Legislature vote could shutter license-reading cameras by month’s end
by Robert Lynch; April 10, 2026
First, Ithaca’s Common Council acted. Now the Tompkins County Legislature will follow.
Sending a message that couldn’t have been clearer, the recently rebuilt and increasingly progressive Tompkins County Legislature this week retraced City Hall’s footsteps and signaled its intent to terminate the county’s grant-funded contract with Flock Safety—and do it soon. Flock’s crime-fighting license-plate reading surveillance tool has earned unquestioned support among local law enforcement. Yet Flock has confronted withering criticism from privacy advocates and from defenders of immigrant rights.
Then one night after the Legislature’s Tuesday, April 7 test vote, the Enfield Town Board took its own turn at Flock. When it did, Enfield Town Board members narrowly rejected a member-filed resolution that would have opposed termination the County’s Flock contract. It would have described the Legislature’s imminent action as “premature and unwise” and one that “would endanger public safety.”
“I want to be very clear that we’re not going to renew the contract at this point with Flock,” Legislature Chair Shawna Black stated before Tuesday’s motion had even come to a vote, Black confident that what she wanted adopted would, indeed, pass.
“I did not support Flock when we voted for it back in October,” Black reminded meeting attendees. “I was in the minority. That’s why we started using Flock cameras,” she explained. “Now we have a new Legislature with eight new members. They felt very differently than the previous Legislature, and that’s why we’re moving this forward right now.”
What the Tompkins County Legislature adopted Tuesday—it did so on a 13-3 party-line vote—was a motion, one submitted by Lansing Democrat Deborah Dawson, that directs the County Administrator and the County Attorney to prepare a resolution for the Legislature’s next meeting, April 21. That resolution would terminate Tompkins County’s contractual relationship with Flock Safety “at the earliest possible time and in a manner consistent with the County Government’s grant funding obligations.”
“I do wish we could move a little faster,” recently-elected legislator Judith Hubbard remarked at one point in Tuesday’s discussion. Hubbard was among several who’d prefer the Flock cameras be turned off sooner rather than later. But majority Democrats deferred to County Attorney Maury Josephson, who’d recommended the two-step action to better preserve the state government’s $220,000 underlying grant for the broader crime prevention program.
Josephson explained that preserving the grant funding “would be most prudent,” and that “the purpose of the motion is to provide a document that lays out an orderly unwinding of the contractual relationship between the County and Flock Safety,” and to do so in a way that doesn’t otherwise jeopardize the grant.
Last July, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services granted Tompkins County $220,650 under its “Gun Involved Violence Elimination” (GIVE) Initiative. Most of the GIVE money has been purposed for Flock.
By a vote of 9-4 last October, the Tompkins County Legislature accepted the grant money and authorized the Flock program’s continuation. Since then, an increasing number of Flock license-plate reading cameras have been installed around Tompkins County. The City of Ithaca had also installed Flock cameras, as have the villages of Trumansburg and Cayuga Heights. A report last fall claimed Tompkins County operated 22 Flock cameras around the county.
At its meeting on March 4, the Ithaca Common Council voted unanimously to begin winding down its own contract with Flock Safety and shutting down the cameras. At the time of Council’s action, Flock had positioned nearly two dozen of its cameras at city locations, according to media reports.
Josephson told the Legislature that some degree of ‘coordination” needs to occur between the city and county as part of the Flock termination wind-down, presumably to preserve state money.
As the County Legislature prepares for the expected April 21 termination of its Flock contract, enter the Town of Enfield. The Enfield Town Board holds no control over Tompkins County’s decision-making regarding Flock’s future, only a limited power of persuasion. Wednesday, April 8, one Town Board member attempted to flex that persuasive muscle.
Responding to the County Legislature’s action of the night before, Enfield Councilperson Robert Lynch (this writer) moved a 14-paragraph resolution that would have put the Town Board on record as opposing Tompkins County’s intended termination of its Flock contract. Instead of termination, the resolution had urged that the Flock contract simply auto-renew at month’s end, as it otherwise would.
