CLEARLAKE— At this week’s Judge’s Breakfast in Clearlake on Thursday, Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora presented on new technologies being used by the city, with an emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs. Other technologies include new camera systems and other software for monitoring potential wildfires as well as uses in law enforcement.
Mimicking Ukiah’s model, the city of Clearlake is adapting a wildfire monitoring system that involves purchasing multiple 30 to 40,000 AI integrated cameras, strategically placed, operated in conjunction with an online portal program called AlertCA.
Flora noted that this program allows access to local fire departments and Cal Fire as well as any others with access. According to Flora the county currently has several cameras in place, with two in Lower Lake and one on Mount Konocti, and many others that are owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Company. “They use all this technology to try and make the impact of those PSPS events much smaller.” Combined with the use of AlertCA these cameras aid in creating a much faster response time ultimately having the potential to avoid these fires becoming larger catastrophes.
According to Flora, there have also been recent purchases for local law enforcement as the Clearlake Police Department has upgraded both in car and body worn cameras, also integrated with AI technology to automatically record out in the field. These technologies help in decreasing an officer’s response time adding to the department’s overall efficiency and transparency. Flora briefly mentioned that recent efforts have also been made in safeguarding all of their departments digitally, with CLPD Police Chief Tim Hobbs adding, “The department sees up to 100 hacking attempts per day.”
Lastly Flora introduced an AI program called Placer.AI to which the city is subscribed annually at a cost of $13,000 per year. This program uses the public’s mobile devices to track almost anything it’s programmed to, including where people travel in and around the city, where and how much they are spending and earning, level of education, traffic patterns, and even logs what days and times for data analyzation.
Using this program the city was able to see that 14,000 people gathered in the city on July 2, 2023 during their annual Fourth of July Festival. Flora said, “We are spending a lot of effort in attracting these brands.” Overall the purpose and intended use of this data is for bringing in larger developers and businesses like Home Depot, Chicken ‘n Pickle, but not Trader Joe’s as Flora stated “There are not enough bachelor’s level degrees and that’s what they look at” he added that the general population is too low. Though there are many factors that work against these efforts including Clearlake’s negative history and a lack of similar business in the area for comparison, Flora believes there is a benefit to these programs that will help the area thrive. According to Flora, currently “It is a retail desert in a lot of ways.” Some of the work in making Clearlake more attractive to these companies has already been done.” As an example Flora added, “Starbucks is more of a community amenity. A lot of people don’t like it but there are brands that will not come to a market that doesn’t have a standard Starbucks.”
The Judge’s Breakfast is held every Thursday Morning at the Clearlake Masonic Lodge at 7 a.m. A full breakfast is available but not necessary for participation. Next week’s guest is to be determined as the Month of February is dedicated to the local upcoming elections including County Supervisors for Districts 1, 4, and 5 and also the Sheriff and Judges’ races.
