# Axon Field Trial Agreement and City Authorization How Fayetteville authorized the [[Axon Fleet 3 ALPR Trial]]: a $0 "field trial" agreement that activated automatic license-plate recognition across the patrol fleet, moved through a City Staff Review, and was signed by **Mayor [[Molly Rawn]]** on **2025-12-04** — without a City Council vote, a budget line, or any competitive procurement, because the trial cost nothing. This is the documentary basis for the concept page [[ALPR Trial-to-Procurement Pipeline]]. ## What's inside - `24.pdf` — Eduardo Carreras (Axon) sends Capt. Miller the trial agreement (2025-11-18); attachment `Axon General Field Trial Agreement 5.10 - All Products 30-60-90 Days_v17.pdf` - `22.pdf` — Capt. Miller's reply routing the agreement for the Mayor's signature (2025-11-19) - `23.pdf` / `25.pdf` — related Carreras/Moad correspondence (Axon partner ecosystem, AI add-ons) - `Operations Admin - ALPR.pdf` — Capt. Miller's mailbox: the internal staff-review drafting (pp. 21–23), the **City of Fayetteville Staff Memo** (p. 25), the **Axon General Field Trial Agreement** including the Mayor's signature block (pp. 27–37, 81–105), and the **City of Fayetteville Staff Review Form** (p. 39) ## The authorization, in sequence **The vendor sends the form.** Axon Key Account Executive Eduardo Carreras emailed Capt. Michele Miller on 2025-11-18 (`24.pdf`): "Wanted to provide you with the T/E form to initiate your APLR evaluation. Once approved, please return the attached form to me ..." The attachment is the "Axon General Field Trial Agreement 5.10 - All Products 30-60-90 Days_v17.pdf." **FPD routes it for the Mayor.** Capt. Miller replied 2025-11-19 (`22.pdf`): "I will have to send this for a Staff Review for the Mayor to sign off on but will get it back to you as soon as I can." **A staff memo is drafted.** Assistant Support Services Manager Tonyia Tannehill drafted the memo and sent it to Miller on 2025-11-20 (`Operations Admin - ALPR.pdf`, p. 21), with a candid note: "Attached is my attempted draft of the memo at knowing what in the world a license plate reader would do for our department ... I did list Tad as the requestor, as I know the Chief is gone today and tomorrow ..." **The staff memo to the Mayor.** The "City of Fayetteville Staff Memo" (`Operations Admin - ALPR.pdf`, p. 25) is addressed **TO: Mayor Molly Rawn, FROM: Tad Scott, Deputy Chief of Police, DATE: November 20, 2025**, subject "Approval of a field trial agreement to test and evaluate Axon License Plate Readers." It records: > The Fayetteville Police Department currently utilizes Axon in-car camera and body camera systems for their patrol fleet. The ALPR technology would need to be activated to begin an evaluation period ... The Axon system can be deployed across the patrol fleet without the purchase of additional equipment. > BUDGET\STAFF IMPACT: There is no cost for the field trial, so there is no effect on the current operating budget. No increase in staffing is necessary for this trial. **Staff review and approval routing.** On 2025-11-21 Tannehill forwarded the package — "SM.docx" (the memo), the Axon agreement, and "SRF.xlsx" — to Willie Newman "for potential approval next week," noting "This has not yet been started in Laserfiche" (`Operations Admin - ALPR.pdf`, p. 23). The **City of Fayetteville Staff Review Form** (p. 39) is submitted by **Mike Reynolds, 11/24/2025, POLICE (200)**; it records "Budgeted Item? **No**" and "Does item have a direct cost? **No**." **The Mayor signs.** On 2025-12-04 a Mayor's-office assistant emailed FPD support staff, subject "Axon" (`Operations Admin - ALPR.pdf`, p. 93): "Mayor signed agreement attached!" Tannehill forwarded it to Capt. Miller: "Attached is the agreement signed by Mayor Rawn." The agreement's signature block (p. 81) names **Customer: Molly Rawn, Title: Mayor**, dated **December 04, 2025**. **Trial confirmed.