study
that kind of said that there's no way to track
what happens after the Flock systems run the search of
its database. They don't really know if ICE is able
to obtain that information after it's given to Flock. Is
there a clarification of just like how it works once
(03:01):
it goes into their own system.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Well for us, now, the way it works is a
law enforced major will be able to access it. If
they look for a license plate, they would either identify
that car and find it or not. The key point
is there is no evidence that there has ever been
a single use of the license plate reader system in
Denver to detain or identify an immigrant based on their status.
That has never been demonstrated to happen. So but nonetheless
(03:27):
that's why we put in place extra protections to say,
now there's no scenario where even if there was a
hostile sheriff from Texas who wanted to look for someone
who was undocumented, they have no access to do that. Obviously,
no law enforcement officer in Colorado could do that without
getting fired and losing their badge because that's against Denver
law and Colorado law. But if someone were to do that,
we would prosecute them aggressively. But we have no instance
(03:50):
of it happening in Denver, and this provides even more
additional protections to make sure it won't ever happen.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
What's your response to counts the woman Chantelle lewis accusing
you of thing behavior.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think that probably doesn't make much sense. But you know,
she could certainly say whatever she wants. My job is
to help keep the city safe. I think what the
city should be up in arms around is if we
knowingly shut off one hundred and eleven license plate readers
that allow us to help solve crimes. And you have
a car that got stolen and your two year old
was in the back seat, and we said we could
have found them, but we decided to turn off one
(04:25):
hundred and eleven cameras that could have told us where
they were. If you had someone that was a loved
one who was in a shooting and we couldn't track
the offender because we turned off cameras, it would easily
have done that. That would have been a violation of
my duty to keep the city safe, and folks should
have been much more outraged about that. I'm not going
to make the city less safe. That wouldn't be fair
to do to residents. And so what we've done is
(04:45):
found a way to both protect public safety and protect
civil rights, and we.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Can do both.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Mister Marill, want to pivot over to the budget amendments
real quick with the little time we have left. You
approved some but not all, and Denver Clerk Recorder Paul
Lopez again continues to be very vocal about only receiving
eight hundred thousand dollars in his budget when he's looking
for millions. When it comes to this, how were some
of those numbers decided, because he said he wasn't really
sure how eight hundred thousand was ultimately decided.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, you know, we worked closely with the council and
with our partners. I'm looking at what the top priorities
were and where we had resources. You know, we only
these are one time dollars to help fill a short
term need, and so the clerk is still never actually
showed any actual math for what his needs are for
cost this year. The only thing he's mentioned his need
for increase postage and cost of paper, and so we've
(05:37):
allocated some dollars for that. This will still be he'll
take the largest increase of any agency in the city,
even though he'll have far more funds than he needed
to run the last midterm election. So it's clear there
was more than enough revenue to run elections safely and responsibly,
and we were sure he can figure that out, and
we were able to make some key investments into priorities
that we have around things like rental assistance to make
(05:58):
sure folks that are facing can stay in their homes.
And so I think these are some really good steps forward.
We met twenty seven of the council's twenty nine requests
and the original letter about ten of the sixteen new
requests they had in this letter, and so we think
this is a great budget that has taken the best
of a hard situation and try to make sure we
(06:20):
protect core public services.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, thank you for joining us. Mayor Johnston. He joins
us every Friday here at seven point fifty on Colorado's
Morning News
Now on Colorado's Morning News. Some Denver residents are angry
with Mayor Mike Johnston following his decision to extend the
city's license plate reader contract.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The mayor said that he's extending the contract with Flock
Safety for five months with the understanding that no data
will be shared with any federal immigration authorities. Joining us
on the KOA Common Spirit Health hotline is Denver Mayor
Mike Johnston. Mister Mayor, appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
As always, good morning, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We look at this flock camera contract extension. There is
a big fat zero next to the budget line. But
why did you decide to move forward with this five
month extension when the Denver City Council unanimously rejected a
two year extension earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, I think there's misunderstanding about that. First of all,
the reason the council voted against the measure was I
asked them to when we first said, let's take time
to rework this contract to address the concerns. And so
there's plenty of support on the City Council from various members.
There's tons of support in the community for this. There's
a small number of loud voices that are opposed, but
the very issues they raise were the ones that we address.
