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Sweetwater council authorizes police to apply for auto-theft grant to fund Flock license-plate cameras
Summary
At its April 11 meeting the Sweetwater City Council approved a resolution allowing the police department to apply for a Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority 2027 auto-theft task force grant to fund a network of Flock license-plate reader cameras; police estimated the city’s share at roughly $10,000 a year with about $3,000 remaining after offsets.
The Sweetwater City Council voted April 11 to authorize the police department to submit an application for the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority’s fiscal-year 2027 auto-theft task force grant, a matching program the department said would help pay for a stationary license-plate reader camera system.
Police Chief Strobel told the council the grant is an 80/20 matching award and described a proposed program of about 16 stationary Flock cameras placed at strategic locations. “The numbers we’ve provisionally looked at would be a cost of approximately $10,000 a year to our agency,” Strobel said, adding the department has already covered roughly two-thirds of that projected cost and expects a remaining local contribution of about $3,000 in the next budget year.
Strobel said the Flock system includes an annual subscription covering cameras, installation, maintenance and software and that participation would also grant Sweetwater access to camera reads from other municipalities that use the same system, which the department said would aid investigations across jurisdictions.
Council members asked a suite of operational questions, including whether the cameras would be used for speed enforcement. Strobel responded that speed cameras have been ruled unconstitutional in that jurisdictional context and declined to pursue speed enforcement with the proposed system.
After discussion, the council approved the resolution authorizing the city to apply for the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority grant. The resolution, read into the record by the mayor, provides the city authority to submit the application and establishes an effective date for the authorization.
