Inside Arvada
Inside Arvada is the City of Arvada’s official podcast where we bring you conversations with the people who make Arvada a thriving community. Hear stories about the past, present and future of Arvada through the lens of the City team members who help make it all happen. Explore the complex topics impacting our community and dig in to conversations about parks and sustainability, development, transportation, water resources and more.
Inside Arvada
How Arvada Police Are Using Drones
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We sit down with Commander Jason Ammon to explain ARTIC, Arvada’s Real Time Information Center, that connects cameras, drones, and dispatch tools to support emergency response. We walk through how drone first response works, why it can make scenes safer, and how privacy limits, data retention, and a public transparency dashboard keep the program accountable.
News & Events:
- Movies Around Town: Little Shop of Horrors at West Woods Park, Friday, August 21
- Arts and Culture Commission is selecting artists to replace the Olde Town street murals later this year
- Final Bulky Item Drop-off Event is Saturday, August 15 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the North Area Athletic Complex (NAAC)
- Be sure to register your neighborhood event for National Night Out on Tuesday, August 4 to request a visit from Arvada Police and Fire
Visit us at arvadaco.gov/podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.
Welcome And Meet Commander Ammon
SPEAKER_04Hello and welcome to Inside Arvada, the official podcast of the City of Arvada. I'm Sean Starr, one of your hosts. Today's episode, we're discussing the Arvada Real-Time Information Center, or Arctic for short, with Commander Jason Ammon. Jason has been with the Arvada Police Department for 21 years, serving as the commander for two sectors, A and C, covering Northeast and Southeast Arvada, Northeast and Southwest Arvada, excuse me. And as always, I'm joined by my co-host, Katie Patterson. Hi, Katie.
KatieHi, Sean. And hi Jason. Thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me.
KatieYeah. So tell us just a little about yourself and what you do for the city.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, so I've been with the Arvada Police Department for 21 years. I currently serve as one of our sector commanders, which means I'm a ambassador of liaison for roughly half the city. Uh so within that role, I'm responsible for operational planning. So you think of the upcoming Fourth of July event and the harvest parade. Uh, also responsible for crime prevention strategies. So looking at quality of life concerns for community members, also community engagement and resource management. And I also oversee our school services unit. We have uh eight, uh, an incredible team with eight uh school resource officers, a dedicated sergeant, and there's actually 35 different school campuses that we serve in the city. Um bunch of other responsibilities. I love teaching. I've led our arrest control program for uh about seven years now. That's a self-defense program for police officers and employees. Uh outside of work, uh I'm a Arvada resident. Uh, raise my family here. I have three daughters. So yeah, girl dad, girl dad for sure. So I spend most of my free time busting them around and you know, volunteering with their school and sports programs. When I do have free time, it's typically exercise, so outdoors, running, working out, golf, uh, mountain biking.
What ARCTIC Is And Does
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so tell us more about the Arctic Center, the real-time information center. Uh, Katie and I got the opportunity to check it out recently, and it's so cool, just all the uh technology that the police department has at their fingertips now, kind of all coming together in one place, drone cameras and some of the license plate readers. And so tell us about Arctic and how the police department is using it to better serve the community.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we've been working to build up the Arctic for a couple of years now, and the infrastructure for that actually goes back uh 10 plus years. Uh we opened the center on May 20th, so we're about uh four or five weeks in now. Uh what the Arctic is, it's a centralized hub where we have remote employees. So they sit at a desk and they're able to monitor everything from camera feeds and drones, uh, do research on with law enforcement databases and open public source information. They have access to computers and police radios, but their whole goal is to support city services in real time too. And that primarily right now consists of police and fire department responses. Uh, but we do seek to expand our our uh expand our reach into other city services.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it's it's not like we just you got all this technology all at once, right? It's like it's been things that the the city has had over the past couple of years that's really kind of just come together over what, a decade or so? And it's now kind of all the centers now all come together recently.
