Brittany Kelley
KYLE — License plate readers will be temporarily covered up until Kyle City Council can allow residents the chance to determine the future of the cameras, following approval at the Monday, Oct. 5, meeting.
An item to discuss and take possible action on license plate readers was brought forward by Mayor Yvonne Flores-Cale and council member Melisa Medina after the mayor suggested placing the Flock Safety cameras on the upcoming May 2027 ballot at a previous meeting.
“Originally, my idea was to keep the cameras a certain way, until the ballot decision, but after having a conversation with council member Medina, I think we have a new idea of the direction we want to go,” explained Flores-Cale.
After hearing the concerns of so many residents over the recent months, the mayor explained that she felt that it would be best to pause the cameras and then, proceed with the results of the election. This item only focuses on the license plate reader technology, specified Flores-Cale, not the live view cameras, as these do not record footage.
Medina then motioned to temporarily cover and suspend the operation of all city of Kyle Flock license plate readers until voters can consider it during the May election.
“During this temporary suspension, the camera shall remain nonoperational and shall not collect, capture, transmit or store license plate or vehicle data and the city personnel shall not be able to access a Flock system for new data generation during the suspension. [The cameras] shall remain covered and nonoperational pending the outcome of the May 2027 election and further direction from city council,” said Medina.
She added that she strongly supports the Kyle Police Department and recognizes the good of license plate readers, but that this doesn’t mean questions should not be asked, sharing that her concern is government surveillance and what happens to the information that has been collected.
“Our residents should have an opportunity to ask questions and understand exactly what the government is agreeing to. This doesn’t have to be a choice between supporting law enforcement or protecting individual liberties. We should be able to do both,” Medina emphasized.
Also acknowledging the positive impact of the cameras was KPD Chief Jeff Barnett, but he stated that he was sympathetic to the privacy and security concerns, adding that “as important as a tool as they are to law enforcement, nothing works well without the trust of our community and support of our community. So, we completely understand the position that [council is] in that you have to make these difficult decisions. Our men and women did great police work before these tools and technologies existed and they’ll continue to do that for our community until such time there’s a different decision made.”
Though, Barnett noted that KPD would most likely still have access to private Flock camera footage that is being shared with them through businesses.
Council member Lauralee Harris shared that courts have ruled that in public, no one is guaranteed privacy; however, she noted that it is Flock’s responsibility to shut down the ability for other entities to access data. Despite this, she expressed hesitation on pausing the cameras, as she wants to have the best tools available for the police.
In agreement was council member Marc McKinney, who shared that there are policies in place that are restrictive over the stored footage. He also noted that these cameras are not tracking all vehicles, but rather only those with the matching license plates put in by law enforcement.
“I give my police department a lot of tools that inherently have danger that come with them. We give you guns; we trust you to use them appropriately. We give you vehicles; we trust you to use them appropriately. We gave you Flock cameras; we have trusted you to use them appropriately and to the absolute best of my knowledge, there has been no variance on that,” said McKinney. “It’s frustrating that bad information that gets spread online and on social media is potentially creating victims in our neighborhoods.”
After a year and a half of advocating, council member Claudia Zapata said, she is glad that movement is being made on the cameras, though she suggested turning off the Flock operating system.
Barnett stated that if the system is turned off, officers wouldn’t have the ability to run license plates in other cities. For example, if someone is suspected of kidnapping a child, even if the Flock cameras in Kyle are turned off, KPD could still run the license plate in other cities that are utilizing the cameras.
Council member Courtney Goza said that she would like to keep access to the search system, if it’s available, but Harris noted that this is hypocritical: “We want other cities to continue their cameras and we’re using their data, but we don’t want to participate in that. That doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Harris.
Flores-Cale stated that residential concern is the license plates being constantly read, not searching for those that have committed a crime.
The item passed 4-3, with council members Michael Tobias, Harris and McKinney dissenting.
Kyle City Council will meet next Tuesday, Oct. 19.
