Nampa Police | A real time crime center inside a traffic project
Nampa's $4.2 million Intelligent Transportation System has two halves. One lays fiber and cameras across the city. The other rebuilds part of the Public Safety Building into a traffic monitoring center, an emergency operations center and a real time crime center. The council authorized the bidding on its consent agenda.
At a glance
- Authorized
- 6 February 2023, on the consent agenda, voice vote with all councilmembers present voting yes [1]
- What was authorized
- Going out to formal bid on the two halves of the project, not the award of a contract [1] [2]
- Engineering estimate
- $4,204,265: design $495,580 already spent, infrastructure $3,155,482, the building work $553,203 [2]
- Funding named
- City streets $1,500,000, "Amazon/ITD" $1,200,000, ARPA $1,300,000 [2]
- What goes in the building
- Renovations to the Hugh Nichols Public Safety Building for a traffic monitoring center, a real time crime center and an emergency operations center [2] [3]
- What goes in the ground
- Conduit, fiber optic cable, and cameras including pan-tilt-zoom, license plate readers and vehicle detection [2]
- Stated police purpose
- The staff report says the project facilitates police activities related to identifying vehicles of interest and analyzing vehicle and pedestrian near-miss collisions [2]
- What the Amazon share is for
- The funding table lists the line and says nothing else. No document we read explains it [2]
How it happened
- Decision
Authorized to bid, on consent
The council authorizes the engineering division to go out to formal bid on the ITS infrastructure and on the traffic monitoring and incident management center, as item 1-5.a of its consent agenda. The vote is a voice vote on the whole block. No items are moved off consent that night. [1] [2]
A real time crime center is a room where camera feeds, plate reader hits and dispatch data are watched together while calls are happening, rather than pulled afterwards for an investigation. The difference between a camera network and a real time crime center is the difference between a record that can be searched later and a screen somebody is watching now.
Nampa’s arrived inside a traffic project.
What the item said
On 6 February 2023 the Nampa City Council authorized its engineering division to go out to formal bid on two things: the Intelligent Transportation System infrastructure, and the Traffic Monitoring Center and Incident Management Center. It was item 1-5.a on the consent agenda, carried on a voice vote of the whole block, with no items moved off consent that night.[1]
The staff report describes the first half as what a traffic project sounds like: conduit, fiber optic cable, and cameras including pan-tilt-zoom, license plate readers and vehicle detection. The second half is the building. In the report’s own words, it is “TMC/IMC which includes renovations to the Hugh Nichols Public Safety Building to install a TMC, Real Time Crime Center (RTC), and Emergency Operations Center (EOC)”.[2]
That is the only mention of a real time crime center in the item. It appears once, in a bullet, in a list of construction scopes, inside a consent agenda. A second city document from two months later describes the same project the same way, as modifying the Public Safety Building for the traffic center and “building an emergency operations center (EOC) and a real time crime center (RTC)”.[3]
The report does say what it is for
The staff report is not coy about the police purpose. Among the reasons it gives for the project, in the same bullet list that explains the traffic benefit, is that “The project facilitates police department activities related to identification of vehicles of interest or analyze vehicle/pedestrian near-miss collisions”.[2]
Identifying vehicles of interest is what plate readers do. The camera network this room sits at the end of is the same one the council had approved for 39 state-controlled intersections three weeks earlier, under an agreement administered by a police captain.
What it cost, and who paid
The engineering estimate in the report is $4,204,265: design at $495,580 already completed, infrastructure at $3,155,482, and the building work at $553,203. All construction was planned for the 2023 fiscal year.[2]
The funding table beside it lists three lines totaling $4,000,000: city streets at $1,500,000, “Amazon/ITD” at $1,200,000, and federal pandemic recovery money at $1,300,000.[2]
The second line is the one to note, and there is nothing more to say about it than the document says. It names a company alongside a state agency and gives a figure. No document we read explains what the share is for or on what terms, so we make no claim about it. It is the largest single question this project leaves.
What the record does not reach
This is an authorization to go out to bid. It is not a contract award, an opening date, or a description of what the room does once it is built.
Nothing in the record we read names the software the center runs, the feeds that reach it, who staffs it, or any policy governing what it may watch, search or keep. A real time crime center is a capability, not a building, and the capability is defined by the systems plugged into it. Those are decided after a bid is awarded, and awards of that kind do not always return to a council that has already authorized the process.
What we do not know
- Whether the real time crime center opened, when, and who staffs it.
- What software or platform it runs, and which camera and data feeds reach it.
- What document sits behind the "Amazon/ITD" line of $1,200,000 in the project funding.
- Whether the plate reader feeds from the 39 state-controlled intersections terminate here.
- Whether any policy governs what the center may watch, search or retain.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Canyon County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Canyon County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1. Nampa City Council, regular meeting minutes, 6 February 2023, item 1-5.a · Meeting record · · accessed
- 2. Staff report, consent to bid, ITS Infrastructure and TMC/IMC, in the council packet for 6 February 2023 · Primary document · · accessed
- 3.
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