Panel Continues Review of Watertown Drone Plan

Committee on Public Safety · Meeting of July 9, 2026

Watertown's Committee on Public Safety opened a monthslong public review of a proposed $73,000 police drone program without taking a vote. Police Chief Hanrahan presented a self-deploying drone system built by vendor Paladin, represented at the meeting by Wilson Rindu, who said the system would cost $24,000 for hardware plus $49,000 a year for software and services. Residents split sharply: Joan Gumbleton called the technology promising for navigating traffic to reach emergencies, while letters from residents Joseph Morden and Madeline Nicole raised cost and surveillance concerns, with Morden writing that "many residents, myself included, would feel more comfortable with a straightforward drone owned and operated by our own trusted officers." The committee voted to continue the discussion into the fall, pending statewide ACLU guidance on police drone policy expected by late summer.

In the full story:

• Background: A Council Referral and an Unfinished ACLU Review
• Chief Hanrahan's Presentation: How the System Works
• Proposed Guardrails and Unresolved Policy Questions
• Vendor Terms: Cost, Contract Structure and Data Security
• Fire Department Collaboration: A Point of Friction
• Public Comment: Support, Skepticism and a Conflict-of-Interest Question
• Procedural Steps and Outcome
• Implications and What Is Next
• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report: 2,235 words

Source: the Committee on Public Safety meeting of July 9, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.