Do you have an interest in reviewing the surveillance technology that could be used in the City of Syracuse? The city has at least one opening.

Syracuse’s Surveillance Technology Working Group is down one “community stakeholder” on its technology review group, following the departure of Bradford Morse more than five weeks ago. 

Now, the city has a community stakeholder vacancy to fill, a position on the group meant to provide the community with a voice among a chorus of city officials. 

The Surveillance Technology Working Group, which reviews city departments’ requests for powerful surveillance tools before the city proceeds with implementation, is composed of ten upper-ranking city officials and five “community stakeholders.”

City spokesperson Sol Muñoz last week confirmed in an email to Central Current that Morse is no longer on the group. Muñoz said that because the working group operates as a volunteer body, the city annually requests members to reaffirm their interest in continued participation.

“This year’s form was sent at the start of the year with a requested return date of February 28. Morse did not respond to our communications or submit the completed form,” Muñoz said.

Central Current attempted to contact Morse but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Morse has for decades worked in the technology and engineering industries. Beginning with years at Motorola, General Electric, and Saab, Morse pivoted to working for Central New York-based companies including the Eaton Corporation and PPC Broadband, Inc. 

As the city considers the future of the group, officials do not appear to be advertising the role left vacant by Morse’s exit. 

Muñoz in an email Friday to Central Current said that the city has no immediate timeline to replace Morse. Despite not publicizing the vacancy in over five weeks, the city says it is fielding volunteers for the Surveillance Technology Working Group.

“No immediate considerations,” Muñoz said. “but individuals who are interested in joining or becoming more involved are welcome to reach out to mayor@syr.gov.”

As outlined in former mayor Ben Walsh’s executive order creating the group, the mayor selects internal stakeholders (relevant city personnel) and appoints external stakeholders to represent the community. 

The order mandates the city’s executive can appoint five to seven external stakeholder roles.

The city appears to have only maintained five of said group members since the group was created.

Though Walsh’s executive order caps the working group at seven to 10 members, and states that five to seven of those roles are held by external stakeholders, the current composition of the working group has that formula inverted. Right now, the working group has nine ranking city officials and four community stakeholders. 

Outnumbered by the city officials, the stakeholders on the group represent a potential bulwark against unregulated surveillance programs hitting the streets of Syracuse.

Twenty four different Syracuse employees, including Owens, have cycled through the city positions on the group; in five years, across nine technology reviews, no city employee has ever cast a vote against a proposed technology. 

Notice of the group’s vacant community stakeholder role has not yet been publicized. There is no mention of the vacancy on the working group’s webpage.

Owens’ office on Tuesday issued a community newsletter advertising a public comment period on the city’s climate action plan, performance opportunities for local musicians, and careers at City Hall — but made no mention of the Surveillance Technology Working Group’s vacant community stakeholder role.

The city’s working group has become the subject of growing community concern since Central Current in March reported that a New York state oversight committee found that the group’s procedures are in violation of state government transparency laws.

The Committee on Open Government issued an opinion that concluded the working group performs functions necessary to the city’s legislative process, making the group a public body. That means that for the last five years, the working group should have been meeting in public and inviting the public to attend its meetings.

Instead, the group has met privately, conducting discussions in fully remote, videoconferenced meetings — representing another apparent breach of the state’s Open Meetings Law.

Since Central Current broke that news, the city has maintained without evidence or explanation that its working group is an advisory body, and thus not beholden to state transparency laws. 

The city in its responses to Central Current’s inquiry also characterized the working group as a “volunteer body.”

“Participation is entirely optional for its members,” Muñoz said of the working group.

The city does allow the individuals selected for the group to choose whether to participate on the group — but Walsh’s executive order establishing the group mandates that the mayor handpick both internal and external group members. 

The Committee on Open Government has also issued guidance on whether open meetings laws apply to volunteer bodies. In a 2004 opinion, the committee’s executive director at the time found that the board of a volunteer fire company was a public body despite its voluntary status, because the board was performing public functions. 

Committee on Open Government attorney Christen Smith cited similar logic in her opinion that found the Surveillance Technology Working Group appears to have violated state Open Meetings Law since its conception.

“If the STWG does in fact perform the tasks and functions set forth in the executive order described above, we believe the STWG would constitute a public body and be subject to the requirements of the OML,” Smith wrote.

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...