Penny for your thoughts on ShotSpotter? How about $1,000?
That’s the offer Cambridge is making to residents in an effort to hear what they think about surveillance technology, including the controversial gunshot detection system.
Cambridge officials hope it will help them decide whether to keep using ShotSpotter or turn it off, and give them a better sense of where regular people stand on one of the thorniest topics in modern life: how to balance privacy and security in an age of unprecedented surveillance.
People from 15,000 households across the city will be invited soon to enter a lottery system to be picked to join a 40-member “demographically representative group of residents” who “will learn from independent experts, deliberate together, and develop recommendations for the City Council on the future of public safety and surveillance technology,” city leaders said in a press release this week.
Participants will be picked by mid-October and will be asked to meet on four Saturdays in October through December.
They will get $1,000 stipends for their time, and the city will “provide other accommodations, including child care, interpretation and translations,” the announcement said.
The elaborate plan, dubbed a “Civic Assembly,” is designed to give people who are affected by policy choices, but may not directly participate in the political system, a chance to share their thoughts on major issues.
It’s also pitched as an alternative to a system in which the voices heard most often on hot-button topics are from people who have strong, entrenched views on one side or another, and have time to come to City Hall or get on a Zoom call on a weeknight, when public meetings are held.
City officials believe it is the first time this has been tried in Massachusetts.
“The Civic Assembly process is a practical way to bring diverse voices together to learn, discuss, and advise on complex issues,” Cambridge City Manager Yi‑An Huang said in a statement, adding that he is “looking forward to the prospects of this process and how it can shape important decision-making.”
City councilors directed the city to take the extraordinary step in the wake of backlash to councilors’ decision this year to turn off Cambridge’s ShotSpotter devices, which alerts police to sounds that might be gunshots. The system is controversial because critics say false positives can lead to over policing, and that it — like all surveillance tech — poses privacy risks.
Elected leaders voted to disable the devices in May, over objections from law enforcement.
That decision came under scrutiny weeks later, after a city worker died of gunshot wounds on July 4. The shooting went unreported for an hour, officials said, raising questions about whether his life might have been saved if ShotSpotter had been active and could have alerted first responders to his location sooner.
Backlash that followed included accusations that elected leaders had not done enough outreach to communities most impacted by gun violence before making the decision to nix the program.
In July, the council voted to turn the devices back on temporarily. It also directed city leadership to form a civic assembly to gather more public opinion on the devices and make a recommendation on whether to keep or discard them.
A nonprofit called the Federation for Innovation in Democracy is helping organize the assembly.
ShotSpotter is not the only topic that will be on the group’s agenda. Members will also be asked about other surveillance questions, including whether to add more cameras to public parks.
Discussion will also more than likely include the license plate reading camera system Flock, which has been a flashpoint across the country, including in Massachusetts. Cambridge terminated its contract with Flock in December.
But the most pressing matter will certainly be ShotSpotter. Councilors asked the city to come present the assembly’s recommendations on the technology within 90 days. The city expects to do so in December.
“Launching a Civic Assembly gives us an opportunity to continue the conversation around public safety and surveillance technologies,” Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said in a statement. “The decisions we make touch all corners of our community, and we must foster healthy discourse and incorporate community input into decision-making.”
Cambridge residents willing to share their two cents can look out for invitations marked “Your Voice, Your Cambridge” in their mailboxes. They go out starting next week.
Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com. Follow him @SpencerBuell.