A skeptical Cleveland City Council Safety Committee voted Wednesday against extending the city’s $250,000 contract with Flock Safety, with members questioning both the value of license plate readers and the broader promise of surveillance technology.
Another council committee will take up the legislation but no date has been set. The current contract expires on June 29.
Without a new contract, “we would lose one of the most effective crime-fighting tools we have,” Deputy Police Chief Jarod Schlacht said at the hearing. The loss would be “crippling.”
In a statement after the meeting, Public Safety Director Wayne Drummond expressed disappointment and said that the city remains committed to working with council and the community to address concerns about privacy and civil liberties.
But the council members’ questions and comments revealed another challenge: a growing disillusionment with the return on investment in cameras in general.
Committee members frequently noted that in addition to the 100 license plate readers, the city has 3,400 video surveillance cameras don’t seem to be making the city safer. Council Member Stephanie Howse-Jones said there have been around 12 shootings outside one bar in her ward that is within sight of a surveillance camera and the bar still hasn’t been shut down.
Safety Committee Chair Mike Polensek described an illegal junk yard in his ward and cited a public commenter’s remarks about men soliciting women at all hours in her neighborhood.
“Somebody has to explain it,” Polensek said, almost shouting. “We have cameras all over the place and no one gets their dumb ass arrested.”
Later he said to Drummond, “You’re a good man, but you don’t understand, there is a disconnect here.”
‘We are not valued customers. We are their product’
License plate readers are cameras that capture images of every passing vehicle. Those images are transmitted via cellular networks to a database and stored for 30 days. Law enforcement agencies can share access to their databases with each other.
Dozens of cities, including Dayton, have cancelled or declined to renew contracts with Flock amid citizen backlash over immigration-related searches and other abuses of the technology.
As the committee meeting got under way, members of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition who supported the legislation sat on one side of the room and people wearing “Flock No” shirts and buttons sat on the other. (Flock No CLE is a coalition of opponents.) About 30 more people sat in the council chamber across the hall, watching the livestream on a large TV.
Pastor Aaron Phillips, executive director of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition, said that Flock representatives had reached out to meet with his group and explain the technology.
“As it was explained to us, this is a great tool,” Phillips said. “We will always be on the side of safety and security.”
He added that the city needs to be transparent about how the cameras are used.
Opponents talked about immigration-related searches, constant surveillance creating “a quiet record of where we all go” and trusting a multi-billion-dollar corporation that has changed its terms and conditions to give itself more control over customer data.
“We are not valued customers,” said Bryn Adams, a leader of Flock No CLE. “We are their product.”
Bishop Tony Minor of Community of Faith Assembly said he could see both sides of the debate.
“I come today with a broken heart, kind of a divided heart,” Minor said. He works with immigrant families who are being “hunted down” like slaves in the past, he said. But he also worries about the Cleveland residents who feel besieged by crime. That’s why he supports extending the contract, he said.
‘If we are going to authorize cameras, then doggone it, they gotta work for us’
Drummond and Schlact did most of the talking in the city’s presentation. They emphasized the license plate reader system can only be used by approved personnel and data from it is just one part of the “whole investigative process.”
The Cleveland Division of Police regularly reviews use, and there have been “zero instances” of misuse, Schlact said. He also confirmed the city is using filters to prevent searches by outside agencies related to immigration or abortion. The cameras can also be used to rule out suspects and look into complaints about officers not working.
“This technology helps solve crimes, period,” Schlact said before citing a few examples, including a previously disclosed murder case from 2024.
Council Member Kevin Conwell asked for data about arrests made and cars recovered through license plate readers, and he expressed frustration when the public safety team said they would send that later.
“You narrated to us, but you didn’t give us any numbers,” Conwell said. He brought it up again later and said data would be necessary to win his support.
Howse-Jones talked about the dangers of expanding surveillance capabilities when there is a “tyrant” in the White House. She also questioned the value of cameras broadly.
“Ward 8 has more cameras than anybody else, but I can tell you right now, Ward 8 is not more safe,” she said.
Polensek echoed Howse-Jones’ remarks.
“If we are going to authorize cameras, then doggone it, they gotta work for us,” he said. He also commented on the “divide,” on the issue and in the room, looking from the Black clergy members there in support of the contract to the mostly white opponents.
“I can see a divide here in the city, from the West Side to the East Side,” he said. “Let’s be blunt about it, because there are some folks who don’t understand or won’t accept what’s happening to some of our neighbors on the East Side.”
Polensek offered an amendment to the legislation stating that Flock cannot “sell, share, publish or exchange” any Cleveland data and would pay a penalty of up to 10% of contract value if it did. The three other committee members in attendance voted to approve the amendment, but then voted against the legislation to award the contract. Only Polensek voted for it.
