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WARREN -- In addition to Warren City Council approving a one-year moratorium on data centers at Wednesday's meeting, another hot-button item was briefly discussed -- Flock cameras.
Flock cameras use Automated License Plate Recognition technology manufactured and are distributed by the Atlanta-based company Flock Safety. The cameras typically are mounted on roadside poles and record license plate numbers of millions of vehicles and report them to subscribing police departments and homeowner associations.
Through the ability to interface with the FBI and other crime databases, the whereabouts of criminal suspects can be relayed to law enforcement. Local law enforcement officials have credited Flock cameras with helping solve numerous crimes.
But the American Civil Liberties Union and others have expressed privacy concerns.
"They could be used to track our movements. If someone wanted to follow you to a house of worship or a political meeting or protest or to a medical facility, what stops them? It's highly irresponsible to adopt the use of these with no protections in place," according to published remarks by Gary Daniels of the ACLU.
At Wednesday's council meeting, council member Helen Rucker briefly raised concerns about a line item in a list of payments council was asked to approve. The line item was $42,000 to renew the Flock camera agreement the Warren Police Department has for another year.
Rucker said she wanted to have further discussion before agreeing to authorize those funds. "As of tonight, I am not prepared to pass that," she said of the ordinance. City Council then amended the ordinance under consideration to take out the Flock funds and approved the other payments.
Council member Mike O'Brien said he will schedule a police and fire committee meeting to further discuss the Flock system with council and police department representatives.
During the city council Finance Committee meeting earlier Wednesday, Rucker asked to see a copy of the city's Flock agreement, but neither of the officers present had a copy.
Councilman Greg Greathouse, chairman of the finance committee, said the agreement is for 14 cameras at $3,000 each.
Rucker said briefly that she had concerns about Flock cameras when the first Flock agreement was approved, but council members were "in a rush" to approve the expenditure of American Recovery Plan funds. She wants more information on the cameras this time.
She said she would have to vote no on legislation authorizing payment of items for the police, operations, city council, water department, health department and others because of the Flock payment in the legislation. She said she could obtain the information she wants later, "But I am not voting for something again that I don't understand."
WARREN REDISTRICTING
In another matter, City Council approved an ordinance Wednesday that accepts a new city redistricting map. It sets Warren's boundaries and changes parts of the city's ordinances. According to Tribune Chronicle coverage of a meeting on the issue in June, the goal was to correct population imbalances as high as 41% between the city's seven wards and bring the city into compliance with state and federal equal-representation requirements.
It was the first time a redistricting had been undertaken in the city in about three decades. Ohio law requires cities to review ward boundaries after each decennial census. The League of Women Voters of Ohio recommends keeping imbalances to within 10%.
A LWVO official said in June that Ward 6 was significantly underpopulated at about 4,254 residents, while Ward 3 was overpopulated at about 6,540 residents.
Councilman Greg Thumm, sponsor of the legislation, said at the regular council meeting Wednesday that the ordinance "restores one person, one vote. Every resident's representation on council is equal."
O'Brien thanked Thumm for "bringing this to everyone's attention" and for the work he and others did to complete this task. He encouraged future council members to "not let this lapse, as it lapsed for decades."