AGENDA CORRESPONDENCE
RECEIVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR
PUBLIC REVIEW PRIOR TO THE
MEETING
AGENDA NO: 6d
MEETING DATE: October 13, 2026
AGENDA CORRESPONDENCE
RECEIVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR
PUBLIC REVIEW PRIOR TO THE
MEETING
AGENDA NO: 6e
MEETING DATE: October 13, 2026
AGENDA CORRESPONDENCE
RECEIVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR
PUBLIC REVIEW PRIOR TO THE
MEETING
AGENDA NO: 8a
MEETING DATE: October 13, 2026
1 Heather Goodwin
From: VJ Baggett
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2026 8:33 PM
To: Council
Subject: Roads Need Help
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Please consider spending more money on our roads. They are not at all good! For the good of everyone who lives here and our visitors, please repair all of our roads! Thank you!
Vickie BaggeƩ
2 The bottom line is that after this year's project, the city will need to locate another $9M for the 2028/2029 pavement project, and that is just to keep us at an undesirable score of 58. Best I can determine, the long-range budgets have nothing for paving or other capital projects in subsequent years.
At the August 5, 2026 SLOCOG meeting, the pavement conditions across the county were covered.
Morro Bay's PCI was around the middle of the cities listed, with some coastal cities performing very well (i.e. Pismo with a score of 78!). The funding required is likely daunting for all cities, and while misery loves company- Morro Bay is the one city showing a consistent worsening trend over a multi-year period. Most cities are showing year-over-year improvements. See attachments.
Here are my questions:
1) Do you agree with your consultants' recommendation that maintaining the current condition of our paving requires $4.5M per year? If not, what other information do you have? 2) Are you comfortable with allowing Morro Bay's pavement condition to continue this steady decline? If so, how do you propose to set those expectations with the residents? 3) If you agree that more funding is needed, what is your plan to achieve that in the upcoming budget cycles? Especially considering the $4.5-$13M now planned for the Morro Elementary site, also not reflected in existing budgets projections.
4) In the SLOCOG materials, Morro Bay is listed as having a target PCI of 70, which would require over $8M per year. Where would that come from?
5) When we say we have "one-time funds from sales of real estate" available for other new real estate purchases, why are we not giving our existing assets and infrastructure what they require first, before taking on new liabilities and burdens that have no articulated return on investment?
Thank you for your work on this. I believe we all share a desire for an improved Morro Bay; I am just not clear how we get there with this budget situation.
Regards,
Courtney Shepler
F-2-2
Figure 1: 2027 RTP Performance Measures
F-2-6
single-family homes and large apartment buildings. It is defined in this analysis as multi-family units that are low to medium density. Land uses that were prioritized for spreading growth for this scenario include low density residential (4-8 du/ac), medium density residential attached (8-12 du/ac), med-high density residential attached (12-16 du/ac), and mixed use. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are also considered to be “Missing Middle” housing for the SLO region. ADUs are also considered to be “Missing Middle” in this analysis.
Pros:
• Supports a higher intensity infill within TEA areas
• Emphasis on increasing diversity of housing types
Cons:
• Recent studies show that this type of housing is difficult/expensive to accomplish in our region. • Does not always align with general plans (increased density).
Scenario C: Everyday Places
Prioritizes growth in areas of highly concentrated trips on a typical day (Thursday, Fall 2025). Everyday places are defined in this analysis as destinations that are more commonly visited by residents on a typical day.
Replica data was used to filter the highest Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ) trip generators and allocate housing within ½ mile. Trip purposes examined in this analysis include dining, errands, recreation, school, shopping, work, and other.
Pros:
• Utilizes access to large new data source
• Emphasis on destinations (including all population types).
Cons:
• Everyday places may change depending on travel behavior • Large geography of inputs (Replica data)
• Not all units fit within intended growth area
7 th Cycle RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation)
Our region is required to plan for new units determined by the Housing and Community Development Department (HCD) in the 7th Cycle RHNA. As of May 15th, 2026, this allocation is 15,284 new units between 2028 to 2037 (8-year cycle). This is a significant increase from Cycle 6 and will require allocating more households in the land use model than recent household projections for 2035. Therefore, it is expected that population will also increase in the model beyond previously projected numbers.
