The Lynnwood Police Department asked the City Council for authority to deploy an automated license plate reader (ALPR) system from Flock Safety, using a $132,000 Washington Auto Theft Prevention Authority grant plus approximately $38,000 from city funds. Police said the planned rollout would include roughly 25–27 cameras, focused on high‑traffic corridors and the mall area, and estimated a two‑year total cost of about $171,153 including taxes and subscription fees.

Police described the system as a license‑plate‑only technology (not facial recognition) that matches captured plates to hot lists such as NCIC stolen/wanted vehicle entries, AMBER/Silver Alerts and agency hot lists. Staff said data would be retained 30 days by default, that the vendor leases the cameras as a subscription (installation and maintenance covered under the subscription), and that the department will conduct quarterly audits through the Office of Professional Standards. Police presented example uses from neighboring jurisdictions where ALPR alerts aided rapid vehicle identification in homicide and vehicle‑theft investigations.

Council members requested more written detail on policy, audit procedures, and public outreach. Questions included night and wet‑weather performance, retention periods, interagency data sharing, contract length and long‑term funding after the grant, whether the cameras present equity concerns, and how the city would notify the public. Police said typical deployment takes about three months after contracting, that the vendor maintains equipment, and that a public transparency portal would be made available to show counts and usage metrics.

No final appropriation or contract award was recorded at the work session; police requested council approval to proceed with the grant acceptance and subscription purchase. Council asked staff to circulate the policy and audit procedures by email and to provide updates and website tracking metrics during the pilot.