Flock debate lingers
Commission sends disputed contract back to committee
One of Clinton’s eight Flock license-plate reader cameras that monitor traffic in the city. Four cameras are positioned near entrances to Clinton and face inward, photographing the rear of vehicles entering the city. Four others are posi- tioned near Clinton schools. (photo:Ben Pounds )
The County Commission voted Monday, Sept. 21, to send the contract to the Budget Committee, which is scheduled to consider it at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8.
Flock cameras have faced criticism in Anderson County and elsewhere, but county Law Director James Brooks stressed that the issue before commissioners was not whether the county should use the cameras. Instead, he said, the issue was whether the current contract had been properly approved.
“I don’t want you to get hung up on the phrase ‘Flock camera,’” Brooks said. “It’s a contract. And the contract did not meet the requirements.”
Brooks said the county could properly ratify the contract, allow it to remain void, or send it to the Budget Committee for further discussion. Commissioners chose the third option.
In response to a question from county Mayor Terry Frank, Brooks said the Flock program would pause.
Brooks said the contract renewal, executed by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office operations captain on Dec. 20, 2023, had not been reviewed by the Budget Committee or approved by the County Commission.
“As to the reasoning behind that, I just don’t know,” Brooks told The Courier News. “I wasn’t here then.”
During the meeting, Sheriff Russell Barker said he had consulted then-Law Director Jay Yeager, who advised him that the 24-month renewal was an amendment and did not require those approvals.
The county approved its original contract with Flock Group Inc. on June 15, 2020, for an initial 24-month term with a 12-month renewal, Frank stated in a memo. The disputed extension, executed Dec. 20, 2023, was for an additional 24 months.
Commissioner Aaron Wells made the motion to send the contract to the Budget Committee, and Commissioner Chad McNabb seconded it.
Voting with Wells and McNabb were Commissioners Shain Vowell, Jawrell Cook, Michael Foster, Shelly Vandagriff, Sharon Bourgeois-Capshaw, Denise Palmer and Shannon Gray.
Commissioners Jeff Pack, Tim Isbel, Tracy Wandell, Robert McKamey and Ebony Capshaw voted against the motion.
Commissioner Steven Verran was absent, and a District 8 seat remains vacant.
Wandell said he would prefer to allow the contract to end, citing public opposition to the cameras expressed by 31 people who spoke at a Sept. 10 Operations Committee meeting.
Concerns raised at that meeting included privacy, constitutionality, false-positive license plate matches, and potential misuse of the data by law enforcement officers or a future government.
Isbel said he voted against sending the contract to the Budget Committee because Flock had not answered his questions and he was not comfortable extending the agreement.
Barker acknowledged the current contract was void.
“I understand, standing here today, Jay got it wrong,” he said.
Barker said he supported sending the contract back to the Budget Committee and going through the proper approval process.
Barker also told commissioners that two of the four cameras used by the county have been vandalized. He said he was open to restrictions governing how the Sheriff’s Office could use camera data.
“At the end of the day, if there’s a critical incident, a case we can’t solve or we can’t get somebody in time, I will bring the victim and the family here to this body and let you guys tell them why we didn’t have that tool,” Barker said.
Vowell, who also serves as a public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office, stressed that the matter before commissioners involves the contract’s approval rather than the broader debate over the cameras.
“I think we’re trying to marry two issues that need to be divorced,” he said, referring to the contract’s technical problems and opinions about the cameras and their use.
Barker responded that the two issues had become intertwined because of public attention.
“The fact of the matter is they can’t be separated, because if not for the media coverage and all the chatter on social media, you guys would send this back to fix it, no questions asked,” Barker said. “They’re more than married together. They’re Siamese twins.”