“This Town Board believes that the termination of the Flock contract is premature and unwise, would endanger public safety, and could compromise Tompkins County’s continued access to the GIVE grant,” the Enfield resolution stated.
Following extended discussion held near the end of its nearly three-hour meeting, the Enfield Town Board rejected Lynch’s resolution, two votes to three. Lynch and Councilperson Jude Lemke supported the resolution. Town Supervisor Stephanie Redmond, with Councilpersons Cassandra Hinkle and Melissa Millspaugh joining her, opposed the measure.
Redmond’s and the Board majority’s argument fell much along the lines of Flock’s most vocal downtown critics. Their argument holds that Flock Safety cannot be trusted; that despite the firewalls and protocols local law enforcement have imposed, Flock’s sensitive surveillance technology could intentionally or inadvertently fall into unauthorized possession. Most worrisome, critics say, it could reach the hands of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and be used to track undocumented immigrants.
“My distrust is not with Tompkins County or the Sheriff’s Office or anybody locally,” Councilperson Hinkle insisted Wednesday. “My distrust is in the cameras themselves in connection with the federal government.”
“I’m very torn about it,” Councilperson Lemke admitted before she voted her support for the resolution. “I vote Aye, but with a lot of reservations,” Lemke stated.
Randy Brown, one of two Tompkins County legislators who represent Enfield, was invited to participate in the resolution’s discussion at the Town Board table. Brown was among the three Republicans who’d opposed Dawson’s motion the night before in legislative chambers. And in Enfield Wednesday, he defended the position he’d earlier taken.
“I trust Sheriff Osborne and Undersheriff Olin,” Brown stated, defending Derek Osborne’s support for the Flock cameras and the restrictions that the sheriff and undersheriff Jennifer Olin have put in place to protect personal privacy and block unauthorized data sharing. Brown said Osborne will only release information to ICE upon submission of a judicial warrant.
“The Sheriff’s Department has done everything they can to control the data,” Brown told Enfield. “This is extremely important to them.” Brown praised the privacy protocols imposed by Osborne and District Attorney Matthew Van Houten.
“I think Derek Osborne is wonderful at his job,” Supervisor Redmond credited the Sheriff and his team. “My concern is Flock itself, the company itself,” Redmond said. “There’ve been some concerns that people have, and I don’t want to ignore those.”
The Tompkins County Legislature has trended more liberal since the November 2025 election, and the progressive tilt may help explain why a crime-fighting tool accepted by a majority of legislators last October is heading toward overwhelming rejection this spring.
“I’m afraid we are letting a few strong voices really take away the common sense,” Randy Brown described the current legislative climate surrounding Flock, when he spoke to Enfield’s Board.
Indeed, many of those strong voices came out to speak at the Legislature’s April 7 meeting. Chair Black tallied as many as 33 who’d signed up to address the Legislature that night. Not all spoke to the issue of Flock, yet many did. Public privilege-of-the-floor comments occupied nearly two hours of the Legislature’s four-and-a-half hour meeting. Dawson’s motion was adopted before any of those participants had gotten to the mics. But after Dawson’s motion passed, the gallery erupted in applause.
Few people other than government insiders had expected Dawson’s termination initiative to reach the floor Tuesday night. Randy Brown admitted he’d only learned of it earlier that day. Shawna Black moved it to near the top of the meeting’s agenda, likely to preemptively answer those many Flock critics who’d turned out to speak.
“I’d be happy to cancel the contract today,” proclaimed legislator Veronica Pillar—who, like Black, had opposed Flock last October as well as now. “It’s abundantly clear that Flock Safety… is irresponsible with security on a number of levels and untrustworthy and not really it turns out a company that Tompkins County should do business with,” Pillar concluded.
The record shows that Deborah Dawson had supported the Flock-based GIVE grant’s acceptance last October. But she opposes Flock’s continuation now.
“This community seems to conflate license plate readers with surveillance; it’s been a fairly consistent occurrence” Dawson said at Tuesday’s meeting. “It’s not one that I indulge in,” she qualified.
