Mountlake Terrace council approves two‑year trial of Flock Safety license‑plate cameras after hours of debate

The Mountlake Terrace City Council on June 5 voted 5–2 to authorize the city manager to sign a two‑year subscription agreement with Flock Safety to install nine automatic license‑plate readers (ALPRs) on major streets.

The council approved the agreement after a detailed presentation by Police Commander Scott King and a live appearance by Kristen McLeod, public affairs manager for Flock Safety, a prolonged question-and-answer session with council members, and more than an hour of public comment that included supporters who said the cameras help recover stolen cars and opponents who raised privacy and civil‑liberties concerns.

Why it matters: The cameras will capture still images of vehicle license plates and basic vehicle characteristics, create a 30‑day searchable database of “hot list” matches, and allow the police department to share selected searches with accredited regional agencies. Supporters said the cameras provide a tool to recover stolen vehicles, illicit drugs and guns more quickly. Opponents warned the system creates a new surveillance database that could be accessed or misused by outside agencies or third parties.

Commander Scott King, the police department’s assigned administrator for the system, told the council that the department “choose[s] who we share our information with and we also own our information,” and that data “does truly get erased. It would be a breach of contract with Flock if it was kept over 30 days.” He also said the city will not allow facial recognition or audio capture and that the department will perform quarterly audits of system searches.

Kristen McLeod of Flock described how the company uses a small proportion of anonymized images for machine‑learning model training: “Flock utilizes less than 1% of data collected nationwide. That data is scrubbed of all metadata. There is no location, time, nothing associated with the still images.” She also showed an example of the company’s public transparency portal, which agency customers can make available for residents to review aggregate metrics and search‑audit logs.

Council members pressed on specifics that residents had raised: whether Flock or outside agencies could access a Mountlake Terrace database without a court order; whether data retained for 30 days could nonetheless be subpoenaed; how memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with other agencies would be enforced; and what remedies the city has if a partner misuses the data. King said the city intends to require MOUs with local accredited partners and that the commander could “delete them from our system with a click of a button” if an agency violated terms. City legal staff said records in the city’s or Flock’s possession would be turned over only under court order but acknowledged council could direct staff to pursue further contract edits.

Public comment was intense and mixed. Supporters including longtime residents urged approval on public‑safety grounds, saying the system quickly helped neighboring cities recover stolen vehicles. Opponents — including immigrants, privacy advocates and residents worried about civil‑liberties impacts — urged the council to delay or reject the contract, citing reported Flock practices elsewhere, potential sharing with federal agencies and the risk of normalizing mass surveillance.

The council motion to authorize signing the agreement passed 5–2. Council discussion reflected the split: members in favor described the program as a limited, reversible, evidence‑gathering tool to aid investigations; members opposed said the community had not been sufficiently reassured about third‑party access, contract language and the limits of local control.

The contract is a two‑year subscription. Commander King said the city can cancel within the first year without paying the second‑year fee and that Flock will remove its hardware if the city discontinues service. City staff said they will include Flock use information in quarterly police reports and that a transparency portal would be available online for periodic public review.

What’s next: With council approval, staff will finalize the agreement, schedule installation and publish the transparency portal and audit reports as promised. Council members and staff said they will monitor other jurisdictions’ early results and may revisit the contract if practical or legal concerns emerge.