T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Marshalltown Police Chief Chris Jones, left, addresses the city council about the proposed Flock camera contract as Councilors Marco Yepez-Gomez and Gary Thompson look on during Monday night’s meeting. The council voted 6-1 to approve an additional year of the Flock contract with Yepez-Gomez casting the lone dissenting vote.

Monday night’s Marshalltown city council meeting began with two items being pulled from the consent agenda, and both generated substantive discussion before ultimately being approved on split votes.

First was a resolution approving an additional year of the Flock public safety camera system for the Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) using council-designated Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) revenues, bringing the two-year total cost to $380,000 at $190,000 per year. According to discussions at previous meetings, the Flock contract will include 26 additional Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras on top of the 32 already in place, four Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) cameras and eight live view cameras at intersections with high traffic counts.

After a motion and second were made to approve the contract, resident Layne Pieri came forward and urged the council to consider rescinding it over concerns that it could be used to target immigrant families and be accessed “beyond our intent and without our knowledge.”

“I recognize (that) MPD has credited Flock with generating leads. I’m not denying that, but usefulness alone cannot be the standard for systems that collect data on everyone who drives through town. This decision is about whether safeguards work in practice or whether we can maintain community trust,” Pieri said. “There is documented evidence from other jurisdictions that federal access or broad network access can occur in ways that local agencies did not fully understand.”

Pieri cited the example of Mountain View, Calif., where a nationwide lookup setting was enabled without the police department being aware of it.

“That matters here because when residents, especially immigrants, believe surveillance can be repurposed, trust drops, cooperation drops and public safety suffers,” Pieri said.

After mentioning the fiscal pressures the city currently faces, Pieri requested that the council terminate its contract with Flock by exercising a non-appropriation clause with 30 days written notice.

“This approach protects immigrant neighbors worried about ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), protects everyone’s privacy from government overreach and respects taxpayers by using the clean, no penalty exit that the contract provides,” Pieri said.

Councilor Gary Thompson then asked Pieri to elaborate on the specific fears of how Flock would be abused.

“I just don’t think that people’s privacy should be out there like that, but I also don’t think that the government should be able to use local taxpayer funded stuff for something that might target our community,” Pieri said.

Thompson responded that they would have “a fundamental disagreement” because he believes that if someone doesn’t want to get caught doing something illegal, they shouldn’t do it in the first place.

“And once you go outside your house, the privacy of your own home, in my opinion, you’re in the public eye,” Thompson said. “I guess I’m looking for that specific item, how you think the cameras in Marshalltown, Iowa, to subject someone to a lack of privacy in the public eye.”

Pieri said ICE has used the Flock systems around the country to access the large network of data that is aggregated and added that the agency has already detained people that “haven’t done anything wrong.”

“If they’re already having access to that, I just think maybe we turn that off,” Pieri said.

Joleen Ballard commented that immigrants wouldn’t have to worry about ICE if they were in the country legally.

“I keep hearing the word immigrant, immigrant, immigrant. What ICE is concerned about is illegal immigrants. That’s all I have to say,” she said.

Councilor Sue Cahill welcomed Police Chief Chris Jones to the podium, and he explained that he felt Flock had been beneficial to the MPD while also noting the audit process for reports and information gathered. Police officers are privileged to confidential information, and Jones said they are trusted to use it for professional purposes only. Though the MPD hasn’t done so yet, the chief shared that he is aware of other departments in the state where officers have been fired for improper uses.

“My reassurance to you is that we would investigate, thoroughly, any complaints or concerns that the public may have, any actual complaints or concerns that people would be using that system inappropriately and be able to use those auditing systems to be able to investigate those complaints and hold those people accountable,” Jones said. “I don’t want officers within my agency using that information for personal use, and more than likely, they’ll be terminated for that behavior.”

Cahill then asked if the MPD would be obligated to comply with a request for data from ICE, and Jones replied that although the department is required to comply with federal and state law, they have not had any inquiries from ICE and does not openly share such information.

ALPRs can only identify vehicles, Jones added, and must be connected to either a case number or a call for service number.

“If there’s some allegation or some concern that someone has from the general public about their information being used on Flock and we go back and find out that somebody had been using that for reasons other than a case or a criminal investigation, those individuals will be punished,” he said.

Linda Clark expressed her opposition to the Flock system due to the potential of someone other than the owner operating a vehicle and questioned why they were necessary as other jurisdictions are getting rid of their cameras.

“If we are as safe as we are, we don’t need to have these cameras. So I don’t think we need to have them at all,” Clark said.

Pieri then returned to the podium and read part of a statement from the Mountain View Police Department regarding the unwitting use of the nationwide lookup system.

“When I bring these concerns, I just want to stress that I’m not saying the MPD is doing anything wrong. I’m saying that I trust MPD, but I don’t necessarily trust the federal government with all of our personal information,” Pieri said.

Doris Kinnick told the council she hoped the MPD would be “on the ball” and not allow a situation such as the one in California to occur. A motion to approve the contract passed by a 6-1 tally with Councilor Marco Yepez-Gomez opposed.

In other business, the council:

Approved the remainder of the consent agenda as listed other than one item on the contract with the Arts+Culture Alliance, which garnered further discussion and will be covered in a story later this week.

Approved a Class E retail alcohol license for the Lounge on Main at 19 W. Main St. by a 6-1 vote with Councilor Mark Mitchell opposed.

Approved a resolution accepting the donation of real property from the Friends of the Marshalltown Public Library at 110 and 112 W. Main St. Two houses were recently moved off of the properties to allow for future potential expansion of the library.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.