Fremont County Sheriff | The aerial imagery contract
Fremont County's largest imaging purchase is an Assessor's contract for aerial photography of the county, at $34,483.33 a year for three years. The Sheriff was in the room, asking about search and rescue.
At a glance
How it happened
- Debate
The demonstration
The Assessor brings the vendor to the Board. She had requested the software in her budget and then realized it would be useful to several departments, so she invited them. The vendor explains that the imagery is different from other software and that they do not use drones but small airplanes with high resolution cameras. The IT manager says the county's current MapServer has similar features but this would be more powerful and would show things the county cannot see now, such as road maintenance issues. The Sheriff says he has looked into another software for search and rescue purposes. The GIS officer notes the state and the federal agriculture department already do regular flyovers and were discussing an upgrade to six inch resolution at the same price, but only straight down, where the value with this product is much better for more imagery. The commissioners ask the departments to come back with a decision about what the value would be to them, saying that at this point they are not concerned with the cost. [1]
- Decision
Signed
The Assessor presents the purchasing contract, reviewed by the county's civil attorney, with a possible autumn flight. The cost will be $34,483.33 annually for the next three years, and the contract will not start until the flight is scheduled. Commissioner Chandler moves to accept it and authorize the Chairman to sign, Commissioner Hill seconds, and the vote is unanimous. [2]
Aerial photography of a whole county is not what most people picture when they hear surveillance. There is no camera on a pole and nothing follows anybody around. An aeroplane flies over, takes high resolution pictures, and a county buys the pictures.
It is on this site because of what it is for, and who was in the room.
The demonstration
In July 2025 the County Assessor brought the vendor to the Board. She had asked for the software in her budget, she said, and had then realized it would be useful to several departments, so she invited them too.[1]
The vendor explained that their imagery is different from other software, that they can customise a program, and, as the minutes put it, that they do not use drones, they use small airplanes with high resolution cameras.
The county’s IT manager said the existing MapServer has similar features but this would be more powerful, and would let the county see things it cannot see now, such as road maintenance issues. The GIS officer added that the state and the federal agriculture department already do regular flyovers and had been discussing an upgrade to six inch resolution at the same price, but those are straight down only, where the value here is better for more imagery.
Then the Sheriff said he had looked into another software for search and rescue purposes.
The commissioners asked the departments to talk among themselves and come back with a decision about what the value would be to each of them, and said that at this point they were not concerned with the cost, they just wanted to know how beneficial it would be.
The contract
Two and a half months later the Assessor came back with a contract the county’s civil attorney had reviewed. The cost would be $34,483.33 annually for the next three years, and the contract would not start until the flight was scheduled.
Commissioner Chandler moved to accept it and authorize the Chairman to sign. Commissioner Hill seconded. All commissioners voted in favor.[2]
We could not find, in the minutes between the demonstration and the signature, any record of the departments coming back with the answer the Board asked for. So which of them has access to the imagery now, including whether the Sheriff’s Office does, is not something the county’s record establishes.
Why it is here
An assessor photographing a county from the air is ordinary, and it has an ordinary purpose: valuing property fairly means knowing what is on it. This is the county’s largest imaging purchase by a distance, at more than twice the annual price of everything else on this page put together, and it has no device word in it anywhere. Nobody searching a county record for cameras would find it.
That is the argument for reading the Assessor’s items as carefully as the Sheriff’s.
What we do not know
- At what resolution is the county being photographed, and how often?
- Which departments have access to the imagery, and does the Sheriff's Office?
- Is the imagery used to find unpermitted building work, and does a property owner learn that it was?
- Is any of it published, or is it internal only?
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 Fremont County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Fremont 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. Fremont County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 14 July 2025, Eagleview Software Demonstration · Meeting record · · accessed
- 2. Fremont County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 29 September 2025, Purchase Contract for Eagleview Software · Meeting record · · accessed
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