Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett has decided that the county’s four drones shouldn’t be used and are not necessary to help with public safety or other county issues, spokesman Patrick Lacefield said Tuesday.
Lacefield also said Leggett has no intention of promoting the use of drones and won’t be sending a policy governing their use to the County Council for review.
On Tuesday, County Councilmembers briefly discussed a resolution asking the county executive’s office to develop a policy concerning the use of drones that would require council approval before any of the four small quad-copter-style drones are used.
It’s now unclear who will develop a policy or if the drones will be used by the county in the future.
Despite the county executive’s position, councilmembers on Tuesday made it clear they were interested in the county developing a policy.
Councilmember Roger Berliner said the resolution doesn’t prohibit the use of the small drones, which are lightweight, equipped with video cameras and widely available on retail websites, but rather that the County Council should approve a usage policy before they are used.
“I think there could very well be benefits to the use of drones,” Berliner said. “But there are also serious public policy issues, like privacy [concerns].”
The council began focusing on developing a policy after members became aware of the county’s four drones during a Sept. 11 hearing of the council’s public safety committee.
The county fire department has three of the drones, which Fire Chief Steve Lohr said could be used to help firefighters see inaccessible areas during fires or, for example, to take meter readings and assess casualties in the event of a gas attack in a Metro station. The county’s innovation department owns the fourth drone and had planned to use it to work on a pilot program that would lead to a draft drone policy.
At the September public safety meeting, Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said “the controversy has been pretty significant” when other police departments have started to use drones.
Dan Hoffman, the county’s director of innovation, said during the public safety committee hearing that the fire department has three Phantom quad-copter drones and his office has one Parrot drone.
Council President Craig Rice agreed that drones could be helpful public-safety tools, but the council must first approve a policy governing their use.
“We need to make sure we have a comprehensive policy for the use of drones,” Rice said. "This is going to be the future and we certainly need to be at the forefront in shaping that."
