The RTIC was sold on promises. Not one is enforceable: no ordinance requires them, the contract wasn’t public when council voted, and every safeguard is a policy APD wrote and APD can rewrite. So this page does what no city mechanism does: it tracks every promise and checks it against the record.
The contract runs to 2033. The center goes fully operational spring/summer 2027.
The ledger
| # | Promise | Who said it, when | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No facial recognition | Interim Chief Jackie Stepp, repeatedly, spring 2026; Resolution 26-97 states tools shall not be applied “in a manner which utilizes facial recognition” | ⏳ Untested. The exclusion exists only in a resolution: not an ordinance, no enforcement mechanism, no penalty, revisable by a future council in one vote. GAP asked for an enforceable ban; that was never offered. The vendor controls the feature roadmap for 7.5 years. |
| 2 | No data to ICE or federal agencies without a court order | Deputy Chief Shawn Aardema, in WLOS’s May 14, 2026 reporting on the vote: “We control Axon Fusus and we will not be sharing information with federal immigration.” (Not on the meeting recording; venue is WLOS’s coverage. WLOS) | ⏳ Untested, and structurally incomplete: nationally, ICE reached identical systems through other agencies running searches as favors, not through direct requests. Asheville shares plate data across a 500-mile radius; the promise doesn’t bind the 500-mile circle. |
| 3 | Search-term blocks on immigration and reproductive topics | Tech Manager James Wingo, July 8, 2026: blocks on “anything to do with immigration, anything to do with reproductive issues” (WLOS) | ⏳ Untested: keyword filters, self-administered. The Texas abortion search was logged under a “missing person” pretext; a keyword block doesn’t catch a dishonest reason field. |
| 4 | Quarterly audits of RTIC access and searches | APD, July 2026 (WLOS) | ⏳ First audit window closes ~Oct 2026. Internal, with no commitment to publish. I will request it, and CAMS is campaigning to make the logs public. |
| 5 | 30-day plate-reader retention (state law allows 90) | APD policy (Watchdog) | ⚠️ Narrower than advertised: per the vendors’ own April 28 presentation, 30 days is Flock only; the Axon side retains 90 days, with felony categories kept for years and annual re-preservation beyond that (on video, 1:39:53). Flock’s own recommended default is now 7 days. |
| 6 | Tech used “solely for lawful purposes… to enhance or provide for public safety” | Council resolution attached by Bo Hess, May 12, 2026 (BPR) | ⚠️ Aspirational: a resolution, not an ordinance. No enforcement mechanism, no reporting duty, no penalty. “Lawful purposes” includes nearly everything. |
| 7 | City owns all data; not shared or sold by vendors | Interim Chief Stepp, April 2026 (Watchdog) | ⏳ Unverifiable: the executed contract has not been released. Axon’s standard terms govern; a resident expert testified customers “sign what is on the page.” Release the contract and this row gets a real status. |
| 8 | ”Robust audit trail built into all of this” | Interim Chief Stepp (Annie Dance) | ⚠️ The city has already refused to show the trail. A July 2025 records request for APD’s Flock network audit logs was denied under G.S. 20-183.31(b) and the criminal-intelligence exemption; the dispute remains open. An audit trail nobody outside APD can read is a diary, not oversight. |
| 10 | Public ALPR transparency dashboards (Axon + Flock) | APD transparency page | ❌ Not functioning: the page describes both dashboards but contains no working links, and the dedicated dashboard page returns a 404 (checked Aug 17, 2026). |
| 11 | Flock contract ends and all city-owned Flock cameras come down (a condition of the Axon switch) | Council member Sage Turner’s stated condition for her yes vote (her public post) | ❌ Broken as of Aug 17, 2026, per Turner herself: “It is now clear the Flock cameras owned by the City of Asheville remain up.” A member of the 6–1 majority documenting that her vote’s conditions weren’t honored. |
| 12 | The complete Axon contract “will be made available to Council and the public” | Turner, Aug 13, 2026, relaying the city’s commitment (same post) | ❌ Publicly unfulfilled. Promised for ~Aug 14; as of Aug 17 no copy or release announcement exists anywhere discoverable: not on the city site, the meeting-materials pages, or any local outlet. (It may have gone to council privately; the public half is the broken part.) Meanwhile the underlying Axon master agreement declares pricing confidential and requires notifying Axon before public-records disclosure. |
| 9 | Public transparency via RTIC tours | APD, June 2026 (WLOS) | ✅ Happening: every other Thursday, 2–4 PM (828-259-5881). Tours show the room, not the searches. Go, ask questions from this table, and send me what they say. |
Legend: ✅ kept/happening · ⏳ untested or unverifiable · ⚠️ structurally empty or already contradicted · ❌ broken
Also worth knowing: APD’s ALPR policy (Policy 505) (the written policy state law requires) was revised May 5, 2026, one week before the council vote, and already assigned duties to “the RTIC supervisor” for a center council hadn’t yet approved. The administrative machinery was built before the democratic decision. Primary sources: Documents.
Why promises fail: the pattern
Every city in The National Wave heard versions of rows 1–8. The failures didn’t come from officials lying on day one; they came from turnover, pressure, and structure: a new chief revises a policy; a federal agency asks a favor and an officer obliges; a vendor error shares data out of state; a dishonest reason field slips past a keyword filter. Asheville’s promises are held by the same thread: personnel goodwill, no law.
Two local stress tests are already visible. The RTIC will be running during the 2027 protest cycles and beyond: the same APD that tear-gassed protesters and destroyed a medic station in 2020 will hold the live feeds. And the promises’ authors may not be in the building: Stepp is interim chief, and the mayor and three council seats are on the November ballot.
What would make the promises real
The fix has a name: CCOPS (Community Control Over Police Surveillance), the ACLU model ordinance adopted in ~26 cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Nashville-adjacent jurisdictions. The Asheville version would need:
- Council approval, by ordinance, for every surveillance technology: acquisition and use, with public notice and hearing first. (No more consent-agenda buildouts.)
- Annual public use-and-impact reports: searches run, purposes, sharing, violations, costs.
- Published audit logs: the quarterly audits in row 4, as public documents.
- Hard rules in law, not policy: retention caps (WA’s new law says 21 days; Flock recommends 7), a facial recognition ban, no out-of-state or federal sharing absent a warrant, case numbers required for every search.
- Teeth: violations create suppression remedies and a private right of action; contract termination for vendor breach. (Evanston needed that clause; Flock reinstalled cameras after termination.)
- Data ownership and exit: the city owns all data, deletion on contract end, no vendor reuse, verified against the released contract, not a press conference.
Neighboring precedent: Apex, NC residents have already drafted a local ALPR governance ordinance; Washington State’s Driver Privacy Act shows the statutory version.
How to use this page
Quote a row number at the podium (“Promise 4: where’s the audit?”). Take it on the tour. Put it to a candidate. When a promise is tested, kept or broken, the status changes, with a source, and the change is dated. The city built a system with a long memory. This page is ours.
Related: Speak at Council · Claims Library · What Is the RTIC