From: Sarah Wilczewski <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 6, 2025 7:55 AM
To: Kevin Kildee <[email protected]>; David Tennessen <[email protected]>; Tony Trembley <[email protected]>; Susan Santangelo <[email protected]>; Martita Martinez-Bravo <[email protected]> Cc: City Manager Internet EMAIL Group <[email protected]>; City Clerk Internet EMAIL Group <[email protected]>
Subject: City Council Meeting 10/7/2025 Item G
Dead Mayor Kildee and members of the city council,
I am very concerned about Item G - “Approve the Lease of 25 Automated License Plate Readers (LPR) with Flock Group, Inc.” and respectfully ask that it be removed from the consent agenda and allow for public discussion of this item. I am not asking for you to make a decision either way on this item, simply allow the community to voice their opinions on this item. The consent agenda is for routine, non - controversial items.
Automated License Plate Readers are not routine or non-controversial. The American Civil Liberties Union has voiced their concerns about the use of the data gathered by Flock ALPR cameras. https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup The sharing of data from Flock cameras is also the subject of a lawsuit in El Cajon, California. https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-sues-el-cajon-illegally-sharing-license- plate-data-out
There is also a current congressional investigation into Flock over their surveillance practices. https://www.404media.co/congress-launches-investigation-into-flock-after-404-media-reporting/ So as you can see this is a controversial topic and discussion should be allowed. This proposal raises important questions about privacy, data sharing, oversight, and community trust. With how delicate the community trust is currently, it is more important than ever for issues of privacy and community trust to be carefully considered and for open discussion to be allowed.
By moving Item G to the regular agenda, the Council will:
1. Affirm its commitment to transparency and community engagement;
2. Allow residents to voice their views for the public record; and
3. Ensure Council Members’ deliberations and positions are included in the official minutes.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Sarah Wilczewski
City of Camarillo
Comments received by 3:00 p.m. for City
Council; 4:00 p.m. for Planning Commission
on the meeting date, will be distributed to all
Council/Board Members prior to the meeting.
Written comments received after the stated
time will be distributed after the meeting.
Monday, October 6, 2025 11:36 PMPUBLIC COMMENTS
NOTICE
This is a public document and will be posted as part of the public record. Any attachments, pictures, and information submitted will be subject to disclosure in accordance with applicable law, including the Public Records Act.
City Council / Camarillo Sanitary
District / Camarillo Library Board
Meeting Date
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Planning Commission Meeting Date
Agency City Council / Camarillo Sanitary District / Camarillo Library Board
Item Type Agenda Item
Item Number or Subject G) Approve the Lease of 25 Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) with Flock Group, Inc. (City)
Position Oppose
Comments Mayor Kildee, Vice Mayor Tennessen, Councilmember Trembley, Councilmember Dr. Martinez-Bravo, Councilmember
Santangelo,
I am Spencer Richey, a lifelong Camarillan who was born here and has never lived anywhere else, and I as your constituent am demanding that you move Item G, the one about approving the lease of 25 Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) with Flock Group, Inc., from the Consent Calendar to the Discussion Items in your upcoming Tuesday, October 7, 2025 City Council meeting.
I am demanding this because, as local taxpayers who'll be footing the bill on this, we Camarillans need to actually be able to give our own input on it as a City move during said upcoming October 7, 2025 City Council meeting because, as a serious city expenditure (renting 25 of these things is not going to come 1 cheap, not in the slightest) on very hardcore mass surveillance equipment whose input is not looked at with human eyes
(meaning, whatever mistakes the AI powering it makes are not going to be corrected) before it's entered into a massive nationwide (yes, nationwide) database and used by humans in making decisions this item really should not just be rubber- stamped into Camarillo's city budget without serious public debate beforehand for really quite a number of reasons.
First off, renting's never the economically smart thing to do for anything you're planning to keep longer than a few weeks or months, which seems to be implied by how Item G | renting the 25 ALPRs from Flock is written in the current October 7, 2025 meeting agenda, and it would honestly very much a downright foolish and very-wasteful-of-taxpayer-money decision on the City's part to keep paying rent to Flock Group, Inc. to keep these ALPRs instead of saving us money in the long-term by buying them outright.
