| NEWS | Crisis Diverted Mesa will spend millions in Covid relief funds on ... high-tech police surveillance? BY KATYA SCHWENK T his summer, the city of Mesa announced ambitious plans for a “real-time crime center”: a 24/7 surveillance hub fitted with a “video wall” of stream- ing CCTV cameras at police headquarters. The price tag is high: The technology for the center alone will cost the city over $3 million. Recently, though, the city set- tled on an innovative source of funding for the project: federal Covid relief dollars, which are designated for local “public health” spending in the city. Currently, $3.3 million of the $52 mil- lion Mesa received in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) earlier this year is ear- marked for the center. (The city will still have to foot the bill for staffing and remod- eling, without the help of the relief money.) City leaders say they hope to have the sys- tem up and running by December. “It’ll be very high tech,” deputy city manager Michael Kennington promised the city council at an August 26 meeting. Mesa’s mayor, John Giles, has since green- lit the proposal. The proposal is not particularly anoma- lous: As cities find themselves swimming in another round of federal relief dollars, plenty of the money is finding its way to law enforcement, encouraged by direction from the Biden administration to use the funds to help reduce crime. Elsewhere in the country, police departments have pur- chased everything from all-terrain vehicles to artificial intelligence with virus relief funds. Despite robust opposition, Phoenix gave bonuses to police officers with the money back in April. “Police departments have seen [the grant money] as a way to pay for all of the fancy technology and equipment they’ve always wanted, but never had a reason or the funding to get,” said Matthew Guari- glia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Fron- tier Foundation, an organization that monitors law enforcement surveillance. “All of a sudden, you have cops saying, ‘You know what we need to fight Covid? We need drones.’” Mesa, whose police department boasts that its crime rate has dropped to “the low- est in recorded history,” received a $52 mil- lion ARPA grant in May. It was divvied up into different spending categories: public health initiatives, economic recovery, and community services, as well as increased pay for some city employees. The $3.3 million dedicated to the real- time crime center comes out of the pool of $8 million that is meant for “public health.” Another $160,000 of the public health funds will be used to purchase body scan- ners for jails. This is the second time Covid funds have boosted Mesa’s public safety budget, which also includes the city’s fire depart- ment. More than half of the $90 million in CARES Act funds Mesa received last year were allocated to public safety. The public safety budget is up $30 million compared to 2020. Andre Miller, a pastor and longtime civil rights advocate in Mesa, told Phoenix New Times he found the budget increase to be “obscene.” “ALL OF A SUDDEN, YOU HAVE COPS SAYING, ‘YOU KNOW WHAT WE NEED TO FIGHT COVID? WE NEED DRONES.’” “The funds were meant to assist citizens of the city of Mesa,” he said, adding that he was frustrated by the city’s recurring in- vestments in law enforcement over community or so- cial services. In many cities, CARES Act funds were allocated to police and fire sala- ries as part of a strategic work- around that helped prevent broader cuts in other areas: Public safety payroll was eligi- ble for CARES Act funds, while other areas of city government were not. This was true in Mesa as well. The city says that the bulk of the money was used to pay for public safety payroll only as a way to free up money to address budget short- falls caused by the pandemic. Kennington wrote in an email to New Times that the city had used the funds to “get the money out to the community as quickly as possi- ble.” The surveillance center, though, is a di- rect purchase for law enforcement — one that Mesa police had not determined how to fund until federal money came its way. At the August meeting, city manager Chris Brady explained to the council that the city had considered hiring new officers with the relief funds, but decided against that plan. If the city hired more officers, he explained, it would have to pick up their salary costs once the relief money ran dry. Instead, Brady said, he asked the police de- partment to suggest “some one-time pur- chases that wouldn’t normally make it into our general budget discussion.” Real-time crime centers are increas- ingly popular among police departments. They serve as hubs for the ever-expanding arsenals of intelligence tools that >> p 14 11 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES SEPT 23RD – SEPT 29TH, 2021