The Tech Built Over A Decade
SPEAKER_04Is that right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so the city itself has over 400 uh video surveillance cameras, security cameras. None of them are really monitored, uh, but they're installed at just about every city facility location you can think of to monitor that infrastructure. Uh so we have access to those. Uh the police department's been utilizing various video technology, uh, license plate reader technology for oh, 10, 15 years now. Uh drones have been utilized by the Arvado Police Department for seven years. That started initially with documenting and uh overwatch for crime scenes and accident scenes, and then that expanded to more of a patrol drone usage situation. They also uh help back up and assist our tactical teams, our SWAT team, uh, when they're going inside of a building. It's all about just making things safer. Uh, and so what the Arctic does is it really combines those available uh surveillance camera sources. Uh, we have installed our own from our police department, several video cameras across the city in key locations. Uh, for example, we have uh six right in the old town area, uh, so kind of around the old town square. That's the hub of Arvada. That's where a lot of families go. We've got a lot of businesses and restaurants, got a church and school. It's a very important part of the city. And it's very busy in terms of call for service. And so uh when we installed those a few years back, uh, there was a lot of support from the business community, from our community members about getting those in. It just really increases their sense of safety and security. So, again, taking all these different camera sources, we actually have employees now that can monitor these. Traffic engineering and public works are adding intersection cameras across the city. Uh, we just helped write a support letter for them to obtain grant money to add another 60 intersection cameras. So that really expands our reach and access across the city for critical incidents or for monitoring an accident scene. And they have their needs as well.
Drone First Responder Explained
SPEAKER_01The biggest part in the addition to that is a program called drone first responder. As I mentioned earlier, we've been using drones for seven years for various um purposes. Uh, what drone first responder, where it really changes the game, is in a traditional source, uh, when one of our patrol officers or someone from our crime lab needs to go and take a drone out, they serve as the pilot. Uh, so they wear sometimes the goggles or they're looking at a controller. And then you have to have a second person who serves as a safety officer. It's called a visual observer. And their job is to ensure the safety of that pilot and then also to make sure the drone's not running into things. So if you're on a you know, very serious call for service, uh, maybe it's a robbery or there was some type of a shooting, an active shooter incident, and you have a team of eight officers. Well, two of your people now are committed to the drone. So that's a quarter of your resources are gone. And so a drone first responder comes into play is now we can have someone remote from an office. They're not a police officer, uh, but they can dispatch a drone to that incident, do all the monitoring. Uh, we don't need a visual observer, so they can do it by themselves. And now you free up those two resources on the call and you have a full team of eight to be able to handle other duties and responsibilities.
KatieYeah, it was really cool when we got to go see it. And I think like even just watching like its flight path and the way that it flies, like it's really looking at like the tree canopy flying to wherever it's going.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
KatieAnd in this case, I went to go check on an accident that had happened. And so it was able to get there and we were able to see that somebody was already there kind of managing flagging traffic, but it was able to just check out what was going on in the incident.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
KatieIt's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're uh they're incredible. They're highly autonomous, and so they pretty much can fly themselves to and from a location. It's as simple as us identifying uh an area on a map or clicking on an actual call for service, and it'll dispatch the drone from a rooftop. Uh, we have two different sites where we have these uh docks installed, and so they're heated, they're cooled, they um, you know, can monitor and uh regulate the temperature, melt ice if need be off the top of the dock. There's power running to them. Again, with the click of a button, we can send a drone from those docks to an incident location, and that allows with the autonomy and the way that it flies itself, that allows the technician in the Arctic to be able to handle other duties, to talk on the radio, to uh view call for service notes and you know, see exactly what is going on, to look for a description of someone or a vehicle and to do historical and background research. Um, yeah, as you mentioned, as it flies um to the call, the gimbal that holds the cameras are facing outward to towards the horizon. You know, one of the concerns anytime you talk about drones and and police surveillance technology, it's you know, how is this going to impact my constitutional rights? And so by having that camera facing outward until someone redirects that camera and takes control of it, it's facing outward. It's not looking over somebody's private space in their backyard, for example.
KatieAnd so I think it'd help kind of to explain because you talked about kind of a couple of different types of cameras, the ones at intersections, the drones, cameras on like facilities or an old town kind of stuff. There's a lot of different technologies that kind of come into play. So can you maybe walk us through an example or two of how this is kind of worked in in a response situation?