Hasn't that been the City of Camarillo's guiding financial principle this whole time, saving its local taxpayers money? Surely, if the City's so concerned about safety on our streets (and that's another thing you definitely need to make clear, exactly what specific kinds of crime you think we need a full-on fleet of ALPRs to combat) we could instead go for more
traditional and way more affordable methods of monitoring street activity like closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) we bought outright whose footage would be entirely and only in the Camarillo Police Department's (CPD's)| Ventura County Sheriff's Office's (VCSO's) hands instead of being shared across literally the whole country?
You don't really want police in San Francisco, or Portland, Oregon of all places being able to see and at least theoretically involve themselves with footage taken here in Camarillo, do you?
Second off, don't you think renting a whopping 25 of these ALPRs is the tiniest bit of overkill for a city of only about 70,000 people across about 19.7 square miles such as Camarillo when the city that neighbors us to our west, Oxnard, seems to do just fine with 19 ALPRs for about 200,000 people-nearly three times our population-across about 39.1 square miles?
Most concerningly, third off, why does the City government even feel such a need to scan EVERY license plate that goes through Camarillo and send it off into a literally nationwide database (yes, despite what Flock will tell you it IS indeed a nationwide database that every single last one of their ALPRs is sending EVERYTHING they scan to) without the imagery even so much as being seen by a human before being sent off to be looked at by EVERY police force in the entire country that also serves a city with ALPRs?
2 Not only are there HUGE privacy concerns involved with sending ALL our license plate information to a huge nationwide
database that, of course, can get hacked and leaked online at ANY time, with there already having been at least TWO known instances of serious security flaws exposing tons of data collected by ALPRs, but, uh...are you not the SLIGHTEST bit concerned by law enforcement agencies across the whole
country having the ability to see what goes on in Camarillo via these ALPRs you're thinking of renting from Flock?
Like...you can't SERIOUSLY think EVERY single law enforcement in the country has good designs for our lovely little city, do you? Because, uh, they don't...we already have proof of ALPR- captured imagery being sent from states without abortion bans to states with abortion bans so those police forces can track down innocent people for the heinous crime of getting basic lifesaving healthcare for themselves and for their loved ones.
We also already have proof of ALPRs being abused by law enforcement agencies to stalk and harass the ex-partners of cops and people who pay off their local cops from ACROSS STATE LINES.
On top of that, being AI and NOT looked at by humans before it goes into the nationwide ALPR database, the imagery scanned by these ALPRs from Flock is often wrong, which HAS resulted in random innocent people having police guns pointed on them because the ALPRs and law enforcement agencies goofed on which vehicles were allegedly "stolen" ones.
ALPRs have also been heavily used to racially profile Black and brown communities across the US for at least a quarter-century now, with the first really notable usage of ALPRs being used as racial profiling tools being when Muslims who attended
mosques in the US started being tracked via ALPRs after 9/11.
Notably, ICE itself also looks at imagery from ALPRs all over the country as a way to better find people to kidnap for alleged crimes and illegal immigration (despite, y'know, there already being a huge proven track record of ICE kidnapping not only perfectly innocent people but also full-blown US citizens, including full-blown US citizens who were born here-George Retes, anyone?)...you DO know that this group includes tons and tons and tons of Camarillans, right?
Last time I checked about 27% Camarillans were Latin, another about 11% of Camarillans were Asian, and then a further about 2% of Camarillans were Black.
In total that's about 40%, 2 in 5 Camarillans, who you'd be putting in direct danger from ICE and other profoundly bad actors by installing these APLR monstrosities in our city.
Do you REALLY want to do that to a whole TWO IN FIVE of your 3 constituents?
Even if you DON'T care about the ability of abortion, etc. patients, people who've had to leave abusive partners, or non- white people to be able to pass through our city (and do things like shop at our Outlets) safely, simply having an expanded network of ALPRs will make it FAR easier for Trump's federal government and other bad actors to more effectively capture Camarillans for doing things they've MADE illegal.
