Owasso council authorizes $60,000 renewal for Flock Safety license-plate readers

The Owasso City Council voted to authorize payment of $60,000 to Flock Group Incorporated of Atlanta for the one-year service renewal covering 20 Flock Safety automatic license-plate reader units.

Owasso Police Chief Jason Woodruff said the department purchased the system in 2023 to use technology as a force multiplier as the city grew. "These are not surveillance cameras," Woodruff said. "They don't record occupants of a vehicle. They don't record pedestrian traffic, and they don't have facial recognition software." He added that the department retains ALPR data for investigative use and automatically deletes records after 30 days.

Woodruff described how the system works: the cameras capture rear license plates and compare reads to a hot list that can include stolen vehicles, NCIC entries and locally entered plates tied to protective orders or active warrants. He said every search is logged and the department conducts routine audits. "All that data that's collected belongs to the Owasso Police Department," Woodruff said.

The chief cited several operational examples: an out-of-state homicide suspect who was located after the system alerted, multiple stolen-vehicle recoveries, locating an elderly person with dementia who was circling the city, and a threat toward a school employee that prompted a focused response after staff entered the concerned party's plate into the system.

Woodruff told the council the annual service fee is $3,000 per camera and that funding for the renewal is included in the FY26 department budget. During questions, council members asked about data access by other agencies; Woodruff said the department has shared-agency agreements with other jurisdictions that also use the Flock system but that other agencies do not receive unrestricted ongoing access to Owasso data.

A motion to approve the payment and execute the one-year service agreement was moved and seconded and passed on recorded roll call.