Voters in League City, a Houston-area suburb of about 120,000, decide Tuesday whether their police department should keep using Flock license plate cameras, the first such vote in Texas, The Texas Tribune reports.
Proposition A covers 55 cameras along public roads that record every passing vehicle, capturing plate numbers along with make, model, color and identifying details such as dents and bumper stickers.
The measure was first meant to measure public opinion and is labeled nonbinding. But in mid-October the City Council passed a second resolution promising to remove the cameras if voters say no. Mayor Nick Long said at the Oct. 13 meeting that no second vote would be needed, and that 72 hours after the result is certified "the city will start bagging them up."
Both sides
Long told the Tribune he put the question on the ballot because residents of every political leaning were on each side. He credited the cameras in a recent missing-person case, saying police "wouldn't have had anything to go on" without them, while also acknowledging the privacy worries.
"They definitely work, and they definitely have privacy concerns, so I think both things can be true," he said.
Flock Safety said it would respect whatever the city decides. A company spokesperson pointed to arrests in the area, including a murder suspect, and said the cameras have "had a real impact on crime in League City."
Critics, including state and federal lawmakers from both parties, have called the cameras unconstitutional and open to abuse, and some state legislators have said they will file bills next session to ban or regulate them. Five police departments in the Houston area, among them neighboring Pasadena and Baytown, have arrested officers or opened investigations over alleged misuse of Flock data, the Tribune reported.
