Maple Bluff board tables vote on Flock camera contract after privacy and contract concerns

The Village of Maple Bluff Board of Trustees deferred a decision on expanding live‑feed cameras and renewing its contract with Flock on Tuesday after trustees and staff raised unresolved legal and privacy concerns.

The village chief opened the discussion by describing three layers of control — contract provisions, system configuration and internal policy and audit — and said the contract negotiations remain incomplete. Resident Paula Cooper’s written questions, read into the record, asked why the village would proceed with a vote before contract revisions were finalized and how the village would prevent outside agencies from conducting searches for immigration or reproductive‑care motives. “We are Flock’s clients. Surely there’s a provision for extending our contract month‑to‑month until a mutually agreed upon set of terms is defined,” Cooper’s email said when read by staff.

Sergeant Zach Sek described several recent operational uses of the system, saying the cameras have helped recover a stolen U‑Haul trailer and assisted partners tracing stolen vehicles. “It’s a force multiplier for the entire county in terms of public safety,” Zach said, describing instances in which Flock hits helped detectives locate vehicles tied to violent incidents.

But legal counsel warned the board that several contract items remain unresolved. Chris Nelson said the village is pressing for clearer customer‑data protections, confidentiality language that explicitly acknowledges Wisconsin public‑records law, and a mutual termination‑for‑convenience clause that Flock’s 2026 draft appears to omit. Nelson said Flock’s proposed 2026 terms include significant vendor limitations of liability and that venue and governing‑law language have been points of contention.

Trustees were split on the operational value versus the privacy and long‑term legal risk. Several trustees said they would support retaining or renewing the ALPR (license‑plate) portion of the program under strengthened terms but remained unconvinced live‑feed cameras justified the additional privacy exposure and cost without a finalized contract. Trustee Laura Pep said she could not support moving forward “before we have a contract that I could read through and give a thumbs up or thumbs down.”

After public comment urging a focus on public safety and situational awareness, Trustee Jim Shirley moved to table the item until trustees had time to review a redline. The motion carried. The board asked counsel to attempt to produce updated contract language by Friday so the item could be considered at a special meeting on April 21 if members had adequate time to review the revisions.