You keep going on about how the Camarillo City government can't go against the federal government and that's why it can't do things like join the ACLU lawsuit or tell the VCSO to stop collaborating with ICE...well, no one's pointing a gun at your heads to force you to rent a whopping 25 of these stupidly strong mass-surveillance machines that excessively connect our license plate info with the rest of the country's.
Like, seriously, if people lose all sense of law and order here because we've given ICE, etc. the license plate scanned info they need to pluck Camarillans right off the street for, say, buying a book they've banned at Friends at the Library or whatever, then you're looking at people going, "welp, I'm gonna get screwed for this little newly-illegal thing I did entirely by accident anyway, might as well live a little and spray-paint a ginormous penis on a road sign that hangs over the 101 or shoplift to keep my family fed while I'm behind bars for who knows how long!" and WAY worse.
It's kind of like that whole Syndrome quote from the first Incredibles movie...if everything's illegal, then nothing is.
And, just to add insult to injury, less than half a percent of ALPR imagery ends up being relevant to any sort of crimefighting! All of what I just yammered on and on and on about are
examples of precisely how renting 25 Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) from Flock Group, Inc. would make Camarillo far LESS safe, not more, and thus EXACTLY why this huge expenditure needs to be moved to the discussion items in the upcoming October 7, 2025 City Council meeting so that we Camarillans can actually get what we're paying local taxes for and make our case against the City doing this.
Sincerely,
Spencer Richey
HIGHLY Concerned Lifelong Camarillan
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IDENTIFICATION
Name Spencer Richey
4 Address Camarillo, California, 93012
Telephone (424) 786-1247
Email [email protected]
Public Records Acknowledgement
5 City of Camarillo
Comments received by 3:00 p.m. for City
Council; 4:00 p.m. for Planning Commission
on the meeting date, will be distributed to all
Council/Board Members prior to the meeting.
Written comments received after the stated
time will be distributed after the meeting.
Sunday, October 5, 2025 02:13 PMPUBLIC COMMENTS
NOTICE
This is a public document and will be posted as part of the public record. Any attachments, pictures, and information submitted will be subject to disclosure in accordance with applicable law, including the Public Records Act.
City Council / Camarillo Sanitary
District / Camarillo Library Board
Meeting Date
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Planning Commission Meeting Date
Agency City Council / Camarillo Sanitary District / Camarillo Library Board
Item Type Agenda Item
Item Number or Subject G
Position Oppose
Comments October 5, 2025
Dear Mayor Kildee and Council Members Santangelo, Martinez- Bravo, Trembley, and Tennessen,
I am a retired resident of Camarillo. I have family members who have grown up and lived here for almost 30 years. As a curious, concerned, and generous resident, I am active in six different local groups for civic responsibility, supporting the arts, and caring for each other as neighbors. I make positive
contributions to community life in Camarillo.
The lease of Flock alprs, listed as item G on the upcoming consent agenda is risky, even reckless, if you consider the legal issues resulting from the use of their license plate readers for law enforcement in other municipalities. My impression of Camarillo’s City Council is that you make decisions carefully to protect the city from the possibility of lawsuits, and for many 1 other reasons. I hope you take a necessary cautious pause in this case.
We are a community that wants council members and our law enforcement agency to protect our safety and our privacy.
Especially now, you/we need to actively re-build trust between us and elected officials as well as our law enforcement agency, not make things worse. Ask people if they want their tax dollars to pay for more alprs. Don’t just put them on a consent agenda.
That does not feel trustworthy.
Take item G off the consent agenda.
Take time to understand the risks and liabilities to cities using Flock alprs and sharing data.
Give Camarillo residents a chance to discuss this suggested change that would more than double the existing license plate surveillance in our neighborhoods.
The serious problems with Flock data sharing have been
chronicled in other municipalities, including Sacramento, as recently as this past summer.
Please let me know when this item is removed from the consent agenda and becomes open to public comment.
Thank you,
Leslie Walsh
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Name Leslie Walsh
Address
Telephone
Email [email protected]
Public Records Acknowledgement
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