Jobs/Housing Balance
Subregional jobs/housing balance was identified as a key component of allocating new employment and households in the region in the last two RTP/SCS cycles. It will be incorporated regardless of scenario selection. For preliminary scenario testing, jobs/housing balances were kept close to 2023 SCS ratios, resulting in a regionwide jobs/housing balance of 1.1 job per housing unit.
Initial Modeling Results
Over four model runs were tested in the land use and travel models for each scenario (28 total travel model runs). The most recent results are within 1-2% GHG reduction of each other and are on track to meet a 11% reduction by 2035. SLOCOG staff recommends selecting Scenario A, the Transportation Efficiency Analysis Scenario, to refine and improve for the 2035 “Preferred Growth Scenario”. Scenario A is consistent with the recently approved 2023 SCS, provides a realistic level of infill, accommodates the draft Cycle 7 RHNA allocation, and aligns closely with other RTP elements. Figure 8 compares the results of the three scenarios.
AGENDA CORRESPONDENCE
RECEIVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR
PUBLIC REVIEW PRIOR TO THE
MEETING
AGENDA NO: 8a, 8c, 8d
MEETING DATE: October 13, 2026
2 The City is struggling to fund the maintenance of its existing assets. Why, then, should it take on another major property investment with potentially substantial ongoing costs? Purchasing property is not a one-time expense in any meaningful sense. Beyond the purchase price, a new municipal facility can require renovations, accessibility improvements, utilities, insurance, staffing, and long-term maintenance. Before making this commitment, the Council owes residents a transparent explanation of how these costs would be funded without further sacrificing road maintenance and other essential services.
One-Time Money Should Address Existing Obligations Before Creating New Ones When a city is facing substantial infrastructure deficiencies, every major expenditure must be evaluated against the needs that are already going unmet. Funds from the sale of surplus property, or other available one-time funding sources, should be carefully evaluated for their potential to address existing capital needs before being committed to another property acquisition.
The City is already falling short of the funding needed to maintain its streets. It is unreasonable to consider a significant new purchase without first explaining how the City will close that gap in the coming years.
Road deterioration does not become less expensive because it is postponed. Deferred maintenance can turn manageable repairs into substantially more expensive reconstruction projects, leaving future residents to pay more for decisions made today.
Fiscal responsibility means recognizing these obligations before committing public funds elsewhere. It means maintaining the assets residents already depend on rather than expanding the City's property holdings while existing infrastructure continues to deteriorate.
If We Are Going to Purchase This Property, It Should Address Morro Bay’s Housing Crisis Morro Bay has a legitimate need for housing that working residents can afford. Teachers, service workers, young families, and other members of our community should have a realistic opportunity to live in the city where they work rather than being forced to commute from other communities.
Morro Bay is not just a retirement destination. It is a community that needs to remain accessible to people across generations and income levels.
If the City is going to invest millions of dollars in the SLCUSD property, affordable housing should be the priority. Any proposed acquisition should include a clear, realistic plan for delivering a tangible public benefit that addresses a demonstrated community need.
Preserving the property for future civic use or pursuing a new City Hall may have some appeal, but those goals must be weighed against the City's immediate financial obligations. A new municipal building should not take precedence over the basic infrastructure that residents and visitors use every day.
The City Council Must Answer Some Fundamental Questions Before approving this purchase, I urge the Council to provide clear answers to the following questions:
3 How will Morro Bay fund the approximately $4.5 million needed annually just to maintain its current pavement condition?
Why was approximately $600,000 cut from the paving budget when the City is already struggling to maintain its streets?
What is the City's specific plan to fund pavement maintenance in future years when current projections show no dedicated paving allocations?
What are the full acquisition, renovation, operating, staffing, and long-term maintenance costs associated with purchasing and developing the SLCUSD property? How will the City pay for this acquisition without further compromising road maintenance and other essential services?
