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Residents urge public hearing on 'Flock' license-plate cameras; commissioners say sheriff applied for grant
Summary
Several residents urged the Knox County commissioners to hold a public hearing before adopting a license-plate reader program. Commissioners and staff said the sheriff applied for the grant and that, as an elected official, the sheriff controls his office's decisions; county authority to block a sheriff-funded grant is limited unless county dollars are required.
Members of the public used the July 30 meeting's comment period to press for transparency and limits on license-plate reader technology often described in the record as 'Flock' cameras. Kat Keen of Mount Vernon said the county should hold an open public discussion before approving deployment, citing privacy concerns: "I just think that with this kind of, potential privacy invasion, it should be open to public discussion before the county commissioners go ahead and approve something like this," she said.
Commissioners and county staff responded by clarifying roles and funding. The chair stated, "So just for clarity, we haven't had any executive sessions about flock cameras," and staff explained that the sheriff, as an elected official, applied for the grant. County staff and commissioners said that if the sheriff is the grantee and grant funds are not coming from the county general fund, the commissioners would have limited ability to prevent deployment, though the commissioners could decline to fund the sheriff from county dollars. A resident who identified as Shalmood urged additional guardrails and transparency — including publishing audit logs that show what outside agencies searched the data — and asked for public hearings and local limits on statewide or national lookups.
