Leading a City Recognized for Drone-Powered Public Safety

Lisa Borowsky serves as Mayor of Scottsdale, Arizona, a city of roughly 244,400 residents in the eastern Valley region of the state. She was sworn into her first 4 year term in January 2025 after winning the seat in the November 2024 general election. Her campaign centered on curbing overdevelopment and addressing residents' concerns about the pace of new apartment construction across the city.

Before becoming mayor, Borowsky served on the Scottsdale City Council from 2008 to 2012. She built a career as a commercial litigation attorney, representing homeowners in disputes against negligent contractors. She earned her undergraduate degree from Arizona State University and her law degree from St. John's University School of Law in New York. She grew up in Scottsdale and attended local public schools before returning to practice law in the city.

As mayor, Borowsky oversees a city government with a budget near $2.2 billion and more than 2,600 full-time employees. She leads a council that includes Vice Mayor Maryann McAllen along with five other council members. Her administration has pushed for a fiscally conservative budget that emphasizes public safety, infrastructure, and quality of life, and she has spoken publicly against proposed property tax increases during her term.

Public safety technology has become a defining feature of her time in office. In early 2026, the Scottsdale Police Department was named the overall winner of the Smart Cities North America Awards, presented by the International Data Corporation, for its Real Time Crime Center and Drone as First Responder program. The recognition places Scottsdale among the cities the IDC highlights for combining technology, partnerships, and community engagement to address public safety challenges. 

The Real Time Crime Center functions as a citywide, cloud-connected platform and draws on more than 6,000 camera feeds across the city, including traffic cameras, license plate readers, and cameras from schools and businesses that have opted into the system. Analysts inside the center use the feeds to give live intelligence to officers responding to calls.

The Drone as First Responder component adds an aerial layer to that platform. Drones are stationed at fixed points around the city and launch automatically once a call for service comes in, often reaching a scene before a patrol officer arrives on foot or in a vehicle. The aircraft carry thermal imaging for nighttime operations and stream live video directly back to the crime center, where a remote operator directs the flight and relays what the drone sees to officers in the field.

Police officials report that the drones have helped locate missing children, track fleeing suspects, and recover stolen vehicles. More than 70 live-response drone flights have taken place under the program, and the drones are integrated with Federal Aviation Administration systems and local airspace radar to ensure compliance with federal regulations.

The award places Scottsdale alongside other cities that IDC recognized this year for extending smart city capability beyond the largest metropolitan areas, with the organization noting strong participation from mid-sized cities in this year's submissions. For Borowsky, the recognition arrives during a term she has framed around fiscal discipline and public safety investment as core priorities for her administration.

Scottsdale's experience offers a model that other municipal leaders may study as more police departments explore drone-based response systems and centralized data platforms to coordinate emergency response across city agencies.

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