LEBANON, Ohio — A discussion on the future of Flock's AI-powered license plate reader technology in Lebanon turned heated Wednesday as City Attorney Mark Yurick shut down a speaker for "personal attacks" seconds after the speaker called Mayor Mark Messer a liar.
Messer attended the meeting to provide critical votes, but excused himself minutes before the Flock discussion to return home and continue recovering from recent hip replacement surgery.
Before he left the room, he called his fellow council members "patriots" who were all concerned about the safety and security of the town.
"The board up here is here to listen, and I would appreciate your respect," he said.
Speaker after speaker lambasted the technology as an unnecessary surveillance tool monitoring mostly non-criminal activity with high potential for misuse.
WATCH: We hear from concerned people in Lebanon calling for Flock's removal
Britanny Adkins told council members from the podium that she had collected more than 200 signatures from people living in Lebanon or adjacent municipalities on a petition calling for council to cancel their Flock contract, citing concerns the database contained travel logs for people who've never committed a crime.
"Who gets to decide? Who decides who is essential, which gatherings are acceptable, and who is a threat? Who gets to decide who the bad guy is? Today you may completely trust the people who make those decisions, but government power doesn't disappear when the people we trust leave office," she said.
Council took no action after public comment and a discussion of what they believed were the pros and cons of the technology.
Councilman Mike Cope said they had met with Flock representatives to ask direct questions, and Vice Mayor Scott Norris indicated they needed more time to review Flock's point-by-point written response to 66 of their questions received Tuesday.
Mayor Messer provided us with a copy of Flock's written response for review before the meeting began.
In the letter, Flock responds to questions related to who can change Lebanon's preferred access and security settings, how routine updates affect those settings, how access or changes are logged and recorded, what happens to stored data on the date it is scheduled for deletion, what data is sold, how data is used to train the company's AI models, data disclosure and more.
Norris said council would have a full discussion of the responses Flock provided at their next work session and then place an action item on whether to restore Flock cameras in town or break the contract with them at a later council meeting.
Click here to read the full Q&A.