Real Calls And Better Intel
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So um I'll start with cameras. Uh mentioned various sources. The city has cameras, uh, public works traffic engineering is installing intersection cameras. We have installed several cameras that are owned and operated by the police department. We would love to be able to monitor those more frequently. It's just very difficult when you have 400 different city feeds and uh, you know, 15 from the police department, and then 11 currently from public works. Those are more to support an active call for service. You know, you could see someone, uh, maybe it's a report of an active shooter incident in the old town Arvada area. We have all those cameras down there. We can affix them and potentially track the individual and provide real-time information to our responders. Well, there's several goals, but one of them is to improve safety. It's not only for the responders, but for community members as well. When I go out and talk to community members and groups about the Arctic, there's a real famous call that uh really highlighted the need for drones to be used more in uh in policing. Uh, but it was out in California, it's many years ago, and uh they're outside of a fast food type restaurant. There's an individual outside who seems to be suffering some from a mental health crisis, uh, maybe on narcotics or something, appears to be uh transient homeless, and he's outside at a table. They end up the dispatch center ends up receiving several calls that he is armed with a firearm. And so you see customers that are kind of fleeing the area, and the concern is this person is gonna hurt someone else or possibly hurt himself. Uh so while the call is being created and responders are going out to the scene, they fly a drone to the call. The drone is flying overhead and they're monitoring and they're giving updates to the responders, and they end up seeing him pull a cigarette out, he puts the cigarette in his mouth and takes what appears to be the gun and lights the cigarette. And so how dramatic and how impactful that uh intelligence and information was that completely changed that response. That's one idea of how we can utilize this technology, a drone.
KatieYeah, we kind of talked about it before about like this idea of um it's like an actual game of telephone sometimes when you're responding to a call that like it's a regular community member that saw something and is saying something, but maybe doesn't have all the information or the information's not communicated super accurately. It's maybe hard to understand. And then it's also going like three layers to the responding officers. And so this can help kind of like debunk what's going on in the situation or just get a better understanding of it.
SPEAKER_01100%. Yeah, our tactics and response are completely driven by the intel that we receive and and the environment where the call where the incident is happening. Um, and sometimes unfortunately, it's you're a victim or you witness a crime and you ask Sean to call 911 and report the information. It then goes to a call taker who enters the information. That goes to a dispatcher, the person who actually communicates with the responders over the radio. And so that information has changed hands so many times, and we could be looking at, you know, four or five minutes of delay. So by us being able to get whether it's a camera or a drone on scene, it's just more it's realistic, it's real-time, actionable intelligence. It's uh it really alleviates that gap in information that sometimes our officers just don't have and is very critical. What's great about our drone system too is they have access to a link and so they can pop up on their phone or their computer an actual live view of what that drone is seeing. Uh so for instance, if we're looking for somebody in a backyard and maybe they're hiding behind a specific bush and we have an officer who's trying to peek over a fence to look for that person and can't see them, they can just pull up their phone and see, oh, I see what the drone's talking about. It's this bush on the you know northwest side of the property. And so it really can impact their decision making and thought process and really get them to slow slow their uh themselves down.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we're recording about a month in advance, but one that just recently came out that you guys used was uh a theft over at the Target off Wadsworth in ADA. So if folks are kind of curious, not sure how to picture how this is used. There was an incident where your drone responder was sent out at Target and you could literally see footage of the person like fleeing Target. I think they ran across Wadsworth over there to the Arby's, and then your officer responded and was able to go into Arby's, but he kind of had all that information ahead of time. And maybe that situation plays out a little differently without this technology. So if folks are curious, you know, it's on the Instagram feed of and the Facebook feed of the police department, but you can kind of check that out to understand a little bit more in action here at Narvada, how it's been used. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was a really good use of the of the drone and uh really good teamwork between our Arctic technicians and and the patrol officers. So you had a loss prevention officer who uh witnessed the incident, uh, makes the call in uh to our dispatch center, and I think attempted to follow this individual for quite some time, but that can be dangerous themselves. You know, sometimes these people are very desperate. There could be drugs and alcohol and mental health involved. And um, we've seen a lot of loss prevention officers that try to intervene and stop people in the midst of shoplifting and they get hurt and they've had weapons pulled on them. So um, we always suggest that they be a good witness first. And so the drones really help us out further in that regard. So, in this in this circumstance, the uh loss prevention employee, um ass protection specialist, is able to kind of back off. We were able to follow the person as they crossed um Wadsworth, very busy intersection, uh, went uh through a gas station and then over to an Arby's location. And so we were able to, again, provide the responders with a better description of the individual and where they were last seen going into the Arby's. They were contacted and uh taken into custody. So yeah, really it's a smarter way of doing business.
