Hailey Police | License plate readers

Hailey is the county seat, and its three cameras are the smallest plate reader deployment in Blaine County that we can price. They cost $10,500 a year and they sit at three intersections on the way into town.

What the Council was told, and what it asked

The staff report that went to the Council on 22 September 2025 is a page long. It asks for three readers and live cameras at $3,500 each a year, on a two year term, with the $2,500 installation fee waived. It names the statute the department would work to. And it gives a count of what was already in the valley: Flock Safety “is currently utilized by the cities of sun valley and Bellevue and by the Blaine county Sheriff’s Office”, eight cameras between them.^[1]

Hailey’s minutes are timestamped, so the discussion survives. At 7:34 in the evening a council member raised page 6 of the agreement: the vendor will not sell the city’s data, and holds it under an irrevocable worldwide license. At 7:47 the chief said he had been looking at the software for three years. At 7:50, asked whether the cameras take stills or video, he answered that the readers take rear plates coming into town and that the intersection feeds are live for up to 30 days. At 7:59 a council member said he was torn, that he had to trust the chief, and that he was happy with 30 days retention. At 8:03 the motion passed four to nothing.^[2]

Three weeks later the city paid the invoice, $10,500, on a claims register line reading VIDEO CAMERA/LPR.^[3]

The first audit

Idaho Code 49-1432 took effect on 1 July 2025, three months before Hailey voted. It requires every agency using plate readers to log each access with the user’s identity, the date, the time and the purpose, and to audit those logs twice a year.^[6]

Hailey’s first audit was completed on 7 July 2026, a year after the statute and ten months after the cameras were bought. The assistant chief did it, looked at five cases, and found all five were legitimate searches by trained personnel. Six hot list items were reviewed, one for a wanted person not yet arrested, and items were removed where the case was confirmed closed.^[4]

The same report answered a question the contract does not. Asked what policy governs sharing immigration information with other states, the chief told the Council there is no policy, that the department elected not to track immigration information, and that it can share information with any state at any time. Asked who audits, he said it is done in house for now and that the department is talking to other agencies about an external audit. Asked whether the 30 day retention is a policy, the city administrator answered that the Flock contract limits data to 30 days.^[4]

What residents have said since

At the meeting of 13 July 2026, two residents used the open session to ask the Council to reconsider the cameras and remove them. A council member asked that a follow up and a community conversation be put on the agenda.^[5] A resident asked for removal again on 24 August,^[7] and two more spoke against the cameras on 14 September.^[8]

As of the last packet we read, the Council had taken no vote on the question since the one that bought them.