Hanford Police | License plate readers

The vendor went first

On 20 September 2022 the Hanford City Council held a study session. The second item on it was, in full:

Presentation by Flock Safety on the proposed use of License Plate Reading (LPR) cameras and technology by the Hanford Police Department to assist with crime follow-up.

The Chief and a sergeant explained the cameras. Then, per the minutes, a Flock Safety territory sales manager “provided the background of Flock Safety and discussed the operating system. He also shared success stories from other agencies.”

Two council members spoke in favour. The Mayor “expressed her concerns regarding the possible controversy.” And then:

The Council directed staff to bring back a proposal for their review and consideration.

The proposal came after the presentation. That ordering is not improper and it is not unusual, but it is worth seeing plainly: the first substantive account this council heard of what plate readers are and what they do came from the company that sells them.

We are not naming the two Flock employees. They are private-sector staff doing their jobs, they are named in the public minutes, and their names add nothing that their roles do not.

The vote that was not a purchase

The proposal arrived on 18 October 2022: twenty-five cameras. A Flock representative attended by teleconference to answer questions. The Chief also told the council something worth recording, that several private businesses in Hanford were already using the system.

The Mayor “expressed her concerns regarding the cost and retention period.”

Staff put three options to the council: defer the project into a future two-year capital programme, authorise the purchase immediately, or decline for now and revisit when funding appeared.

The council approved the first. Four to one.

Hanford did not buy twenty-five cameras in October 2022. It put them on a list of things it might fund later. The one vote against came from a council member the same minutes record as having spoken in support of the item — which most likely means he wanted the faster option, though the record does not say so and we are not going to put words in his mouth.

Twelve, five months later

The mid-cycle budget of 21 March 2023 contains this:

An appropriation is proposed for $34,200 in the Police Support Services Division for 12 Flock Cameras installed in the City. These cameras would be at significant intersections to assist the Police Department in mitigating criminal activity. These do come with upfront and ongoing costs of about $30,000 annually.

Twelve cameras rather than twenty-five, at significant intersections, for $34,200 and about $30,000 a year after that.

The sentence is ambiguous about whether the cameras were already up — “installed in the City” reads one way, “would be at significant intersections” reads the other — and we cannot resolve it, so we are not going to.

What can be said is the sequence. In October the council declined to fund the system now and put it in a future capital programme. In March a mid-cycle budget appropriated money for twelve of them. Both were council decisions, taken in public, and a mid-cycle appropriation is an ordinary budget instrument. Nothing here was hidden. But a project that was deferred in the autumn was funded in the spring at half the size, and the second decision arrived as a line inside a budget rather than as an item about cameras.

The one that came inside something else

On 1 August 2023 the council took up a state traffic-safety grant: $63,033.28, mostly overtime for twelve drink-driving saturation patrols and six checkpoints. It also included $25,000 for a message board. The packet describes what the message board would be:

The message board will be able to be purchased within this allowed amount and will most likely include a programmable LED messaging sign, Flock Camera and a speed enforcement radar.

A plate reader, as a component of a sign, inside a grant about drink driving. The hedge is the department’s own and we have kept it.

This is the pattern this site sees most often and it is the hardest one for anybody to notice in time. Nobody voted on a camera. They voted on a traffic-safety grant, and the camera was in the description of one of the items the grant paid for.

The same report is candid about the timing, and it is fair to publish that candour:

The grant offer required the agreement to be signed within 10 days. After contacting the grant officials, they recognized it was not possible for the Council to approve a resolution within 10 days. Therefore, they instructed staff to sign the grant and then to get the council to adopt a resolution.

Staff signed first and asked afterwards, on the grant administrator’s instruction, and told the council in writing that the department had spent nothing and that it could still decline.

What nobody has answered

The Mayor asked about the retention period in October 2022. The minutes say staff addressed the council’s questions. They do not say what the answer was, and we could not find a Hanford plate reader policy, which state law requires the department to publish.

So the most basic question a resident could ask about these cameras — how long does a record of my car sitting at that intersection last — has no answer in any document we have read.