Residents urge Reno council to end Flock cameras as budget debate intensifies

Dozens of Reno residents on May 6 pressed the City Council to cancel its contract with Flock Safety and to slow plans that would expand surveillance as councilmembers considered city budget pressures and other capital priorities. Commenters also urged the council to rethink a proposed police budget increase and invest in community programs instead.

"I urge Reno City Council to terminate its contract with Flock Safety and turn off the city's Flock cameras as soon as possible," said Alex Milum, identifying himself with Northern Nevada DSA during the meeting's public-comment period. He and other speakers described the network of automated license-plate reader (ALPR) cameras as "mass surveillance" that risks privacy and could be exploited by outside agencies.

Supporters of ending the cameras offered several concrete concerns. McKenzie Nelson told the council the city's Flock rollout captured thousands of vehicles and that the system creates a searchable record of movements "even if you have committed no crime." Nelson said the initial two-year pilot was grant-funded and warned that renewal could cost the city "nearly half a million dollars" at a time when Reno faces a structural budget deficit.

Commenters also linked surveillance to larger budget choices. Multiple speakers said the proposed roughly nine-million-dollar increase to the Reno Police Department's budget would expand policing and monitoring rather than address underlying problems such as homelessness, housing affordability and community services. "We need community workers trained in de-escalation and public health," said Christian D. Brown, urging money be directed to social services.

City staff and councilors did not take formal action on the Flock contract during the May 6 meeting. Council discussion earlier in the session focused on a separate set of items: adoption of the Regional Road Impact Fee update and a multi-part Redevelopment Agency (RDA) funding package for downtown projects. Council introduced and referred the RTC's eighth-edition impact-fee ordinance for adoption and later approved RDA spending priorities after an extended debate over competing priorities.

Councilmembers asked staff for more information about surveillance policy and contract terms going forward. Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney told the council that policy language and data-protection practices are being reviewed and that staff would return with more detail. "If we misuse the technology for nefarious reasons, then we shouldn't be using it," she said, summarizing the staff position that policy must guide use.

Speakers recommended specific steps the council could take: cancel the contract before auto-renewal, require periodic outside audits of any ALPR deployment, narrow permitted uses in writing, and publicly release search/audit logs. Several commenters raised specific privacy concerns such as access by outside agencies and the retention period for data on the vendor's servers.

Council members expressed differing priorities during debate. Some emphasized the need to preserve investigatory tools for serious crime; others stressed the budget shortfall and public mistrust and pressed for stricter limitations on access and retention.

What happens next: staff and the council agreed to return with more detailed policy language and contract specifics. The city's Flock contract was raised repeatedly in public comment and will be a topic councilmembers said they expect to revisit before any automatic renewal date later in 2026.

(Reporting draws on public comments and council discussion during the Reno City Council meeting, May 6, 2026.)