But while she paid deference to Flock’s endorsement by Sheriff Osborne and the Ithaca Chief of Police, Dawson added, “It’s clear to me that Flock’s not the contractor that we want to move forward with in any event legally because it is a company that has allowed itself to be co-opted by a federal administration that consistently subverts our justice system, and that’s my major concern here.”
As with legislator Dawson, an anti-Trump theme runs through many a Flock critic’s statements.
Legislature Public Safety Committee Chair Travis Brooks had assembled an ad-hoc “working group.” He’d intended it to hold several meetings and then render its judgment on Flock’s future. But the working group met only once, sometime in early April. It reportedly gathered together administrators, law enforcement, and some legislators. But after just that one meeting, Brooks conceded, the message stood clear; the political will for Flock’s continuation had vanished. Brooks had supported the program. But he now believes “alternatives” must to be sought.
“I understand what you’re saying,” Flock supporter Mike Sigler told Brooks. “I agree with you. I don’t think there are the votes to keep this going. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t negatives to the cancellation. I think the Sheriff, the DA, and Probation have stated those negatives. I’d be curious as to what they believe those negatives to be in the cancellation of this.”
Brooks replied, “There are negatives. And there are pockets of this community who feel differently and appreciate that technology, appreciate those concerns. There are families and folks that feel more safe in their community knowing that this technology exists. But there’s not nine votes in this room to keep it moving,” Brooks conceded.
Nine votes is the number needed in the Tompkins County Legislature to get anything passed. Remember, the Dawson motion got 13 votes Tuesday. And it would deconstruct the service.
Caroline/Danby’s Irene Weiser, new as a legislator, but for years a veteran sideline observer, was among the 13 who’d supported Flock’s termination. But Weiser has misgivings.
“I will be supporting the motion,” Weiser said, “But I do want to raise the other side that I think is important too,” she cautioned. “There are people in neighborhoods that have been particularly impacted by violent crime that have appreciated these cameras and have found them to help the safety in their communities.”
Weiser said she hopes alternatives can be found that protect those in high-crime areas “without requiring surveillance of the rest of us.”
After his discussions Wednesday in Enfield, Randy Brown commended both Travis Brooks and Irene Weiser for their open-mindedness and their willingness to view both sides of the issue.
What drove the Enfield concerns Supervisor Redmond and Councilperson Hinkle expressed Wednesday night was the omnipresence of electronic eyes; peeping cameras seemingly everywhere. But Randy Brown pointed out you’ll find that intrusion almost everywhere these days; in stores, along the street, even in government buildings, whether Flock or no Flock. (Yes, cameras spied on our meeting room.)
Back at the County Legislature, the Ithaca Town’s recently-elected representative, Christy Bianconi, recognized the intrusion. Said Bianconi, “Cameras taking pictures of people all over the community” construct “a sum totality of pictures that can very much track a person’s life and their habits and their activities and so reveal their private habits. And to me that crosses over into a violation of our civil liberties and our privacy.”
The almost-adopted Enfield resolution would have encouraged further “discussions by the Legislature, as well as by its designated committees and working groups” prior to any termination of the Flock contract so as “to address Flock Safety’s continued role in this community.” Where discussions go now remains to be seen.
But the immediate goal is to turn the page. Shawna Black made that clear. Flock will go. Its cameras will vanish from the local streetscape. Flock is a company she does not trust and wields a technology that reaches too far. Furthermore, those who wear blue uniforms must recognize who’s in charge.
“The Legislature was designed as policymakers,” Black stated bluntly. “We are the ones that decide what type of policies we use here in Tompkins County. This is a policy decision.”
And while the elected Sheriff, the elected District Attorney, and the appointed Ithaca Police Chief may write the next grant application for whatever the repurposed GIVE money gets spent on, Black warned, “If they write a grant with something that the Legislature is not willing to accept the government funds for, it will be a waste of time.”
“It pains me, how law enforcement has been abused,” Deborah Dawson observed. “And that’s why I’m bringing this motion and why I want to see the last of Flock,” Shawna Black’s ally made clear. “I hope the door doesn’t hit their butts on the way out.”
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