Most elected bodies have a spot in the meetings where something called the “consent agenda” is considered. This is a list of items that are not considered to be controversial that can be approved in one motion.
However, members of the public often write to elected officials to express their concern with particular items. That was the case for the May 5, 2025 Charlottesville City Council meeting where they had a resolution on the consent agenda to appropriate $150,000 from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services for a program called Operation Ceasefire. The funding is to be used to purchase technology to reduce crime.
The staff report for the item states that the Charlottesville Police Department will use the funds to purchase software from the firm Peregrine known as Ascent and Legacy Data.
“Peregrine is basically software that brings all of our systems together,” said Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis. “We have a lot of systems.”
One of those systems runs the Axon body cameras which Chief Kochis said are recording all of the time. But there’s more data to sift through.
“Our records management systems, our computer dispatch systems, any type of crime analyst type systems that we have, they’re all separate,” Kochis said.
Kochis said one challenge is bringing all of this data together in a meaningful way that can provide results when someone queries something like: “How many vehicle crashes involved bikes?”
Kochis said the City of Alexandria has integrated a lot of data using the Peregrine system, a system that is certified for public safety use. The data would be readily available for police use.
City Councilor Michael Payne said he could support use of the local data but was concerned about how it might be used by other levels of government. He had the same concerns over the deployment of the system of FLOCK license plate readers across Charlottesville.
“On the one hand the amount of data already out there, the amount of information even just from ring cameras is going to far exceed whatever possible violation there could be here,” Payne said. “I’m just uncomfortable with building out any technological system that’s bringing together different streams of data because I think once that technology exists, I mean you see at the federal level you pretty easily can get to a place where whatever is legal protection exists can very easily be overcome.”
This was the first of two readings and the item will not be on the consent agenda. Kochis agreed to take any questions from Council to prepare for that conversation on May 19.
As of Thursday afternoon, Kochis had only received one question.
“The only question I have received in writing was if the [United States Department of Governmental Efficiency] and the Trump administration would have access to this data,” Kochis wrote in response to a question from Charlottesville Community Engagement. “The quick answer is ‘no.’ The only way access to any of our systems can be legally gained is through a search warrant or court order.”
Stay tuned.
Before you go: This story originally appeared in the May 13, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. If you’d like to help ensure stories like this continue to exist, take a look at the top of this website for the guide of how you can support the work.
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