A Mountlake Terrace resident urged the City Council Wednesday to stop moving forward with an automated license‑plate camera contract with Flock and to spend public funds on school air filtration instead.

Adam Sacae, who spoke during the public‑comment period, said he previously raised concerns and pointed the council to independent reporting. “Flock has been lying to the public about federal access to its data,” Sacae said. He called the company’s approach “fundamentally fascist, dystopian, and destructive,” and said the contract already in place should be treated as a sunk cost and the cameras not installed.

Sacae suggested an alternative. He told the council the roughly $57,000 already spent on the Flock contract could have been used to buy low‑cost CorsiCube air purifiers for classrooms. “A cube can be built in 20 minutes, and the cost of materials is roughly $80,” he said, adding that $57,000 could buy more than 700 units and could be built as a community project to protect students and staff during a COVID wave.

Why it matters: Sacae framed his remarks as a public‑safety argument oriented to current public‑health risks, not only privacy concerns, arguing local officials should prioritize measures that reduce airborne transmission in schools rather than install surveillance cameras.

Other public comment items

Also during the public‑comment period, John Blake Smith, a long‑time Mountlake Terrace resident, raised multiple neighborhood quality‑of‑life complaints including overgrown vegetation, outdoor storage and a long‑parked motorhome in a driveway; he asked staff to review code enforcement options.

Ending: The council did not take any immediate action on the Flock contract during the meeting. The city’s agenda later included a discussion of a plan to create an oversight council for the camera system, referenced in Sacae’s remarks; no vote on installation occurred Wednesday.