** Capt. Miller emailed Capt. French on 2025-12-12: "We have the Axon Trial signed and I just need to know when you want to start the trial?" The trial went live 2026-02-12 — see [[Axon Fleet 3 ALPR Trial]]. ## The agreement itself The Axon General Field Trial Agreement (version 17.0, release date 2024-05-08) states (`Operations Admin - ALPR.pdf`, p. 27): > This Agreement grants the right to use the Axon Enterprise, Inc. ("Axon") Trial Kit(s) identified in this Agreement to the customer ... on loan and free of charge for a trial and evaluation ... The Trial Period is for the maximum of 30 Days unless extended by Axon or as noted in the quote. Services are provided "AS IS" with Axon disclaiming "ALL LIABILITY REGARDLESS OF THE CLAIM." The agreement is titled for "All Products 30-60-90 Days" and carries appendices spanning Axon's product lines (Cloud Services, Fleet, Fusus, the "My90" community-survey product, and others) — the trial paperwork is a single instrument covering Axon's full catalog, not a plate-reader-specific document. ## Key takeaways - **A surveillance capability was switched on agency-wide through a $0 trial agreement and a single executive signature.** Because the Axon Field Trial Agreement carried no cost, it bypassed the appropriation and competitive-procurement scrutiny a purchase would trigger: no City Council agenda item, no budget line, "no direct cost." The Staff Review Form documents this explicitly. - **The trial used equipment FPD already owned.** The staff memo's own framing — the system "can be deployed across the patrol fleet without the purchase of additional equipment" — is the mechanism: Axon activated a dormant LPR feature on the Fleet 3 in-car cameras FPD had already bought. - **The Mayor's office executed it.** Mayor [[Molly Rawn]] personally signed the agreement; her office routed the signed copy back to FPD. The City, not just the Police Department, is on the document. - **No City Attorney or legal review is visible.** The routing was staff memo → Staff Review Form → Mayor's signature. No legal-review record appears in the production. - **The trial paperwork is catalog-wide.** The "All Products" agreement and its appendices position the ALPR trial inside Axon's broader product relationship with FPD — consistent with the ecosystem sale documented in [[Axon RTCC and Surveillance Ecosystem Pitch]]. ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Michele Miller]] — Captain; routed the agreement for the Mayor's signature - [[Tad Scott]] — Deputy Chief of Police; named requestor and signatory of the staff memo to the Mayor - [[Mike Reynolds]] — Chief of Police; submitter of record on the Staff Review Form - [[Molly Rawn]] — Mayor of Fayetteville; signed the Axon General Field Trial Agreement - [[Willie Newman]] — FPD support services; approval routing - [[Eduardo Carreras]] — Axon Key Account Executive; transmitted the trial agreement - Tonyia Tannehill — FPD Assistant Support Services Manager; drafted the staff memo - [[Fayetteville Police Department]] · [[City of Fayetteville]] · [[Axon Enterprise, Inc.]] ## Concepts invoked - [[ALPR Trial-to-Procurement Pipeline]] - [[Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR)]] ## Events documented - [[2025-12 Fayetteville Mayor Signs Axon ALPR Trial Agreement]] ## Cross-references - [[Axon Fleet 3 ALPR Trial]] — the operational trial this agreement authorized. - [[Axon RTCC and Surveillance Ecosystem Pitch]] — the larger Axon sale the trial sits inside. - [[ALPR Trial-to-Procurement Pipeline]] — the pattern: a free trial as a low-scrutiny on-ramp to surveillance adoption. ## Open questions / follow-ups 1. **City Attorney review.** No legal-review record appears. Whether the City Attorney reviewed the "AS IS" / liability-disclaiming agreement before the Mayor signed is not documented in the production. 2. **The signed agreement as produced.** The agreement appears in the production as an OCR'd image within a mailbox export. A clean copy of the executed agreement (with the appendices that applied to the Fleet 3 ALPR trial specifically) is a supplemental-FOIA candidate.