After an hour and a half of public comment — almost all in opposition to Flock — and another hour of comments and questions from the council, Councilmember Austin Aslan made a motion to cancel the contract. Anthony Garcia seconded the motion, and city council voted unanimously in favor of cancellation.
In a press release issued before the council had even adjourned, the city stated that the Flagstaff Police Department “has deactivated the system immediately and will work with Flock on the removal of the cameras currently included in the City of Flagstaff’s contract.”
The decision came as a surprise to at least some members of city council themselves.
“This is not the way I expected this to go,” Garcia noted, after enough members of city council had stated their intention that the outcome was clear.
And Brendan Trachsel, who has lobbied the council to cancel the Flock contract for the past nine months, said after the vote that he was “shocked.”
The vote brings an end to the city’s contractual relationship with Flock after months of postponement, public discussion and attempts to create guardrails for use of the company’s cameras. Still, multiple members of the council indicated that they would be open to reconsidering the use of license plate readers in the future if some of the legal uncertainties around the technology can be resolved.
“I think we need to cancel the contract at this time,” Mayor Becky Daggett said just before the formal vote. “I’m not saying no to the technology forever.”
Since the Flagstaff City Council last discussed Flock on Oct. 28, more unflattering reports about the company’s hardware and software have emerged. Those included a cybersecurity researcher’s list of dozens of security flaws in Flock products; a lengthy YouTube video further detailing Flock cameras’ vulnerability to multiple modes of hacking; and the news that Flock’s artificial intelligence models depend upon contractors in other countries manually annotating camera footage.
Alongside these reports, a court case in Washington threw a new wrench of legal uncertainty into Flock’s operations. Judge Elizabeth Niedzwski of the Skagit County Superior Court ruled in November that footage recorded by any Flock cameras leased to a government body is a public record and is therefore subject to the same retention and disclosure requirements as other public records. Multiple law enforcement agencies suspended their Flock programs after that ruling.
The Washington decision is not directly applicable in Arizona. But if the Arizona courts were to follow Niedzwski’s lead, municipalities might lose the option to set their own retention periods. In that scenario, Flagstaff’s recent decision to retain Flock data for only 14 days could be negated by preexisting state records law — a theoretical possibility numerous commenters brought up before the council Tuesday evening.
Attempts to request Flock data through public records procedures have met with mixed responses in Arizona so far. The Arizona Republic reported that such requests were fulfilled in Goodyear and Prescott Valley, but denied in Surprise. Marianne Sullivan, assistant city attorney and legal advisor to the Flagstaff Police Department, said Tuesday the department will not release any Flock footage that has not been included in a criminal investigation.
Against that backdrop of new revelations and ongoing litigation, the Flagstaff City Council finally tackled the decision it had been postponing since a citizen petition challenged the Flock contract renewal in September.
Deputy Chief Collin Seay of the Flagstaff Police Department (FPD) opened the discussion by reviewing the timeline of the department’s adoption of Flock cameras and the changes made in recent months. Seay noted that the department has removed itself from Flock’s national search tool, halved the retention time for footage, and restricted data sharing to just the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office and the Northern Arizona University Police Department.
(For comparison, when the Arizona Daily Sun first spoke to police about their Flock sharing in July, the department was participating in the national look-up program and had data-sharing agreements with 146 law enforcement agencies.)
Seay also emphasized that since FPD began using Flock cameras in October 2024, there have been no documented instances of misuse by the department’s officers.
Similar to prior city council meetings on the subject, many of the commenters who followed expressed their respect or support for Flagstaff’s police while also urging the council to terminate the contract.
Of the 35 commenters who spoke in person or online, 31 opposed the continued use of Flock cameras. Three spoke in favor of the cameras, and one person said they were not expressing an opinion — though they proceeded to list their concerns about Flock’s systems.
The few commenters who supported renewing the Flock contract said the technology was an important tool for providing justice to victims of crime, a position FPD has held since the cameras were first installed. But they were vastly outnumbered by the commenters who cast the technology as an intrusive form of surveillance, as an infringement upon civil liberties or — citing the Washington court case — as a potential public records snafu for the city.
And when the councilmembers began to state their positions, it gradually became clear that the outpouring of public opinion over the past months had swayed several of them.
Khara House, speaking first, said the Flock contract was “clearly a topic of great importance to our community.” And she noted a concern of her own: a statement from the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, saying Flock had reinstalled new cameras after the city ordered them removed.
Though House emphasized her appreciation for the police department, she said she could not support renewing the contract.
“I just believe that at this time ... we need to allow policies and practices and documented rules and understandings of this technology to catch up before we march across the line to full adoption,” House said.
Aslan, who was the sole councilmember to oppose Flock when the council held its discussion in September, reiterated his earlier position. “I’ll get right to it here,” Aslan said. “I think this has been a long, fruitful conversation. ... My final vote on the Flock contract renewal is going to be the same as my last two recommendations."
Lori Matthews, who has consistently expressed support for FPD’s use of Flock cameras, said (as she did in September) some of the commenters were repeating misinformation. She did not specify what statements she believed to be incorrect.
Matthews went on to say that some proponents of the technology had not spoken up because of fear of “cyberbullying” or “retaliation.” She said she would be in favor of renewing the contract, so long as there were provisions for “transparency ... and strict oversight.”
But she was the only councilmember who showed support for renewing the contract. And as the discussion on the dais continued, the vote eventually became almost a foregone conclusion.
Garcia, who previously joined Aslan in opposition to Flock in October, said he had been contacted by more people on the subject than on any other city council matter. Comments in opposition had outweighed support by roughly 10 to one, he added.
Though he praised FPD’s willingness to compromise and acknowledged that he was “not 100% sold on either side of the issue,” he said he would vote in accordance with what he’d heard from the community at large.
Next, Vice Mayor Miranda Sweet said she had too many unanswered questions about Flock to approve the contract.
“This is by far the most difficult decision I have made in my five years being on council, and I do not take it lightly,” she noted.
Then David Spence said he, too, would vote no, citing the unresolved public records law question as one of his major concerns.
Matthews jumped in to modify her previous position.
“As much as I support moving forward, I’ve heard the community, and I would like to hear some more answers and address some of the concerns and correct some of the misguided information, and come back when we have more community support,” she said.
Garcia echoed Matthews’ prior statements about misinformation. He encouraged opponents of Flock to continue engaging with the city’s processes — and to keep an open mind.
Flagstaff Mayor Becky Daggett speaks before the vote on the renewal of the Flock Safety contract on Tuesday during a Flagstaff City Council meeting.
Finally, Mayor Becky Daggett spoke. “I’ve heard a range of perspectives, from support of the technology as a law enforcement tool to adamantly opposed,” she said. She expressed gratitude — as did other councilmembers — to the city’s legal and information technology staff for their research and input.
And she reiterated the council’s support for the Flagstaff police: “Chief [Sean] Connolly, deputy chiefs and women and men of the Flagstaff Police Department, you have my deep respect,” Daggett said. Still, she said she could not support a continued contract with Flock.
Despite Matthews’ earlier statements in support of Flock, she joined others in unanimously approving Aslan’s motion to cancel the contract.
In September of this year, Flock CEO Garrett Langley compared critics of his company’s technology to terrorists and said their “only motivation is chaos.” One of the commenters on Tuesday night pushed back on Langley’s words: “Is it chaos to want checks and balances?” she asked.
And in the end, there was nothing chaotic about the conversation or the vote. Garcia said as much.
“This is what democracy looks like when it’s done right,” he said.
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