What concrete commitments would ensure that purchasing this property addresses affordable housing needs rather than simply expanding the City's real estate holdings? Residents deserve answers to these questions before the City commits public funds to a major new project.
Please Prioritize the Needs of Morro Bay Residents
Morro Bay's streets and roads are essential public infrastructure, not optional improvements to be funded only when money is left over. The declining pavement condition is evidence that the City has not been allocating sufficient resources to maintain its existing assets. Meanwhile, future budgets offer no clear path toward resolving this problem.
The Council must demonstrate that it can responsibly manage the infrastructure and facilities it already owns before committing to additional property and the financial obligations that come with it.
I urge the City Council to vote against the SLCUSD property purchase as currently proposed. If the City cannot demonstrate that it can afford this acquisition while meeting its existing infrastructure obligations, the purchase should not move forward. If the property is to be acquired, affordable housing—not a new City Hall—should be the primary justification.
Morro Bay residents deserve a city that invests in the fundamentals: safe streets, maintained public infrastructure, responsible budgeting, and housing that allows working people to remain part of this community. Those priorities should come before another major property purchase.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Morro Bay Resident
Make my opening more specificShorten this email for councilmembers
AGENDA CORRESPONDENCE
RECEIVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR
PUBLIC REVIEW PRIOR TO THE
MEETING
AGENDA NO: 8b
MEETING DATE: October 13, 2026
1 Heather Goodwin
From: Jon Bruckner
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2026 5:10 PM
To: Council
Subject: Flock Cameras and similar technology deployments [Some people who received this message don't oŌen get email from Learn why this is important at hƩps://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdenƟficaƟon ] CAUTION: This is an external email. Please take care when clicking links or opening aƩachments.
The Honorable City Council Members et al. of the City of Morro Bay Morro Bay, CA 93442
Dear City Council Members:
I am wriƟng you to ask for your support and acƟon in terminaƟng the contract with Motorola for the exisƟng ALPR cameras mounted throughout the city and upon adjacent roads as well as their removal.
I am also asking that no further such technologies be deployed in their stead moving forward as I, along with many of my fellow ciƟzens, feel the technology to be a breach of our freedoms enshrined in the consƟtuƟon.
Morro Bay is an outstanding place to live, let's please keep it that way and remove this shadow of unnecessary surveillance that plagues other parts the country before it's too late.
Perhaps we should even consider and
ordinance against the future deployment of such technologies here in our small town, where it is not needed.
Thank you for your help and consideraƟon.
Sincerely,
Jon W. Bruckner
ConsƟtuent, Homeowner, Concerned CiƟzen.
Morro Bay, CA
2 ALPR program when the current lease expires in January 2028. In either case, the leased cameras can be taken down and returned to the lessor.
Source: 1/10/23 Council Agenda Item C-3 (staff
report) https://www.morrobayca.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/6049 Respectfully,
Sean Green
Morro Bay, CA
2 Hold a public discussion before considering any future surveillance technology.
Please choose a public safety approach that respects the rights and trust of everyone who lives in, works in, and visits Morro Bay. The community deserves safety without routine tracking of its movements.
Additionally, if it would be helpful, I am available to meet with the council for further digital literacy education on ALPR and other surveillance technologies. Otherwise, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has some great resources on the subject.
Thank you for your consideration on this important issue.
Warmly,
Clara Fulks
CEO & Founder | North Star Strategies
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
clara @ northstarstrat.com
+1 (805) 801-5792
1 Heather Goodwin
From: Helene Dinsmoor
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2026 4:14 PM
To: Council
Subject: Re: ALPR
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Dear Mayor Wixom and Council Members,
I recently learned that there are 10 ALPR cameras in Morro Bay. I had never heard of these unƟl they were on the news because of the recent Senate hearings. As a longƟme resident, I am very concerned that Morro Bay is parƟcipaƟng, and it seems like this is about companies making a profit. It also seems clear that our privacy and rights are being violated, and without guardrails in place, this puts us all at risk. I am hopeful that the council will do their research and consider this carefully. I have been a resident of Morro Bay since 1979 and I am in favor of abandoning this contract as soon as possible.
