Tuesday, February 3, 2026, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
The Austin City Council work session covered four pulled agenda items. Item A2 was a brief budget amendment appropriating existing revenue for the Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex, now managed by the city's Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment department. Item A3, the proposed contract for AI-enabled mobile security cameras in parks, drew extensive public testimony and council questioning about privacy, data ownership, AI features, and procurement; several members said they were not ready to vote Thursday, and Council Member Siegel proposed making the contract the first test of the Mayor Pro Tem's pending surveillance use policy. Item A40 concerned appropriation of TxDOT parkland mitigation funds along the I-35 corridor. Item A45, a proposed ordinance for a citywide efficiency assessment, was discussed at length, with council members raising questions about cost, scope, worker input, and public engagement; the Mayor indicated he would recommend postponing the vote to the February 26 meeting rather than proceeding Thursday.
0:04 You are watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor pro timm cheadle,
0:13 Vela. Council members Natasha Harper Madison, Vanessa Fuentes, José velazquez, Ryan Alter, crystal lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis, zoe
0:36 cadre, mark uchin, city attorney deborah thomas, city clerk erica brady, and city manager tc broad.
0:55 Good morning, everybody. Uh, welcome to the, um, City Council work session.
1:00 I will call to order the Austin City Council work session.
1:03 It is nine o'clock in the morning on February 3rd, 2026.
1:06 We're meeting in the City Council chambers, which are located in Austin City Hall at 3 0 1 west second
1:12 street in Austin. We have a quorum of the Austin City Council present, and two members of the
1:17 council, uh, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Velásquez are joining us virtually.
1:22 Um, we have speakers that have signed up to speak, and so what I'm going to do is
1:28 I'm gonna go to, um, the city clerk and ask that the city clerk, um, uh, help us
1:36 navigate that and call do, do as we do during our, um, meetings, uh, on thursdays, and just
1:44 go through, uh, and call based upon the order of the, uh, of the agenda.
1:50 Thank you, Mayor. First, uh, we have remote speakers.
1:54 Aaron pierce.
2:02 Aaron, please unmute.
2:10 We will try to get her back.
2:12 Next we have Austin wright.
2:21 Hi there, everybody. Um, my name is Austin wright, and I'm speaking on, uh, I'm with you and speaking
2:26 on behalf of hands off central texas.
2:28 Um, to come to the heart of the issue, uh, the concerns of agenda item three I have
2:33 here, uh, and a lpr is boiled down to two things.
2:37 Um, one is the right for taxing citizens to participate in public life without opting into a tool
2:41 that could very well be used for mass surveillance.
2:44 Um, and what we mean with that is just the fact that, uh, you know, you're, you're gonna
2:48 hear a lot about this today.
2:49 Um, if you go to a public park or a pool or anything like that, uh, to participate
2:53 or not, you will have to, uh, part, you know, opt into this program effectively.
2:58 Uh, the other side of this, uh, and that's what I would like to speak more broadly on,
3:01 uh, is the concern over handing over data to a private company, uh, and, and that being in,
3:08 in, in their, uh, in their hands effectively.
3:11 Um, the concern that we have there is that it allows for the federal government and frankly anybody
3:16 else to, uh, go into this system, uh, and be able to use the data there, uh, with
3:22 the pre-war process to go around a lot of the city, uh, oversight that we have, uh, and
3:28 access data that could lead to, you know, unlawful arrests or, uh, just, uh, overall just broader unlawful
3:36 prosecution of citizens. Um, we've seen concerns with I and how they operate nationally.
3:42 Um, and that's one of the major concerns that we have here too, uh, would be going after
3:46 citizens, uh, whether you are a citizen or not, um, just going after you based on your race
3:52 or your, uh, you know, whatever your activities are, um, and unlawfully, uh, prosecuting you there.
3:59 Um, the, the solution that we'd like to hope to see is that, uh, the data get moved
4:04 to the custody of the city of Austin, uh, in some kind of service that we can maintain,
4:09 at least in that way.
4:11 Uh, we can have oversight as a citizenry.
