Chula Vista approves $135K annual contract for police surveillance system upgrade

The Chula Vista City Council unanimously approved a new real-time crime monitoring system Tuesday, replacing their old technology with software designed to consolidate multiple surveillance tools into a single platform.

The council voted to contract with Axon Enterprise Inc. for its Fusus software at $135,000 annually, with an option to extend the agreement up to five years for a total potential cost of $677,000.

The system will replace Motorola’s Command Central Aware, which the city began using in 2020 under a contract that expired in December 2025.

Tonia Dunnebacke, a public safety analyst who works in the Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center, told the council the new platform will integrate existing technologies, including city-owned cameras, drone feeds, license plate readers, body-worn cameras, officer GPS locations and the city’s computer-aided dispatch system.

“It is a centralized hub at the Police Department where we bring in our various technology and data to provide incident support to patrol in the field,” Dunnebacke said. “It provides faster and smarter policing, which is a powerful de-escalation tool if we can get our officers the most accurate information before they even respond to a call.”

The system does not collect or retain personal information, according to Dunnebacke, who described it as “merely a window that brings all of the other systems into it.”

“Once we close this program, it no longer has access t...