Respecƞully,
Helene Dinsmoor
1 Heather Goodwin
From: Noel Fie
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2026 3:46 PM
To: Council
Subject: Public comment for license plate readers
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To City Council,
I think the removal of the license plate reader equipment should be considered. As a law abiding ciƟzen of Morro Bay and Homeowner, I don’t want our tax paying money to pay for these license plate readers especially when we haven’t seen the data from them. Have audits occurred? What are the actual evidence based benefits of this equipment? 10 license plate readers in our small town is a lot and where is this private data going? I can’t aƩend tomorrow’s City Council meeƟng but I wanted to send my public comment and opinion and ask that City Council present the data or answers to our quesƟons and show that these cameras are beneficial to our small community. Thank you.
Best Regards,
Noël
2 1
September 2, 2026
Greg Brown
Chief Executive Officer
Motorola Solutions
500 W. Monroe St, Suite 4400
Chicago, IL 60661
Dear Mr. Brown:
As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, I am investigating your company’s collection, retention, and dissemination of the data generated by its artificial intelligence surveillance cameras.
On August 26th, I wrote to your competitor Flock Safety to express my concerns regarding the size and pervasiveness of its network and demanding answers as to reports of abuse and costly errors from its technology. However, Flock does not stand alone in this industry; you and others are building large camera networks, assisted by artificial intelligence, that intrude on the privacy of all Americans.
Taking Flock alone, in a few short years, Flock has assembled an unprecedented national surveillance network. Flock boasts more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states and more than 20 billion vehicle scans every month.1 The overwhelming majority of the Americans captured in those records did nothing wrong.
Instead of serving discrete local investigations, as contemplated by our constitutional processes and safeguards, these camera networks harness artificial intelligence to pool what they capture into a national database that customers can search.2
Recent examples of abuse and misuse of personal data reveal the woeful lack of safeguards in these systems.
Last month in Missouri, the St. Charles County Police Department terminated its contract with Flock after an audit revealed that a civilian employee had run Flock searches for personal reasons, completely unrelated to his or her law enforcement duties.
3 Sadly, my home state is not an outlier. In Milwaukee, prosecutors charged a police officer who allegedly used Flock to search his girlfriend’s license plate 124 times and her former boyfriend’s plate 55 times, entering “investigation” as his justification each time. Worse still, the officer was not caught by Flock’s audit systems—he was caught because a private citizen looked up his own plate on a public website.4
Errors and false positives add insult to injury. A Florida woman spent 13 days in jail and faced eight felony counts, including three counts of vehicular homicide, after investigators arrested an owner based on their search of Flock’s network for a vehicle description. Prosecutors dismissed the charges seven months later when law enforcement discovered the error and arrested a different person. 5 One California police
department found that a staggering 71% of Flock alerts were wrong, and the Los Angeles Police Department 1 https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/the-price-of-free-lpr 2 https://www.wired.com/story/flock-safety-os-investigate/ 3 https://www.kcur.org/news/2026-08-23/flock-cameras-misuse-missouri-st-charles-county-police 4 https://reason.com/2026/08/13/flock-cameras-and-license-plate-readers-are-everywhere-can-we-trust-cops-with-them/ 5 https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/florida-woman-spent-13-days-170100471.html 2 dropped its Flock contract after an audit showed officers had stopped 161 vehicles incorrectly flagged as stolen in the space of two months.6
Furthermore, once cameras collect driver data, uncertainty abounds in how your company and its customers can sell or use data. The multi-billion-dollar valuations that are common among your peer companies come with enormous pressure to find new commercial applications. Americans demand a full accounting of how their driver data is stored or sold.
To be sure, I want law enforcement to have tools to catch offenders and keep the public safe. But the surveillance network your company has constructed raises legitimate concerns about how little-known corporations possess intimate knowledge of Americans’ lives, fueled by invasive artificial intelligence algorithms. The Supreme Court recognizes that a comprehensive, retrospective record of a person’s movements is different in kind from ordinary observation in public, 7 and Congress never authorized the
network your industry has built. Your company’s internal policies are, in practice, the only safeguards for hundreds of millions of Americans. People across the country are now discovering that fact and demanding answers from their elected officials.
