How to show up in Franklin County
Surveillance is approved by people who hold public meetings any resident can attend. This page lists the bodies that do that in Franklin County, what we have confirmed about attending each one, and where each publishes its agendas.
We do not publish meeting dates. A schedule we cannot check often enough would eventually send someone to the wrong place on the wrong night. Each body below links to wherever it publishes its own agendas and schedule, and that is the copy to trust.
Countywide
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Franklin County Board of County Commissioners
Watch this oneThis is the body that approved GPS trackers for five county departments' vehicles, put the county's buildings on one camera system, and replaced the Sheriff's Office cameras. Its agendas are a timed list of who is scheduled to appear, followed by a block called County Business, and the surveillance items land in that block under plain names like "Samsara Trackers" or a building's name. The thing worth watching for is a vendor's name or a building's name in the County Business list.
- When
- The second and fourth Monday of each month, as the county's own Commissioners page states. In practice the Board also meets on other Mondays and occasional Tuesdays, and its published listing carries eighty meetings between January 2024 and September 2026.
- Where
- The Franklin County Courthouse, 39 West Oneida Street, Preston.
- Remote
- Zoom, with the meeting ID and passcode printed at the top of the county's own Agendas and Minutes page. Meetings are also recorded and posted to the county's YouTube channel, linked as "Video" beside each meeting in the same listing.
- Public comment
- There is no general public comment period on these agendas. The agenda is a timed list of people scheduled to appear, each at a stated time, so the route on paper is to ask the Clerk's office to be put on it. Residents do address the Board and the minutes record it.
- Written comment
- — not confirmed
- Who to ask
- Franklin County Clerk's Office, 208-852-1090. The agendas ask anyone needing special accommodations to call two days before the meeting. (checked )
Agendas and minutes are linked one file per meeting from a single page, with no vendor portal and no packet. The listing offers 2024, 2025 and 2026 and nothing earlier. Agendas are thin and the minutes are not: a decision here is usually visible only in the minutes, which number each item and record the motion, the second and the vote. Roughly three files in five are Word documents rather than PDFs. Where a meeting did not happen, the listing says so in words instead of leaving a gap.
Confirmed ·
Preston
What we have documented in Preston
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Preston City Council
Watch this oneThis Council put cameras in the city's parks on grant money and wrote surveillance at its recreation facilities into the comprehensive plan. Every surveillance device mapped in Franklin County stands in this city and none of them records an operator, and no plate reader appears anywhere in the Council's record through 2023. Its record from 2024 onward is unread, so this is the body worth watching in this county. Camera items arrive under New Business with a one word heading in the margin, usually "Camera".
- When
- Second and fourth Monday, as the Council's agendas through 2023 show. We have not confirmed this against the city's current notices.
- Where
- Preston City Hall Council Chambers, 70 West Oneida Street, Preston.
- Remote
- — not confirmed
- Public comment
- — not confirmed
- Written comment
- — not confirmed
- Who to ask
- City of Preston, 208-852-1817, as listed in Franklin County's own directory of the cities in the county. (checked )
We have read this Council's agendas and minutes from 2017 through 2023 and nothing after that. The meeting day, the remote option and how public comment works are left blank or unconfirmed here rather than carried over from an old agenda, because a meeting detail from 2023 is not a meeting detail today. The minutes are full and well kept: they carry a margin heading for every item, name who moved and who seconded, and record the vote. City Hall can be asked for anything more recent.
Could not retrieve · · Confirm on their own page before you go.
What this list does not cover yet
These are the bodies we have confirmed, not every body in the county. Franklin County has other commissions and committees, and other school and special districts, that we have not documented yet. Several of the county's own committees publish on the same county portal linked above.
Before you go, and after
Civic action
Read what is already on the record for Franklin County first. A resident who has read the contract changes the room.
What is documented in Franklin County →Personal protection
Knowing which systems operate near you also tells you where your own choices still matter.
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense ↗