{"id":148638,"date":"2026-08-19T12:23:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/148638\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T12:23:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:23:24","slug":"county-council-intends-to-scrutinize-use-of-flock-cameras-in-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/148638\/","title":{"rendered":"County Council intends to scrutinize use of Flock cameras in September"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This Flock camera, along with a solar panel is located on Old Road 30 near the Time-Out Inn. News Now Warsaw photo by Dan Spalding.
\nBy Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw<\/p>\n

WARSAW \u2014 Kosciusko County Council is now set to review the use of Flock cameras, a surveillance system that collects license plate information that has become the subject of growing criticism over privacy rights and transparency.<\/p>\n

Council delayed a vote on the prosecutor\u2019s budget Tuesday during a budget session after council members Rachael Rhodes and Will Stockdale expressed concerns.<\/p>\n

After a long presentation by Prosecutor Brad Voelz, an initial attempt to approve the prosecutor\u2019s budget failed, and council then raised the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we want to just get all the cards on the table and ask all the questions that we have about that stuff before we go on?\u201d Stockdale said.<\/p>\n

According to deflock.org<\/a>, there are upward of three dozen Flock cameras installed in Kosciusko County. <\/p>\n

Stockdale summed up their objective, saying they want to \u201cget the misinformation corrected and understand what the capabilities are and whether we want this in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point, Stockdale asked Voelz a hypothetical question:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the council or commissioners said we don\u2019t want you to have this now, would you take the cameras down?<\/p>\n

Voelz replied, \u201cAbsolutely. Your call. One hundred percent. It\u2019s your decision whether or not to fund the cameras. If you do not fund them, then we would have no choice but to take them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those attending the meeting with concerns about the cameras were some well-known Democrats and Libertarians, as well as Republican Chris Plack, who applauded the council\u2019s move afterward.<\/p>\n

Plack said the topic has quickly become a bipartisan issue of concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really encouraged that the council is going to be addressing this. They are listening to the over-swell of opposition, in my opinion, to these cameras,\u201d Plack said.<\/p>\n

Plack also summed up concerns shared by others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should have been open discussion about these before they were implemented,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Council is now expected to discuss the issue on Sept. 10. Voelz said he welcomes the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Council is also expected to seek more information on the proposed $20,00 software system the department wants to add that can help with the collection of information for criminal investigations.<\/p>\n

Voelz said the software would dramatically increase the department\u2019s ability to quickly collect information.<\/p>\n

Among the questions for some is whether that might incorporate the use of data collected by Flock cameras.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor\u2019s budget is also seeking $5,000 earmarked for the Net43 drug investigation team, but it was unclear how much the prosecutor\u2019s department is spending overall each year on the technology.<\/p>\n

The department budget also has a line item for Flock camera donations.<\/p>\n

The Times-Union reports the vote to delay approval of the budget was 5-2, with Council President Tony Ciriello and Kimberly Cates voting against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Flock camera, along with a solar panel is located on Old Road 30 near the Time-Out Inn.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[95],"tags":[70529,70530,70531,61946,70532,70533,182,70534,70535,70536,3590,181,61950],"class_list":["post-148638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-warsaw","tag-brad-voelz","tag-flock-cameras","tag-growing-criticism","tag-kosciusko-county-council","tag-license-plate-readers","tag-new-technology","tag-poland","tag-privacy-rights","tag-prosecutor","tag-rachael-rhodes","tag-transparency","tag-warsaw","tag-will-stockdale"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117122158325652129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}