The Meridian Institute of Artificial Intelligence has entered a partnership with the City of Estero Bay to develop an AI governance framework for municipal AI deployments. The agreement positions Meridian as an independent technical advisor as the city evaluates and adopts AI tools across departments including public safety, social services, and permitting.
The partnership was developed over six months of conversations following a public forum on algorithmic decision-making in government that Meridian co-hosted with the city's Office of Innovation last fall. City officials said they wanted independent academic expertise to balance the vendor-facing information they were receiving.
"We are being pitched AI tools constantly," said Estero Bay City Manager David Chen. "Predictive policing, benefits eligibility screening, AI-assisted zoning review — each of these tools has real implications for residents, and we needed a framework for evaluating them that is independent, technically informed, and grounded in our community's values."
Meridian's team, led by Dr. Chioma Adeyemi and Dr. James Okafor, will develop a tiered risk framework for municipal AI procurement, an audit protocol for systems already in use, and a set of participatory process guidelines for community engagement in AI adoption decisions. The framework will be released publicly as an open-source resource for other municipalities.
The work draws directly on research conducted under the MEAF (Municipal Ethics and AI Frameworks) project, which has been running in Meridian's SSG school for 18 months. Early MEAF outputs have already been cited in EU AI Act implementation guidance documents.
"What makes this partnership meaningful is that the city is genuinely open to the possibility that the right answer for some tools is 'don't deploy it,'" said Dr. Adeyemi. "That kind of intellectual honesty from a government client is rare and it makes the work worthwhile."
The partnership runs through the end of 2027.