The American people want to know who has access to their personal data and how. This investigation will seek those answers. To facilitate that, please produce all documents and information specified in the attached annex no later than September 16, 2026. If you have questions about the scope of these requests, please contact my office to discuss.
Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
Chairman
Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism
Committee on the Judiciary
6 https://reason.com/2026/08/13/flock-cameras-and-license-plate-readers-are-everywhere-can-we-trust-cops-with-them/ 7 See Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296, 309-10 (2018). 3 ANNEX
DEFINITIONS
1. “Document” means any recorded information in any format, medium, or form, whether written, printed, typed, electronically stored, photographed, filmed, or otherwise preserved, including:
emails, text messages, ephemeral messages (e.g., Signal, Telegram, etc.), Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, any internal messaging platform, instant messages, source code, application logs, moderation logs, user-report records, dashboards, slide presentations, spreadsheets, financial models, board minutes, board packages, audit reports, legal memoranda, contracts, agreements, regulatory correspondence, engineering specifications, product roadmaps, and design documents, in final and draft form, wherever they may be.
2. “Company” means Motorola Solutions, Inc., d/b/a Motorola Solutions, together with each of its predecessors, successors, parents, subsidiaries, divisions, affiliates, joint ventures, and any entity in which it holds a controlling interest, whether foreign or domestic; each of its present and former officers, directors, employees, contractors, consultants, agents, attorneys, and representatives acting on its behalf; each entity operating under a trade name or product name used by the Company; and any other person or entity acting for or on behalf of any of these entities. Where a request concerns documents or information in the Company’s possession, custody, or control, that phrase includes documents and information held by any third party from which the Company has the practical ability to obtain them, including cloud service providers and any entity that hosts, processes, or stores data on the Company’s behalf.
3. “Relevant Period” means January 1, 2021, through the present, unless a specific request states otherwise.
INTERROGATORIES
Please answer each of the following in writing. If your company declines to answer any question in whole or in part, state the basis for that refusal. If your company lacks information sufficient to answer, describe the efforts undertaken to obtain it.
1. State the parameters under which your customers can conduct a statewide or nationwide search of vehicle or driver data, as well as whether those features are enabled by default.
2. State the default retention period for each category of data your company collects, and identify every change to that default since January 1, 2021, including the date of each change and the reason for it. State the maximum period a customer may select, whether your company’s approval is required to exceed the default, and how many customers currently retain data beyond the default.
3. State the total number of confirmed instances of misuse of your company’s systems or data known to your company, by year, since January 1, 2021. For each, state whether the misuse was first identified by your company’s own monitoring, by the customer, or by a third party.
4. Describe what a user must enter to justify a search. State whether that entry is validated against any external record, whether a supervisor must approve it, and whether a search proceeds if the field is left blank or filled with generic text such as “investigation.” 4 5. Describe every restriction your company imposes on the purposes for which its systems may be searched. State whether your company has assessed whether those restrictions can be circumvented and, if so, the result of that assessment.
6. State your company’s measured accuracy at the level of a complete and correctly attributed vehicle identification. Identify the testing that produced that figure and state the rate at which alerts are later determined to be incorrect.
7. Identify every category of data that your company’s deployed devices capture, including still images, video, audio, wireless signals, and any biometric identifier. For each, state the date on which your company began capturing it and whether customers may decline.
8. State whether your company links data captured by its devices to any external data source, and identify each such source, including commercial data brokers and public records aggregators. State whether your company has ever ingested, licensed, evaluated, or tested data obtained from a security breach.
9. State whether multi-factor authentication is required of all users and, if it has not always been required, when it became mandatory.
10. Describe in detail whether your company has the capability to biometrically track individuals and explain what physical or technical limitations exist or are imposed on such biometric tracking.
