The new oversight structure of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is up and running.
Members of the state-appointed oversight board met for the first time Thursday to take care of administrative matters such as selecting most internal leadership, establishing initial goals and hiring an attorney.
While Mayor Cara Spencer remains opposed to the state takeover, she voted for a resolution that called the board necessary to “bring stability, improve public safety and address issues related to local and regional crime and officer retention and recruitment in the City.”
“The intention here is to be part of the process and to continue to see how this evolves,” she said.
The board delayed electing a treasurer until it could get more clarity about the responsibilities of the role. Its attorney, Chris Graville, called it an expected hiccup.
“Because of the way state control was done, there are going to be some things we are going to have to back into,” he said.
The transition to state oversight must be finished by next July. Two lawsuits challenging the takeover are set for trial in November.
Camera contracts
A key order of business for the newly formed board was the approval of a new three-year, $6 million contract with Georgia-based Utility Associates to provide body-worn and in-car cameras, plus data storage. A previous contract with the company had expired in June, and the city had been paying weekly to retain access to its stored data.
Utility signed a five-year deal in 2020, making it the first company to ever provide body-worn cameras to the department. Last October, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment quietly approved a nearly $26 million contract with Axon, without issuing an official request for proposals.
Utility challenged the award. The city canceled the contract and issued an official bid request in December 2024, to which Axon and Utility responded. While Axon’s contract was more expensive, it included Tasers, which Utility could not supply.
It was those two contracts that were in front of the police commissioners on Thursday. At the recommendation of Graville, the interim attorney, they awarded the contract to Utility.
“Where we are now based on budget and what we have in front of us and what this board’s charged to do is, making decisions in which you're giving the chief and the police department the opportunity to evaluate and plan and be prepared if the department wants to do with a different vendor,” Graville said, promising that he would hold Utility accountable if it could not meet the needs of the department.
Multiple news outlets have reported that the process of awarding the contract to Axon is under federal investigation. Police union officials had no comment on the camera contract or the procurement process.
