Indio police to get more drones for CV Link patrols

The Coachella Valley Association of Governments (CVAG) executive committee voted Monday to authorize the purchase of up to five additional drones, at a cost not to exceed $140,000, for local police departments patrolling the CV Link pathway, including the Indio Police Department.

Indio is expected to receive two to three of the drones and began flights this past weekend. The remaining drones will go to police departments in Palm Springs and Cathedral City.

Staff said the number of drones allocated to each department was based on flight range, flight time and the size of the area each department needs to cover.

CVAG member and Indio City Councilmember Glenn Miller raised concerns about privacy, “How do you stop to make sure that we don’t invade [residents’] privacy? … It could be personal, it could be even, could be them doing something wrong, but you’re kind of invading their space because you’re not going there to look at that property, but it could be used to look at what they’re doing.”

Jonathan Hoy, Director of Transportation, said the drone cameras are not positioned to look into backyards during flight.

“When they fly out, their cameras aren’t facing down in people’s backyards. They don’t look down until they need to, and there’s other very specific policies that the police department could speak to with those,” Hoy said.

The item passed with one dissenting vote, from Mayor Frank Figueroa of Coachella.

The approval comes as cities across the valley expand surveillance, drone, and artificial intelligence systems, with officials so far voicing broad support despite pushback from residents.

Indian Wells Mayor Toper Taylor, discussing the three cove communities of Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells and Palm Desert, told CVAG on Monday that those cities are also pursuing a drone program of their own.

“We’re very excited about the use of drones in all of our daily lives, especially with regard to safety and security for our residents,” Taylor said.

In Palm Desert, the City Council held a study session in May with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office on a proposed Drone as First Responder program and Real-Time Crime Center.

No vote was taken, and the estimated cost of the drone program is approximately $4.2 million over five years, with a separate roughly $1.2 million buildout for the crime center, split among the cove communities.

The proposed Real-Time Crime Center, or RTCC, would serve as a surveillance hub integrating drone feeds, license plate reader data, dispatch information, live camera systems, with “other data sources” from regional partners.

At the meeting, Councilmember Gina Nestande voiced support while acknowledging trade-offs, saying “the only negative I see is individual freedom that we do give up as a society.” Councilmember Karina Moreno said the technology addresses situations such as missing-person cases.

The Palm Desert council separately voted 5–0 in June to expand its Flock Safety license plate camera network to 157 cameras and raise its contract ceiling to $2.5 million.

City staff said they plan to pilot live-view cameras, which stream real-time video rather than only capturing license plates, along the El Paseo business corridor, with a further recommendation to consider expanding live-view cameras into city parks.

Trubee raised concern about that potential expansion, saying it could extend surveillance “into a place where people are just gathering” rather than only on roadways. Staff said the council would retain oversight before any cameras are added to parks.

In Palm Springs, police officials presented their Coachella Valley Real-Time Intelligence Center to the city’s Human Rights Commission in January, where Chair Hugo Loyola calling the technology “extraordinarily important.”

The city reportedly used drones on approximately 319 incidents and recorded zero complaints and zero policy violations across all military equipment categories, including drones, for the year.

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