DOCUMENT REQUESTS
1. All policies, procedures, and training materials governing the process by which a law enforcement agency or other entity obtains access to your company’s systems or data, including any vetting, accreditation, written policy, supervisory, or training prerequisites, and all documents concerning the waiver of any such prerequisite.
2. All documents concerning the siting of cameras and sensors, and all documents concerning notice to or approval by local governing bodies or the public before installation, including model ordinances, public-notice templates, signage specifications, and communications with local officials regarding whether public approval is required.
3. All policies and technical documentation concerning when your company’s devices record or transmit data, whether recording can be suspended or disabled, who may do so, and whether any such change is logged.
4. All data retention schedules and policies, including default retention periods, the extent to which customers may extend or shorten them, the treatment of backups and of derived data such as vehicle fingerprints or model embeddings, procedures for verifying deletion, and the disposition of data upon termination of a contract.
5. All policies and technical documentation governing who may query your company’s systems and the default geographic scope of a query, together with all documents concerning the sharing of data with other law enforcement agencies, federal agencies, foreign governments, private entities, or data brokers.
5 6. All policies and technical documentation governing the justification a user must supply to run a search, including whether that field is validated or free text, whether a warrant or supervisory approval is required for any category of search, and a description of every audit capability available to customers and to your company, including whether audit records are complete, immutable, and exportable.
7. All documents concerning any known or suspected misuse of your company’s systems or data from January 1, 2021 to the present, including internal investigations, audit findings, notifications to customers, notifications to affected individuals, referrals to law enforcement, and any resulting change in policy or product design.
8. All documents concerning the accuracy of your company’s products, including internal and thirdparty testing of character-level and plate-level read accuracy, false-positive rates for alerts, confidence thresholds and how they are displayed to users, representations made to customers or the public about accuracy, and all documents concerning any stop, detention, or arrest of an individual later determined to have been misidentified.
9. All documents concerning the security of your company’s systems, including multi-factor authentication requirements, credential compromise, unauthorized access or exposure of camera feeds or stored data, penetration testing and remediation, the location and ownership of data storage infrastructure, and access to production systems by personnel or contractors located outside the United States.
10. All contracts, master service agreements, terms of service, data-processing agreements, and enduser license agreements executed with any governmental customer, together with all price lists, fee schedules, and documents concerning pilot programs, discounted or donated equipment, and any assistance your company has provided to customers in obtaining federal, state, or private grant funding.
11. All documents concerning categories of data other than license plate images that your company collects, ingests, licenses, or links to its camera data, including audio, video, facial or other biometric identifiers, commercial data-broker records, public records, and any data derived from a breach; and all documents concerning the use of customer or third-party data to train your company’s models.
12. All documents concerning your company’s sources of revenue and capital, including investors holding more than five percent of any class of equity, revenue derived from federal, state, and local government funds, the federal grant programs through which customers have financed purchases, lobbying expenditures, and political contributions.
2 other privacy advocates, including the ACLU, have long pointed to the ways that digital technologies and data have increased inequality and tightened the surveillance of already-marginalized groups. This indiscriminate collection of ALPR data cannot be separated from the broader system it's part of, in which it might increase discrimination in policing and enable targeting of women, immigrants, people of color, and poor people.
https://slate.com/technology/2014/11/big-data-underground-railroad-history-says-unfetteredcollection-of-data-is-a-bad-idea.html
4. Recognition of individuals: While the stated objective of ALPRs is not to capture images of individuals in cars or on the street, the cameras do in fact capture images of individuals as by-catch. Despite the staff report's clarification that the Vigilant system does not use facial recognition itself, there seems to be nothing to stop people who access the data from running those images through other facial recognition systems, meaning that individuals in their cars or on the street may be identified. Collecting these images in the first place is what creates the exposure of privacy violations at the individual level.
5. Law enforcement training, access, and abuse: We have seen in other jurisdictions that law enforcement officers have accessed ALPR data to stalk people -- most often women, current and former romantic partners. See, for example, the August 2026 investigation released by The Washington Post, which notes that at least 50 officers have been accused of misusing the system. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/02/how-police-officers-used-vast-networkcameras-spy-their-exes/ These, to be clear, are just the ones who have been caught.
