Sedona City Council tells staff to get Flock out of town – Sedona Red Rock News
The Sedona City Council made the unanimous decision to cancel its contract with Flock Safety and to remove the currently installed 11 automated license plate readers during its meeting Tuesday, Sept. 9.
“This underscores the importance of independent media in a democracy. As much as I infrequently agree with [Sedona] Red Rock News, and I think the language that they used in this was hyperbolic, they are the ones that brought it up and forced it to the forefront and made sure the public was aware of it,” Councilman Derek Pfaff said from the dais following the vote. “[This] illustrates the importance that we have media that’s independent and is not subject to the political pressure. So that these kinds of things can come out.”
The majority consensus of the council during its Aug. 13 work session to direct the Sedona Police Department to indefinitely turn off ALPRs and pause the program. Council also directed staff to provide a timeline of the city’s internal discussions on the installation of ALPRs, which had been implemented without council direction, and to develop a plan for forming a citizen work group that would recommend policies for the pilot ALPR program proposed by SPD.
The council was scheduled to discuss the possible formation of a citizen work group, but staff first asked whether they wanted to continue using the ALPRs before moving forward.
Council Comments
“At this point in our history, the only way for us to make sure that data is not broadly shared or abused is to not have any,” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn said. “So therefore, I agree. We need to cancel the contract. We need to remove the cameras.”
Speaking last, Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow reversed his position from the Aug. 13 meeting when he was the lone dissenting voice wanting to move forward with ALPRs.
“I have since learned more about the overwhelming behind the scenes data sharing that was not disclosed to [SPD] or the council during the last meeting,” Jablow said from the dais, reading a written statement. “I now have very serious concerns. We’ve seen how data from these cameras can be accessed by federal agencies in ways I wasn’t aware of and ways that our community is strongly opposed to … I have listened to your concerns, I read many of the emails — actually every single email — and reflected on the broader implications. Because of that, I am totally opposed to moving forward with the [ALPR] program in Sedona. I believe it is in our community’s best interest to remove these cameras totally and to ensure that both our values and our residents’ privacy are respected.”
Jablow cited his law enforcement career — he worked for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey — as to why ALPRs could be a benefit to the community. He added the he “had researched many positive examples where these tools were used responsibly to address the serious public safety concerns.”
However, Jablow had directed SPD Patrol Cmdr. Chris Dowell, while he was acting chief while Police Chief Stephanie Foley was out of town, “to find positive news stories to help support the public narrative,” immediately following the NEWS breaking the story June 20 that Sedona’s ALPRs were installed in June without direction from the council.
Both Spickard and Foley have cited Jablow as providing the sole direction to staff for the ALPR installation.
“This whole topic did [begin] for us by a handful of people who viewed these license plate readers as a modern policing tool, and I think sadly, they missed the public policy implications that normally require community engagement and a more deeper council conversation about it,” Councilman Pete Furman said. “For me to be specific, that policy issue at hand is the shift from traditional policing tools, where we focus on the bad guys, to starting to gather and store data on innocent people who were never suspected of anything.”
However, Furman added that he views ALPR as not falling under the definition of mass surveillance.
“I feel for our city manager, who actually took a lot of heat on this that was completely inappropriate,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said.
“[Spickard] took a lot of heat, absolutely inappropriate,” Jablow concurred. “Again, I apologize. I apologized two weeks ago, and I apologize again.”
Jablow’s Aug. 26 apology was for what he admitted was his failure to control the vocal crowd of about 50 residents at the work session, who were almost unanimously opposed to ALPRs. Despite that, the mayor has never acknowledged Spickard or Foley’s letters during any meeting.
Other Jurisdictions
Langley announced Flock was pausing its federal pilot programs.
Flock Not ‘Honorable’
Kinsella said the federal government using ALPR data to combat trafficking and the drug trade are “fine goals, [but] that was completely contrary to information that was provided to us in questions [from Chandler] … I am very disappointed in this company as a potential vendor to the city of Sedona. I am not supportive of continuing with going down the road to look into this. … The time is right at all with the data security issues.”
“I’m in 100% agreement,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog said. “A company that tells us on Aug. 13 that there’s no data-sharing going on, I swear, and [later] admits that it’s been going on, is not a company that we can do business with, and they’re not, in my opinion, an honorable company.
“So I would like to cancel the contract [and] remove all the cameras.”
Ploog also said the $1.2 million contract with Axon Enterprise council approved during its Aug. 26 meeting included among its purchases patrol car cameras. While those new pieces of equipment have ALPR capability, that functionally will not be turned on.
“Those [patrol car] cameras are not additional surveillance cameras,” Ploog said. “Those cameras are a law enforcement tool to provide a record of what happens at a stop, and they will not be connected to anything other than used for our own purposes.”
“Certainly, since the meeting that we had here, the Flock representative, as it would seem, was not as forthcoming, informed whatever it may be about what was really going on between the company, federal government,” Councilman Brian Fultz said. “I’m not comfortable with proceeding any further. I echo what my colleagues have already said, we should shut this thing down, cancel the contract and get the cameras out.”
“I received better data, better information, and I’m man enough to say I made a mistake. I’m not going to sit on principle, just because this is what I said in August,” Jablow said about his position update. “My intention is to protect our community, and that’s a tool that I was under the impression was protecting our community. Unfortunately, the data that I had was wrong.”
Spickard said staff hasn’t had any discussion about seeking legal means for the city to be compensated for the purchase and installation of the existing Flock cameras, considering council’s position they were given inaccurate information.
City Attorney Kurt Christianson following the meeting said he was going to give Flock notification of the cancellation of the contract the following day. He did not have a timeline for the removal of the cameras.
*Editor’s note: this story has been updated to properly attribute a quote.