St. Albans Mayor Scott James speaks at Monday's city council meeting.Photo byCity of St. Albans

ST. ALBANS, W.Va. -- The city of St. Albans is considering purchasing a subscription to a location intelligence software that uses available cell phone data to track various statistics.

The technology, provided through the Placer.ai platform, was a topic of discussion among city council members at their Oct. 7 regularly scheduled meeting.

“The more I learn about this [platform], the more I think a one-year trial period would be good,” St. Albans Mayor Scott James told the panel on Monday.

Placer.ai compiles location tracking data shared by cell phone users, creating reports to help organizations and governmental agencies make business decisions, according to information on the company’s website.

The technology employs geofencing, which is often used by marketers to hyper-target consumers based on location data.

“When you put various apps on your phone, [the app] asks you if it’s OK to share the location data,” Ward 2 Councilman Mike Rowe explained Monday. “This [Placer.ai] is one of the [companies] it's sharing it with.”

Municipal governments like St. Albans can use the compiled data, for instance, to determine how many people attend an event, such as the recent Fall Y’all Chili Festival.

But georefencing goes further than just plain numbers. Details shared by users on their cell phones can include everything from search data to particulars about places visited and more -- assets full of valuable information for government leaders and others.

One thing the Placer.ai technology will not do, officials said, is collect an individual’s confidential data, such as call logs or other identifiable information.

Ward 3 Councilman Bill Knight says he was skeptical when he first heard about the platform, which is already being used locally at the county level. He said he now sees it as a potential tool that offers many advantages to the city.

“It would be beneficial to the city of St. Albans to bring in businesses, new people, new whatever,” Knight said. “It would be very helpful to grow the city.”

James said he would be interested in getting the St. Albans Area Chamber of Commerce involved with the software, possibly by sharing reports with the local business incubator.

But all this data would come at a cost to taxpayers. For a one-year trial of Placer.ai, the company will charge the city $16,000, James said.

For now, council members have decided to send the matter to the council’s finance committee, which will complete a cost-benefit analysis before making a recommendation to the panel.

Other business matters

Also on Monday, St. Albans city council members:

• Approved a bond ordinance on third reading;
• Approved a PODA-related ordinance on second reading; and
• Approved various payments totaling $75,852.98 at the recommendation of the finance committee.

The next regularly scheduled St. Albans city council meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 21 in council chambers.

Michael Ramsburg is a Kanawha County communities reporter. He can be reached at ramsburgreports@gmail.com or by calling 304-370-3067.