Does your company, or any subcontractor, share or disclose any client, customer, or user information to any third parties?
For companies that answer ‘yes,’ the city of Syracuse may now require an explanation of those disclosures before contracting with the city.
The Syracuse Common Council on Monday unanimously approved a resolution urging Evan Loving, the city’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, to request companies disclose if and why they share user information with third parties.
In practice, the resolution requests Loving to add a checkbox to the city’s contracting process with companies interested doing work with the city. The resolution also called for companies to disclose the third parties they supply with user information
It is unclear if Loving and the city intend to listen to the council’s urging. Central Current called an office number for Loving’s office and city spokesperson Sol Muñoz to ask if the city plans to implement what is outlined in the resolution but did not receive a response from either by the time of publication.
The resolution signified a benchmark moment for a local advocacy coalition that has demanded action from the council to prevent public funds from going to companies that support the federal government’s deportation campaign.
The local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Syracuse Peace Council, the local chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace and other supporting organizations have pushed for a “Melt the Contracts” resolution since January.
Monday’s measure does not adopt all tenets of the “melt” resolution but some advocates say it is a “good first step” toward helping lawmakers understand potential partners’ relationships to the federal government’s immigration operations before using public funds to fulfill a contract.
“I think we can do more,” Genevieve Garcia Kendrick said after the vote. Kendrick is a representative of Syracuse DSA and has played an active role in organizing efforts.
Lee Cridland, a coordinator for the Syracuse Peace Council, and fellow coalition members praised the resolution but called on councilors to enact more aspects of the original “melt” proposal in May.
Kendrick, Cridland and fellow coalition members don’t just want Syracuse lawmakers to ask about connections to President Donald Trump’s White House — they want lawmakers to avoid contracting with companies that have those connections.
“It doesn’t urge the city to deny those contracts,” Kendrick said of Monday’s resolution. “There’s not a mandate to end any of the current contracts. It doesn’t say that if they are sharing with agencies, then we will not contract with them. And it’s those pieces that we as DSA members and coalition members are really still pushing for.”
The Melt coalition have for months met with city councilors to explore the legislation and urge its passage. While meeting behind the scenes with lawmakers, the activists have also staged multiple demonstrations inside and outside City Hall — some prompting a heavy police presence within council chambers — aimed at persuading councilors of the legislation’s urgency.
One of those demonstrations ended with five Syracuse police officers physically removing two DSA members from a council voting session.
But Monday’s voting session yielded a different exchange, as councilors praised advocates in attendance. Those activists in turn applauded the council’s vote on the resolution.
As Councilor Chol Majok introduced the resolution, he expressed appreciation to the activists for prompting the council to take action.
“This may not solve all our problems, but at least it moves us closer to where we want to go,” Majok said.
Councilor Hanah Ehrenreich, who co-sponsored the resolution, and Councilor Corey Williams credited Majok for his dedication to enacting the legislation, which underwent multiple iterations before the council introduced and voted on the item.
After the council’s session, Majok told a Central Current reporter that he would have liked the legislation to be stronger but still believed it was a constructive step forward for the city.
“If it was up to me by myself, I would want something more aggressive, something more direct,” Majok said. “So in the future, if there’s an opportunity to advance this, absolutely, absolutely.”
The resolution that the council approved resulted from compromising with other councilors, Majok said, while also ensuring that the resolution was tasking the budget department with actionable responsibilities rather than idealistic goals.
The language within the legislation includes some significant carveouts that appear to apply to virtually every surveillance technology contract that the city has entered in the last six years.
“In some procurement matters, such as federal and state grants, the use of such a checkbox may be limited or not available,” the legislation reads.
State and federal grants are a significant funding consideration for local municipalities aspiring to implement surveillance technologies on limited local budgets. Some companies like Flock Safety even have a local match program through which the company identifies potential grants to help local law enforcement agencies muster the necessary funds to purchase tools and enter contracts.
Flock Safety and its rival Axon Enterprise in recent months became some of the coalition’s main focuses. The resolution proposal coincided with parallel efforts from the council to cut ties with Flock amid concerns about data security and sharing under the city’s Flock contract.
The council did remove Flock’s privileges to operate on city streets, effectively terminating the company’s partnership with Syracuse. Activists were happy to see Flock gone, but critical of its replacement: Axon.
A longtime police technology industry leader, Axon has extensive ties with the federal government, earning billions in contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That department plans to outfit U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents — the same agents the coalition wants to avoid supporting — with Axon body cameras.
The Syracuse police now boast a fleet of Axon surveillance tools, including license plate readers, drones, and body cameras.
“Those are the questions we’re still asking: how is this going to be implemented? So once a company does do any of their disclosures, and particularly as it pertains to ICE and DHS, what are the next steps?” Kendrick said.
Ehrenreich, the item’s co-sponsor, after the council’s meeting reiterated the shared sentiment that the legislation is a good first step for the city.
“The next step is to not abandon our ideals,” Ehrenreich said. “It’s to make sure that we are going forward with an intentional vision of Syracuse as a place with opportunity and prosperity, where our neighbors are not being kidnapped, and that we are following the law in terms of procurement.”
Ehrenreich said that the city needs to begin to scrutinize what it is getting in exchange for what it is giving through its contracts with companies outside the city.
The legislation allows the city to continue providing the police department with the tools it says it needs, Ehrenreich said, while exploring alternative providers in the future that may be more in line with the city’s needs and values.
“These companies that we hire from outside the city, they provide equipment, or they provide services, or they provide whatever, but they don’t provide the jobs that we need, and they don’t provide the reinvestment in our infrastructure that we are desperate for,” Ehrenreich said. “So on a lot of levels, I would like to ask, what do we gain from these contracts?”
Read more of Central Current’s coverage
Syracuse lawmakers warm to ‘Melt’ proposal, pass watered-down version of activists’ measure
A local advocacy coalition since January has pushed lawmakers to enact legislation that would block the city from entering or renewing contracts with companies supporting federal deportation operations.
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