4:14 Um, we have another broader concern, again, over the right to participate in this program or not as
4:19 the, uh, tax paying citizen.
4:21 Um, but if that is to exist, then the minimum that we would hope to get thank you,
4:26 uh, is at least some bill.
4:27 Thank you very much.
4:30 Also speaking on item a three, haley campbell.
4:36 Hi, y'all. Thank you so much, uh, for taking public comment on this.
4:39 I, I agree with everything.
4:40 The prior speaker said, my name is haley campbell.
4:43 I live in Austin with my family, and I'm the mom of a two year-old little girl.
4:46 And so when I heard that often parks and rec, uh, the city of Austin is potentially going
4:52 to enter into a contract with my taxpayer dollars to surveil wol where I might take my daughter
4:59 in a bathing suit.
5:01 Um, and those images are going to be fed into an ai database from a company that I
5:08 have no power to, um, petition to remove those images from.
5:13 Uh, I was extremely concerned.
5:15 I don't know if you all have been following the news lately about what is going on with
5:18 elon musk grok ai chatbot.
5:21 The people are creating extremely disturbing images of children using that technology, and I have no way of
5:28 knowing or vetting the level of security that's going to be applied to images of my daughter if
5:35 I take her to a public pool or a public park, and this technology is put into place.
5:40 Um, I am extremely concerned about this.
5:42 I am strongly opposed to the city spending money using, uh, ai enabled technologies to do this.
5:48 And I'm opposed, in large part because I work with ai tech as part of my job every
5:52 single day, and I can tell you that the majority of these tools are untested, unreliable, and insecure
5:58 in the ways that they're currently being implemented.
6:01 Maybe in a decade or two, this will be an okay idea to consider, but right now at
6:05 the forefront of this technology, we don't want Austin children being guinea pigs for, um, the, the possible
6:13 security risks of what could happen with sensitive images of little children.
6:17 Um, so I would strongly, strongly oppose the city of Austin implementing this technology anywhere, but especially in
6:23 settings where high numbers of children and minors are gonna be present.
6:27 That's just deeply disturbing to me.
6:28 Thank you so much on item a three, linda bailey.
6:38 Good morning, Mayor, Mayor proam and council members.
6:41 My name is linda bailey and I'm here in support of item a three on mobile security cameras.
6:48 This item is narrowly focused on temporary targeted cameras deployed where crime is occurring.
6:55 It does not involve automated license plate readers or citywide surveillance, and I think that distinction matters.
7:03 We've already seen this work in Austin when mobile cameras were set up in covert park and mount
7:09 banal vehicle break-ins dropped by 60% when the cameras were removed, the crime returned.
7:16 That's a clear local example of prevention working better and costing less than repeated response.
7:23 In areas where I live, the pennyback or bridge overlook, which functions like a park, the increased visitor
7:32 traffic has brought increased theft and vandalism.
7:36 Apds online crime viewer map from past years noted that nearly 40 reported car burglaries in that area
7:44 in one year and other coverage describes at least a dozen vehicles broken into around the overlook in
7:52 a single afternoon. These cameras give parks a flexibility, data-driven tool to respond quickly within limits oversight and
8:01 short data retention. I urge you to support item a three and keep our parks safe and accessible.
8:09 Thank you. We'll now switch to in-person speakers on item a three, chris flores, tom smith, leaf brown,
8:23 hans maverick.
8:29 You'll have two minutes.
8:29 Please state your name and begin speaking.
8:37 Good morning. My name is hans maverick.
8:39 I'm a resident of, uh, council district 10.
8:42 Thank you Mayor Watson.
8:43 Mayor prote Vela, and council members for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you today.
8:49 I'm here to ask y'all not to move forward with item three on this week's council meeting agenda.
8:54 Please don't deploy any rental surveillance cameras in Austin parks.
8:59 Here's why I feel so strongly about this.
9:01 I first moved to Austin in 1989 at the encouragement of friends who lived here.
9:06 They described Austin as a place that was vibrant, hip, and diverse, where people did their own thing
9:11 and minded their own business.
9:13 And that was my experience of Austin back then.
