Coralville to remove license plate reader cameras

CORALVILLE — The Coralville City Council voted 3-1 in favor of canceling its contract with Flock Safety and removing the city’s automatic license plate reader cameras in the next few days.

Earlier this month, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office flagged the city’s policy that limited the use of the cameras for immigration enforcement. Instead of amending the policy to address the Attorney General’s Office complaint and comply with state law, the city plans to remove the cameras entirely.

The issue has been controversial since last year when the council approved a budget that provided money to buy the cameras. Since then, some Coralville residents have continued to express concerns to the council about privacy and the use of data collected by the cameras.

While the city has voted to remove the cameras, Coralville remains financially liable for the remainder of the contract period. The full Flock contract is for $36,000 over the course of two fiscal years and is set to expire in July 2027.

Council members Hai Huynh, Mike Knudsen and Katie Freeman voted in favor of the contract cancellation, while Rich Vogelzang voted against it. Council member Royce Peterson was absent.

The cameras are designed to give law enforcement agencies alerts when a vehicle identified through an Amber or a Silver alert — issued to help authorities find missing children and adults — is detected. The cameras also save license plate numbers and other information about vehicles that pass by, running that information through a database of arrest warrants and missing vehicle reports.

The cameras are not traffic enforcement devices and cannot issue red-light or speed violations. However, the cameras may report a violation in order to dispatch an officer, or the information they collect may be shared with another jurisdiction, something community members expressed concerns about.

Flock Safety has said its cameras are meant to capture only license plates and vehicle characteristics — not photos of the occupants. The cameras also capture the make and model of vehicles, as well as dents or bumper stickers on the rear of the vehicle

Council disagrees over majority community opinion on cameras

Coralville council members, in a 3-2 vote in September, narrowly approved a use policy that allowed for camera implementation. Since the policy was approved, the makeup of council has changed and the city has a new mayor.

Four council members — Freeman, Peterson, Huynh and Knudsen — asked for the issue to be brought back to council for another vote.

Huynh and Knudsen voted against implementation of the cameras last year, while Peterson, Vogelzang and now-mayor Laurie Goodrich voted in favor.

Peterson, who was absent from Tuesday’s meeting, said at an earlier meeting that his thoughts on the matter had changed and that he no longer approved of the cameras.

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Vogelzang, who voted against canceling the Flock contract, said the cancellation would “only accomplish one thing. … (It) will take away a tool that can assist area law enforcement agencies in helping finding missing persons … to assist in investigations of crimes, including crimes of human trafficking.”

“Cancellation of our Flock count safety contract is, in fact, a failure to provide safety benefits for the greater good of our community and to the majority of our community,” Vogelzang said during the Tuesday night council meeting.

Knudsen agreed there are mixed opinions about Flock cameras and noted apprehension about the cameras was expressed by community members with various political affiliations.

Huynh and Freeman denied Vogelzang’s claims that a silent majority support using the cameras.

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“By supporting the cancellation of this contract does not mean that we don't support our police department,” Huynh said. “I want to stress that I respect and appreciate the work that our police department and our officers do every day. They put their life on the line every day for our community safety. I don't discount that, but voting against a technology does not mean that we don't support them, so please don't twist it that way.”

Former policy raised concerns from Attorney General’s office

The camera issue was brought back to the council because of the Iowa Attorney General’s Office complaint over the camera use policy. By removing the cameras entirely, which also rescinds the use policy, city staff said the Attorney’s General’s Office complaint has been addressed.

The former policy stated the camera system cannot be used solely based on “a person's race, gender, religion, political affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, any other classification protected by law, for the purpose of or known effect of infringing on First Amendment rights.”

The Attorney General’s Office complaint said the policy violated state law — Section 427.4.1(d) from policy 427 — when the policy stated Flock cameras may not be used “solely for immigration purposes.”

In a letter to the Coralville City Council, Solicitor General Eric Wessman wrote that removal of that section would “resolve the pending complaint in full.”

Comments: megan.woolard@thegazette.com

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