(01:04):
Most important thing to know is this is a critical
public safety tool. This is what we've used to find
serial rapists. We've solved nine murders with it. This is
why you remember two years ago all folks were talking
about was the auto theft problem in Denver. We have
cut auto theft by ablest fifty percent across the city
because we have these license plate readers that do not
take photos of your faces, they do not track people
(01:25):
that are in and around the streets that similarly can
look for a license plate for a car that has
been stolen. And we had a child that was abducted
last week in the metro area. We could track that
and so it's a core public safety tool.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
L End.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, you had concern productions.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, yet you had concerns when you asked them to
reject the contract. What were those concerns.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, those concerns were the things we fixed in the
new proposal. And what we've done is we've had them
build a model just for Denver, which says no one
outside of the state of Colorado has access to the data,
No federal agency or federal employee can ever access the data.
No one outside the city of Denver as access to
the data. It's only Denver Police Department officers, and it
is only for listed crimes in the city and County
(02:11):
of Denver. So no one could ever use it for
immigration enforcement. No one could ever use it to track
a woman who's trying to cross state boundaries to receive
abortion care, which was one of the hypothetical concerns that
has never happened in Denver. So we have addressed and
then the company will pay financial penalties if there's ever
a breach of any of that data. And so I
think we put in place exactly the protections folks asked
(02:34):
us to put in place. I think now we both
will protect privacy and we can protect public safety.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Mister Mayer. Nine News had a new article posted and
a new University of Washington Center for Human Rights study
that kind of said that there's no way to track
what happens after the Flock systems run the search of
its database. They don't really know if ICE is able
to obtain that information after it's given to Flock. Is
there a clarification of just like how it works once
(03:01):
it goes into their own system.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Well for us, now, the way it works is a
law enforced major will be able to access it. If
they look for a license plate, they would either identify
that car and find it or not. The key point
is there is no evidence that there has ever been
a single use of the license plate reader system in
Denver to detain or identify an immigrant based on their status.
That has never been demonstrated to happen. So but nonetheless
(03:27):
that's why we put in place extra protections to say,
now there's no scenario where even if there was a
hostile sheriff from Texas who wanted to look for someone
who was undocumented, they have no access to do that. Obviously,
no law enforcement officer in Colorado could do that without
getting fired and losing their badge because that's against Denver
law and Colorado law. But if someone were to do that,
we would prosecute them aggressively. But we have no instance
(03:50):
of it happening in Denver, and this provides even more
additional protections to make sure it won't ever happen.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
What's your response to counts the woman Chantelle lewis accusing
you of thing behavior.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think that probably doesn't make much sense. But you know,
she could certainly say whatever she wants. My job is
to help keep the city safe. I think what the
city should be up in arms around is if we
knowingly shut off one hundred and eleven license plate readers
that allow us to help solve crimes. And you have
a car that got stolen and your two year old
was in the back seat, and we said we could
have found them, but we decided to turn off one
(04:25):
hundred and eleven cameras that could have told us where
they were. If you had someone that was a loved
one who was in a shooting and we couldn't track
the offender because we turned off cameras, it would easily
have done that. That would have been a violation of
my duty to keep the city safe, and folks should
have been much more outraged about that. I'm not going
to make the city less safe. That wouldn't be fair
to do to residents. And so what we've done is
(04:45):
found a way to both protect public safety and protect
civil rights, and we.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Can do both.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Mister Marill, want to pivot over to the budget amendments
real quick with the little time we have left. You
approved some but not all, and Denver Clerk Recorder Paul
Lopez again continues to be very vocal about only receiving
eight hundred thousand dollars in his budget when he's looking
for millions. When it comes to this, how were some
of those numbers decided, because he said he wasn't really
sure how eight hundred thousand was ultimately decided.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, you know, we worked closely with the council and
with our partners. I'm looking at what the top priorities
were and where we had resources. You know, we only
these are one time dollars to help fill a short
term need, and so the clerk is still never actually
showed any actual math for what his needs are for
cost this year. The only thing he's mentioned his need
for increase postage and cost of paper, and so we've
(05:37):
allocated some dollars for that. This will still be he'll
take the largest increase of any agency in the city,
even though he'll have far more funds than he needed
to run the last midterm election. So it's clear there
was more than enough revenue to run elections safely and responsibly,
and we were sure he can figure that out, and
we were able to make some key investments into priorities
that we have around things like rental assistance to make
(05:58):
sure folks that are facing can stay in their homes.
And so I think these are some really good steps forward.
We met twenty seven of the council's twenty nine requests
and the original letter about ten of the sixteen new
requests they had in this letter, and so we think
this is a great budget that has taken the best
of a hard situation and try to make sure we
(06:20):
protect core public services.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, thank you for joining us. Mayor Johnston. He joins
us every Friday here at seven point fifty on Colorado's
Morning News
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.