9:16 Over time, however, what used to be a city of free thinkers and independent entrepreneurs has increasingly become
9:22 the playground of corporate tech bros.
9:26 I want us to restore that old freedom in Austin.
9:29 I want people to feel free to come and go as they please associate with whom they wish
9:33 and express their opinions, even controversial ones.
9:38 I want my friends and neighbors to feel free to participate in the life of our city, including
9:44 our neighbors who are unhoused or undocumented.
9:48 Item three is yet another example of corporate managed for-profit profit surveillance of ordinary people's lives.
9:55 Why you can make reasonable arguments about people's rights to privacy in public settings like parks gathering all
10:01 this data makes me worry about our rights under the first amendment.
10:03 If a person decides to attend a political rally at a public park or go to a family
10:09 reunion or just hang out with friends, the government does not need to keep a record of that.
10:14 The fourth amendment also comes to mind.
10:16 If a person has not been credibly accused of a crime, then the authorities have no right to
10:21 keep a record of their comings and goings.
10:23 We have already seen how ai cameras are racially biased and their data can be hacked and misused.
10:30 Why should we expect this time to be any different?
10:33 Surely there are other ways to reduce crime in parks that don't put our data in the hands
10:37 of unaccountable tech companies.
10:39 Thank you. Thank you.
10:42 Please. Uh, good morning council members.
10:45 My name is chris flores.
10:47 I'm a resident of district 10 commenting neutrally on agenda item a three.
10:52 I'm hoping to persuade you today to delay mobile security cameras in our parks by redoing the bidding
10:58 and the contract review process.
11:01 There's no doubt Austin has a crime problem in our parks.
11:05 There is no doubt the dismantling of the park police unit over 10 years ago correlates to our
11:11 crime statistics today. Um, there is no doubt that cameras do not replace police.
11:18 They do, however, offer a deterrent to about half of the wouldbe perpetrators, and most importantly offer evidence
11:24 to help police prosecute park crimes.
11:28 The problem with this contract in the current state of affairs in our country in 2026 is of
11:34 no fault of the parks department staff that put it together.
11:37 They could not have foreseen that the federal government would be on a shopping spree of technology that
11:43 surveils cities for target rich areas.
11:46 Today, the targets are one group of people tomorrow who knows who will be targeted.
11:52 We cannot, as a city pay tax dollars into the technology cloud surveillance machine.
11:58 That's a moral issue.
12:00 We can, however, solicit bids from a close circuit camera technology that saves the video on a self-hosted
12:07 local storage system that only our trusted Austin police can access.
12:13 That brings me to my closing point.
12:15 The Austin police department should bid this park camera contract and manage its key performance assessments.
12:22 Parks department staff have no expertise in this matter of public safety.
12:26 As a daily swimmer with a pool assault police case, myself, I can attest that parks department executives
12:34 had told me personally and other park crime survivors that the parks department has no legal authority to
12:42 ban people from parks and pools.
12:44 Only the police can do this.
12:46 Thank you. Thank you.
12:48 Next on item a three, lillian ortiz, marissa liper, eric greenfield, please state your name and begin speaking.
13:07 Hi, my name is lily.
13:08 Hello, members. Thank you so much for your attention and your time.
13:12 I would like to please, please ask the council to not enter into a contract with liveview.
13:17 At this time, it is a dangerous time for us to add more surveillance to ourselves and to
13:23 others. I understand that people deserve safe places to take their families to, to walk, to enjoy nature,
13:30 the sun and a place to rest.
13:33 What those same people also need is the right to not be watched and monitored and surveilled at
13:39 the park. Does the data really stand up to this immense need for cameras in our parks?
13:45 We have many questions.
13:47 Many of the places with high crime in the city are historically underfunded and are still being kept.
13:53 So, and adding surveillance cameras to an already underfunded overpoliced, which does not equate to a safer community
14:01 over policing, perpetuate cyclical poverty and mental illness is not going to make us safer in the long
14:08 run, mass surveillance does not equate friends to safety.
14:13 What we can do is find a way to work within the constructs of what we have already
14:17 built. We can encourage more community events, so the parks are being used by city and uh, city