How to take action, in any budget season

The order form’s renewal clause: the agreement “will automatically renew for successive renewal terms of the greater of one year or the length set forth on the Order Form,” 24 months here, “unless either Party gives the other Party notice of non-renewal at least thirty (30) days prior to the end of the then-current term. Renewal is subject to annual budget appropriation.”[1]

So there are two levers, on two clocks. The non-renewal notice runs on the contract’s clock, whose start date the record hides; miss it and the city is committed two more years at a time. The appropriation runs on the city’s clock: council adopts a budget every fall, and a $27,500 line it declines to fund is a renewal that does not happen. The second lever is available every year, in public, at a meeting you can attend. And there is already a hook on the calendar’s horizon: in August 2026 the police chief wrote publicly that the department “will be hosting a study session with Golden City Council” on Flock. As of September 29, 2026, this site could find no published date for it; asking when it will be is itself a fair question.[5]

Golden City Council meets twice monthly, on the second and fourth Tuesday, in Council Chambers at City Hall, 911 10th Street, Golden, CO 80401, at 6:30 p.m., or 7 p.m. when a study session precedes the regular meeting. Meetings can be rescheduled around holidays, and agendas post in advance, so check the city’s calendar and agenda pages before attending.[2]

Written comment on an agenda item goes to [email protected] and must arrive by 3 p.m. on the meeting day to reach council before the vote. Anything else goes to [email protected]; those emails are compiled and published the following Monday on the city’s Council Comments page (write “Do not publish” in the subject line to keep yours out of the published set), and the city removes them from the page after 30 days.[2]

Seven members: four councilors elected from wards, two from districts, and a mayor elected at large. Every appropriation that renews this contract passes through them.[2] This site deliberately lists the city’s official, collective channels rather than a roster that goes stale: the current members, their wards and their individual city pages are on the city’s own council pages, one click away.

• Written comment on agenda items: [email protected] (by 3 p.m. on meeting day)
• All other topics, all councilors: [email protected]
• City Hall: 303-384-8000, 911 10th Street, Golden, CO 80401 (Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
• The roster and your ward: the city’s City Council page

Worth knowing when you write: residents are already on the record. In August and September 2026 the city’s published Council Comments included demands to suspend the ALPR program, decline renewal and remove the hardware, and the chief’s reply promising a study session. A letter that asks precise questions, when is the session, where is the policy, who can search our cameras, which budget line renews this, lands on ground council has already been walked onto.[5]

The 2023 order form was signed for the city by then–Police Chief Joe Harvey, who retired in February 2026; Chief Michele Wagner has led the department since mid-2026.[1][4] The department’s published contacts:[3]

• Golden Police Department (administrative): 303-384-8045
• In writing: Golden Police Department, 911 10th Street, Golden, CO 80401
• Policy manual: the department publishes its Policy & Procedure Manual on PowerDMS; whether the ALPR policy the chief described appears there is worth checking and asking about

Reasonable questions for the department, all grounded in its own published statements and contract: When is the promised council study session? What does the ALPR policy say, and where is it published? Has the audit process produced an audit, and what did it find? Are Golden’s cameras opted into the state or national lookup networks, and which agencies can search them today?[5]