First, it was the robots. They were trundling along sidewalks in Paonia last summer gathering data on how accommodating those thoroughfares were for people with disabilities. The wandering robots took townspeople by complete surprise.
Then came the surveillance cameras mounted on poles and walls last fall. They were capturing those doing business at the town hall, coming and going from the town’s water plant, and dancing in front of the town park’s bandstand. Even those with impressive Western swing moves weren’t happy to unknowingly be caught on camera.
What was up with all these high-tech, data-scooping devices in Paonia, an agriculture-centric town of 1,500 in the North Fork Valley?
The answer to that isn’t clear. But it has prompted the most strife to hit Paonia since two decades ago when mosquito fogging ignited a controversy that culminated in the bombing of the town’s mosquito-control building.
This latest meeting-packing brouhaha began after residents started noticing the artificial intelligence-enabled cameras with their telltale blue lights trained on public places, on citizens and on town employees.
One Paonia resident in particular took note of the devices and started raising questions — enough questions that town officials recently caved and had most of the cameras removed.
That didn’t end the discord over how the cameras had shown up with no public input.
Within weeks, town administrator Stefen Wynn had decided not to renew his contract. He complained to Paonia police that he felt some townspeople were threatening his life by posting “86-Wynn” on social media.
Next, the town’s public works director resigned. So did one of the newest of the six town board members. Now, there is a petition circulating to recall the mayor.
It has gotten bad enough that some Paonia folks are suggesting that the town simply needs to bring in a robot to run things.
You say security, I say surveillance
Pete McCarthy, a software engineer who moved to Paonia from Silicon Valley five years ago, is in the driver’s seat on questioning Paonia’s controversial adventures in high technology.
He calls what the town has been doing “surveillance,” but Paonia Mayor Paige Smith said she prefers to use the term “security.” Smith said the cameras were purchased to deter vandalism and other crimes. The robots were to carry out a short-term job of gathering specific information.
McCarthy, who worked in software development and consulting in Silicon
Valley for more than two decades but stresses he is no “tech bro,” said he first recognized that the cute visiting robots weren’t just collecting data on sidewalk flaws. They were also capturing images of curious kids on bicycles.
He submitted a “robot moratorium” measure to the town, but it was rejected.
Smith said when the town hired a company to gather data on the town’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, she didn’t know that would be accomplished with roving robots.
McCarthy next focused on the town’s surveillance cameras and determined they were capable of facial recognition and could be violating the civil rights of Paonia citizens.
In public meetings, McCarthy shared the fact that Verkada, the security company the town purchased the cameras from, had been charged and fined for serious transgressions around the country, including failing to secure customer data. Hackers accessed camera systems of nearly 100 clients and compromised the privacy at hospitals, prisons and schools. The Department of Justice fined the company $2.95 million for “severe” data breaches, deceptive business practices and marketing violations.
McCarthy summed up Paonia’s AI problems by quipping, “I guess you could say that we are on the cutting edge of violating citizens’ privacy.”
Last week McCarthy announced that he has started a recall petition to remove Smith from office for going along with mistakes he pins on the outgoing administrator.
In a town the size of Paonia, he needs 81 signatures to force a recall election. He has already used his digital skills to create professional-looking “Pete for Mayor” posters.
Paonia lacks a written policy about how surveillance data may be used
A year after they came and went, the robots mostly draw chuckles. But they were in the back of minds when townspeople learned they had no say in approving the choice of the Verkada surveillance company or for paying that company $53,000 for around two dozen cameras.
When the cameras’ presence was noted, town officials said their purpose was to deter vandals. They denied that the cameras were using AI facial recognition.
McCarthy begged to differ. He used Colorado Open Records Act requests to pry 88,000 records from the town. He analyzed those to determine the cameras in and around the Paonia Town Hall had been used to surveil employees and had appeared to be a factor in the firing of one employee. He found the Paonia police chief had accessed the facial-recognition capability of the cameras around 100 times.
He also learned the town had created permanent video archives of images from inside town hall, and data from the cameras was on the web.
All of this was done without the town having any written policy about how the surveillance cameras and the data could be used.
Armed with this information, McCarthy started a website called Paonia Truth Nuggets to share the flow of documents and communications about the town’s surveillance/security activities.
When new town board members voted to remove the cameras after rowdy and lengthy public input, the board released a statement saying that the cameras were not used to surveil any private property and had not used face recognition.
“Instead, they are a tool used routinely across the country in cities and towns to monitor and protect the public use of publicly provided spaces,” the statement read.
That is true. But those types of cameras have been controversial in other places around the country from Dunwoody, Georgia, to Mountain View, California. Most recently, York, Pennsylvania, San Antonio and Boulder have had dust-ups over Flock Safety cameras sweeping up more information than anticipated and having it land at federal agencies or on the internet.
Paonia is one of the smaller towns to grapple with this.
Town will focus on fixing its domestic water system and that includes adding “smart” meters
Getting rid of the cameras means Paonia forfeits $53,000 that had been paid to Verkada.
Wynn, who had approved the contract, did not respond to requests for comment.
In a recent letter to the Paonia police he wrote about “an escalating pattern of harassment, intimidation, threatening conduct and retaliatory behavior directed at me, and increasingly, toward my wife and children.”
Wynn then withdrew his children from the Paonia school before announcing he would not renew his contract.
His interim replacement, Greg Sund, won’t be on the job until June 15. Smith said she expects Sund, who comes with high praise from the Colorado City County Managers Association, to calm the turmoil.
She said the town has a healthy pile of grant money to use for a number of projects that don’t involve surveillance. More than $20 million in grants will be used for the reconstruction of a major town intersection and for badly needed upgrades to the town’s water system.
The pipe bringing water to Paonia from nearby Lamborn Mesa has long been crumbling and the system failed and left the town with no domestic water for 13 days in 2019.
McCarthy promises to make sure those projects move forward if he becomes the next mayor.
But he said Smith is wrong about the end of Paonia’s penchant for information gathering.
The water-system upgrade plans call for installing “smart meters” that transmit water usage data using cellular signals. The town says the new tech will lead to better water management and earlier leak detection.
McCarthy claims the meters are planned to link to owners’ cellphones and the information will be gathered that way will show when residents are home or away. He calls it Paonia’s latest assault on citizens’ privacy.
Smith said she hadn’t heard about the controversy brewing over water meters. She was surprised, and the news elicited a sigh.
“I guess this is just what happens in small towns,” she said.