How Fire Uses Real-Time Video
KatieAnd I wanted to touch on the fire aspects too, because we kind of talked about that beforehand, how you all have kind of um helped show how the fire responders can also um Arvada Fire Protection District can use these too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a big benefit to our our partners at the Arvada Fire Department. We have an incredible relationship with them, uh shared mutual interest in public safety. Um we help them out a lot on their calls uh for service, and they do the same with us. You know, here we're no stranger to fires. We have we have a lot of open fields, grass areas that can become very hazardous very quickly to significant parts of our community. And then, you know, residential and business type fires. And so what getting a drone or a camera on scene really can provide them an understanding of the breadth, the width, the how big this fire is. We had one just the other day where it was a report of a fire. We flew a drone overhead and identified it was a uh a fire pit in somebody's backyard. So so by by them having an understanding of the significance or the you know strength of this fire, it really can manage their resources. It lets them know what type of apparatuses, fire engines they need to bring. Do they need to bring uh personnel and resources from other stations, what areas are impacted? That that helps all of us in the city of Arvada with evacuations. So if we see a fire is encroaching on, you know, Leiden Rock, for example, we can get police and fire resources up there to start managing that and to issue, you know, evacuation uh warnings through lookout alert. So that's that's one example. Another is uh for like medical type calls, we there is a possibility to add an attachment to these drones where it's like a dropper attachment. And so you could affix something to the drone, maybe a hard-to-reach area. Somebody is out in a lake and they're unable to swim, or you know, our VAT fire services look out mountain. So maybe being able to get an EpiPen or uh a tourniquet or snark and some type of medical device to a hard-to-reach area prior to the fire department or the police department getting on scene. Uh, that's another way that the drones can benefit the fire department. I forgot about search and rescue operations. You know, we haven't had that, but there are a lot of great examples across the country. There was one in uh Commer City recently where they used a drone to um identify and locate a lady who had uh dementia, elderly lady. And I think she was walking on a very busy highway and the drone was able to spot her, and they uh were able to go and pick her up and return her to her home safely.
SPEAKER_04Very
Privacy Limits And When Drones Fly
SPEAKER_04cool. You mentioned it earlier a little bit about surveillance and how this technology and these cameras are used for privacy and whatnot. So help us understand a little bit more about kind of some of the parameters that the police department uses for this technology, what they use it for and what they don't use it for.
SPEAKER_01So, with uh, you know, drones, there is not a ton of case law yet on drones. It's still a relatively new technology. Prior to that, the guidance came came a lot from the FAA, the Federal Um Aviation Administration, and then also through uh case law surrounding police use of helicopters and planes. And we do have some helicopters in the area. Denver has one, but uh drones are different because they fly at lower altitude. We fly at 200 feet, where planes and helicopters are generally going to fly a lot higher. And so, you know, that expectation of privacy somebody has in their home almost gets extended vertically, if this makes sense. So it's not just you're inside your house and your front and backyard, but also, you know, you have some expectation of privacy going vertically up in the air. Uh so with drones, again, we're we're governed by what is there with case law, um, with uh federal law, state law, with the FAA. And then also we have a very firm policy that talks about how drones are to be used and under what circumstances. Uh, some of the things that we um will not use drones for is traffic enforcement. We will use them for investigating impaired drivers on the roadway, and that is somewhat traffic enforcement related. But in terms of you know, red light violations and speed enforcement, those drones necessarily aren't equipped for that purpose, and we're not going to use it for that. Um, but yeah, we will use them to identify impaired drivers on the roadway. That's that's a life safety issue. Every day we have reports of impaired drivers on the roadway. A citizen's behind somebody and they're crossing lanes of travel and they run into a curb, they're striking other vehicles. That really is vital for us to get that real-time intelligence and to see those driving behaviors and determine, okay, we need to really get somebody out because this person is about to kill someone. Or maybe they're just, you know, they're on a phone, they cross uh their lane of travel once. Um, otherwise it looks like they're driving up to standard, a different outcome, different response, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_04And you don't use them for surveillance. You're not out there just flying around and you know, trying to see, you know, hey, what's going on? They're only used for when you get a report and then they're responding to the case.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. They're made to support our calls for service. Um, you know, one thing people understand is these need to charge. They don't have an infinite battery life. They run off a lithium-ion battery similar to the yard tools you use at your house. And they'll only last 25, maybe 30 minutes max up in the air. It all depends on conditions. The wind speed and the weather and rain and payload and how far we need to send it to. So we have to return these. They go back to the dock and they charge there. Also looking at uh Fourth Amendment privacy concerns, as you mentioned, uh, yeah, they're not to be used for general surveillance. We don't use them at protests. I know that was a concern that was brought up from our community members. The only times that would occur is if we had a call for service that was generated from a protest situation. I think there was one a few months back um down in Old Town, there was a protest and a lady had a medical episode. And so we could fly a drone to that. Or if an officer is on scene of a protest and they request one for uh intelligence or for awareness such uh information, um, we would then fly one. But we just we we don't have the the capability to have these up in the air at all times.
