YOUR SAY: Drones too expensive for Macon-Bibb County

As has been reported, a company called Olaeris wants to sell Macon-Bibb County on a $5.7 million plan to bring drones to our community. Earlier this year, Olaeris CEO Ted Lindsey made two presentations to the Macon-Bibb commission. Lindsey's proposal included a fleet of drones to be used for public safety. These drones would be 8 feet in diameter, weigh about 50 pounds and would be the size of a king-size mattress. There have been reports that the mayor held secret or improper meetings with Olaeris and that somehow our mayor had kept these meetings from the commissioners.

First of all, it is proper and appropriate for this mayor or any mayor to have initial meetings with any company that could provide goods or services that would benefit our community. In fact, I would say that our mayor would have a responsibility to do just that. Remember, the mayor is the chief executive officer of our Macon-Bibb County government.

The commission viewed two presentations from Lindsey and Olaeris, one by Skype and the second in person here in Macon. At the bottom of the page, in both PowerPoint presentations from Olaeris, there were two hands shaking as if they were in agreement. The hand on the left was labeled Olaeris and the hand on the right was labeled the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). At the very least, this slide from Olaeris was very misleading to the Macon-Bibb Commission.

Here's my take on drones for Macon-Bibb.

1. Olaeris' presentation was misleading in that there never was an approval by the ACLU.

2. Olaeris does not have a proven track record and Macon-Bibb would be the very first city or county to have drones for public safety. There is no product for us to view. All we have seen is a computer generated video of a drone.

3. To my knowledge, a cost benefit analysis has not been done. While the drone technology may have an economic impact, we have no data to support that impact.

4. Privacy and surveillance issues are legitimate concerns for our citizens.

5. The cost of $96,000 a month for five years, a total of $5.7 million is a huge amount of money, especially at this time in our government and thus our community. We have many projects that need and deserve the dollars that we do have.

So, how would we pay for drones?

Some have suggested that the dollars could come from the sheriff's and fire departments, split equally between them. That would amount to $570,000 a year coming out of each of the budgets for those departments. That defies common sense.

I doubt whether Sheriff David Davis or Chief Marvin Riggins would approve of such a huge amount coming from their respective budgets for drones for Macon-Bibb.

The people of District 4 have spoken very clearly — they do not want drones. For all of these reasons, as I did previously, I will vote against the purchase of drones for Macon-Bibb County.

Mallory Jones III, is the District 4 Macon-Bibb County commissioner.

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 8:37 PM with the headline "YOUR SAY: Drones too expensive for Macon-Bibb County ."