The staff report notes that Morro Bay law enforcement undergo training in how to use this system and this data and that their individual logins can be tracked. But what is the content of the training? And does training and monitoring access actually prevent abuse in practice? The report says that law enforcement are required to have a "legitimate investigative purpose" for accessing the data -- but what are the strict bounds of that definition? Who decides legitimacy? And how easy is it to get around the safeguards? The existence of the data creates the temptation and potential for this kind of abuse.
In theory, auditing is meant to catch abuse. But see my point below about that.
6. Data sharing: The staff report is clear that this is not a "Flock" situation: that the city determines when and where data are shared, and that there is no sharing agreement with federal agencies. Does this mean the data have never been made available to, for example, ICE? Or are there backchannels and loopholes that would make that possible? The data are available to 80 agencies in California. Are those agencies able to share it beyond what the city has agreed to? What are their data retention policies? What accountability is there for how other agencies use the data that is collected here? And how is law enforcement in Morro Bay using this data in combination with other data it has access to? Once data exists and is shared, it is much easier for it to escape containment and be used in contexts beyond the purpose it was collected for.
7. Data retention: There is no reason for the police to hold onto ALPR data for five years. If the data must be collected, the principle guiding data retention should be the shortest window in which it might be justifiably used in a current, ongoing investigation, not maximizing police access for potential investigations for as long as possible.
3 8. Auditing, transparency, and accountability: If I'm reading correctly, the ALPR program was contracted in 2023 and yet the first "audit" is dated October 1, 2026. That seems to be stretching the MBPD Policy 435.6 requirement of "regular auditing" beyond reason. Given the high potential for abuse, monitoring and reporting should be much more frequent (think, monthly not annually). And even then, audits by definition only capture abuse after the fact. Moreover, there has been little public transparency about what, exactly, is being audited and when: how far did the current audit extend into how the data was shared by outside law enforcement agencies that may have accessed it, for example? How did staff arrive at the conclusion that the data was not improperly used? The public deserves much greater transparency into the methodology and results here.
And while the purpose of an audit is not evaluation of the program, these are perhaps even more important questions for the council and the public to consider: how many and what kind(s) of crimes, precisely, has Morro Bay's ALPR program prevented? How many and what kind(s) has it been used to solve? How often was it accessed vs. how often was it useful in an investigation? How accurate is the data, and how often have MBPD acted on bad data? Does any of this justify the tradeoff against our expectations of privacy?
Numerous communities around the country have reconsidered their investment in ALPRs. It is my hope that in Morro Bay, we can join them. I urge the council to open the critical discussions necessary to end the contract, or, at minimum, create much stricter and much more transparent policies for data collection, use, and oversight until the contract expires. Do not simply accept the report and move forward. The stakes are too high for what kind of culture we want this city to have and for the kinds of abuse ALPRs facilitate.
Sincerely,
Hamsini Sridharan
1 Heather Goodwin
From: Theodora Stephan
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2026 8:03 AM
To: Council
Subject: ALPRs in Morro Bay
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I am a resident and property owner in Morro Bay. I am vehemently opposed to cameras set up around our beach town.
There is absolutely no reason for this installaƟon. Take them down now! There is also the issue of lack of accountability and no audit of the system being conducted nor reported to the people of Morro Bay which was promised upon installaƟon.
Morro Bay has always been a genuine place of respite for locals and tourists. There is absolutely no reason for the necessity of license plates readers nor surveillance of any kind. This is gross abuse of trust and ethics in our fair city. The people have not voted for this surveillance and it is unacceptable, unconsƟtuƟonal and causing unnecessary costs and trust in our city government.
Please do the right thing and cancel this contract.
Theodora Stephan
Morro Bay
AGENDA CORRESPONDENCE
RECEIVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL FOR
PUBLIC REVIEW PRIOR TO THE
MEETING
AGENDA NO: 8d
MEETING DATE: October 13, 2026