Data Storage And Transparency Dashboard
KatieThis technology also comes with a lot of data and um and we've talked a little bit about how folks from a transparency perspective can go online and see every flight that the drones have done. And there's um like a case assigned to those. So talk a little bit more about kind of how we protect the data and how we protect it from misuse or um breaches.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. So we did three open community meetings, transparency meetings, uh, just to hear concerns from residents and to talk about what the program was going to be. And the two big issues that came up were, you know, is this an invasion on my privacy? I think once they saw videos and uh had dis we had some discussions about how the technology is used, those those ease, those concerns were eased quite a bit. The other is data storage. There's been a lot of talk, you know, across the nation um here in the state about the protection of information, who can access data that is obtained through cameras, through license plate reader cameras and from drones. We are all about transparency with our community and about the safety of that data. The information is stored in various ways. So our cameras, the police department cameras, are stored on an actual physical server. So it's something that can't be accessed by another agency, a federal law enforcement agency, for example. Um, it's housed at City Hall. It's our data. We own that server. It is retained for seven days. And if it's not marked as evidence, it's perched. I'm sorry, ten days, ten days. The other way that some of this um data and information videos are stored is through the cloud. We have been using a product called evidence.com. It's uh designed by Axon. It's a company that we've had a relationship with for a long time. The only way information from that database is released to somebody else or accessed by somebody else, there has to be permissions given to that person. And there's an audit trail that it's created. So if you were from another police agency and asked me for bodywork camera video or footage from our drone, there would have to be a release protocol, an actual physical request. All that stuff is documented. And then there's an audit trail that shows who released it at what time and for what purpose. So it is, it is stored in the cloud, but all this stuff has gone through a robust um kind of a verification and testing process through our IT department. It's all CGIS compliant. So there's a lot of um regulations and rules with anything that is CGIS certified about who can access it and under what circumstances. So CGIS is uh it's just a more extensive process for uh law enforcement sensitive data as to how it can be managed, how it can be stored, and who can access it.
KatieCriminal justice information exists.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there you go. Criminal justice, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Usually you wrap off with sort of misconceptions or common questions that you get about, you know, the topic at hand. I feel like we spent maybe the last couple of questions addressing a lot of those. But is there anything maybe we didn't ask you yet that you didn't mention that you wanted to clear up about this? I mean, I think the bottom line is like if you're a victim of something, you're gonna want every technology available and every piece of information available to you know help you out. And so that's kind of what you're doing here and just helping making the community more safe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. It's uh improving that safety, it's improving the success of our calls. I think we're gonna start seeing increased solvability, increased ability to identify people involving crime by utilizing technology. And it just doesn't make sense not to use it. You had talked about too the transparency dashboard. I think that was another uh area that was real big for our community members to see. So every time that we fly these drones, each flight is logged two different ways. It's logged through the FAA, and then it's also logged on our transparency dashboard. So anybody from the public can go on the police department's website and they can see some uh some information about how we use the technology. There's a great video that our public information officer team uh put together that captures everything that was discussed during these transparency meetings, and we really built that based on concerns. Um, and then there's a link to our uh drone first responder transparency dashboard, and it's really cool. And so as soon as that flight docks, as soon as it lands back at the station to start charging, the video gets offloaded and the pilot has to enter uh various information and all that stuff is viewable on this transparency dashboard. So it's gonna show the dates, the time, the duration of the flight, uh, the call for service type. So was it a um a motor vehicle accident? Was it a shoplift? Was it a robbery? Was it a shooting? They're gonna see the flight path. So they won't see the flight video itself, but they'll generally be able to see where the drone flew in kind of like a 2D format. And then it's also gonna have the applicable police report number or the incident number. And so if someone from the public was, again, really concerned about how the drone was utilized, it was flying near their house, they could then make a records request. They're gonna have that information to arm themselves to make that request. Again, we're all about transparency. Um so this is not just benefiting the police department, the fire department, the city. It's it's benefiting the community.
KatieYeah, that webpage, well, of course, link to all the all those resources. That webpage is very robust as yeah, we were preparing for this. We were both on there quite a bit. And a lot of times you kind of hear one thing or think one thing, and then you get more information and you're more equipped to really understand how this technology is being used.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And we're gonna look for some other opportunities here in the near future as we get uh some uh you know, some time under ourselves. We're still four or five weeks into this, um, but doing some more community meetings and maybe demonstrating exactly how our Vata PD is utilizing this technology because everything before was how other agencies were using it. We modeled ourselves after a lot of whole and uh other agencies across the nation. Um, so those will be forthcoming. And then two, also, I I think it's good for people to know that we selected an American-made drone. Most of the drones out there, private use or even in government, are Chinese manufactured drones. And there's always concerns how is that data being stored? Is it safe? Is it going back to China? We did our due diligence and we went through an extensive bidding process. We looked at what was out there, and to us, we really felt comfortable going with the company that we did select, which is SkyDio. Um, they're 100% manufactured in San Mateo, California. It's a very, very good product. The founder of that company was from Colorado, having that ease of mind and um understanding that this is manufactured here in the U.S. and we know how that data is stored and collected, it was very important.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I've got to know. It's not it's not like TikTok, right? Like correct, yeah. Yeah,
Trivia And Community Updates
SPEAKER_04yeah.
KatieOkay, should we do some trivia?
SPEAKER_04Sure.
KatieI have three fun trivia questions. If you know the answer, try and let the other person respond. I didn't say that last time, and we had someone who knew all the answers, and then Sean didn't get to play. When was the Arvada Police Department founded? No multiple choice on the city.
SPEAKER_02No multiple choice. Nope. You want to you want to take us down?
SPEAKER_03Um uh 1935. 1904? Yeah. I was like, maybe we were without a PD for Captain Methods. I don't know.
KatieUh same years Incorporation at the time, I think it was just a town marshal, but that was considered the police department. Yeah. In 2007, the Arvado Police Department became the first Colorado agency to be certified by the C A L E A. I don't know if there's a way to say that, but that's how I'm saying it. For the seventh time, um, what does that acronym stand for? I do have multiple choices this time. A, the Colorado Association of Law Enforcement Agencies, B, Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, or C Certified Accreditation of Law Enforcement Accountability System.
SPEAKER_02A. B.
KatieYes, B. Um, in the 90s, the city hosted a show on KA TV, Channel 8, about the Orvada Police Department. What was the name of the show? Badge Time, Cop Talk, Patrol Beat, or Community Watch?
SPEAKER_02Going cop talk. That's correct. Dave Everett. Dave Everett and Susan Medina. Yeah, right. From the archive. Well done.
KatieThanks for coming on to the show.
SPEAKER_02Of course. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04As a reminder, we love hearing from our listeners. You can stay in touch by texting us using the link at the top of the show notes or by emailing us at podcast at Arvada.org. We love hearing feedback about what you enjoy, what you'd like to see differently, episode ideas, and more. Our movies around town series continues Friday, August 21st with a free showing of the film Little Shop of Horrors at Westwoods Park. Be sure to get there early for free live music featuring James Hurtado before the movie starts at about dusk. An update on the Old Town murals that had to be removed for some pavement maintenance work. Those murals will be replaced this fall, and right now the Arvada Arts and Culture Commission is working with the Old Town Business Improvement District on selecting the artists who will install those murals. And you can learn more about that project at ArvataCo.gov slash art.
KatieAnd the next bulky item drop-off event is coming up on August 15th at the North Area Athletic Complex, the NAC, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Be sure to check the website for accepted items and everything you need to know before you go at arvata.co.gov slash bulky items. And fitting for today's episode, National Night Out on Tuesday is on Tuesday, August 4th. This is an annual tradition that brings communities together with block parties, barbecues, and fun and invites Arvada Police and FIRE to join, all in the spirit of building stronger neighborhoods and partnerships with local police and fire. And so you want to be sure to register your event online to invite them, and we'll put that link in the show notes. Thank you again to our guest today, Jason Eamon. Be sure to listen to our next episode with Pavement Program Coordinator Christine Biddle. Today's episode was recorded and edited by Arvada Creative Services.
SPEAKER_04And today's fun fact is Arvada's first police chief started in 1945.
KatieWhoa.