Licence plate readers in Polk County

The city goes first, with five cameras

“PROPOSED RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING CONTRACT AGREEMENT WITH FLOCK GROUP, INC. FOR THE ACQUISITION, INSTALLATION, MAINTENANCE AND MONITORING OF FIVE (5) AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION (ALPR) CAMERAS”

Adopted as Resolution No. 596. Moved by Alderman Clarke Evans, seconded by Alderman Alan Cook, all present voting aye. Mayor Judy B. Cochran presiding. Police Chief Matt Parrish and Lieutenant Marty Drake presented first; the minutes record the council discussing the cameras' use as an investigative tool, data storage and retrieval, cost, possible future expansion, and “location of the cameras at the five major entrances into the city.”

This is twenty-two months before the county signed its own contract, and it is the only document in either body's record that says where any camera is.

City record · Minutes

Seven months on, the department reports back

“UPDATE BY LIVINGSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT CHIEF MATT PARRISH AND LIEUTENANT MARTY DRAKE REGARDING USE OF FLOCK GROUP, INC. AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION CAMERAS”

An informational item with no vote. The minutes record the department describing activity “including the recovery of stolen property, felony arrests and warrant arrests”, and the council discussing system features “including the networking of local, state-wide and out-of-state agencies and data available for traffic studies.”

No figures were minuted, so there is nothing here to count. The networking of out-of-state agencies is the only statement in either body's record about where the data goes.

City record · Minutes

A plate reader arrives as a donation

“ACCEPT AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE READER AND SPEED TRAILER DONATED TO POLK COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE.”

Approved on the consent agenda. Motioned by Jerry Cassity, seconded by Guylene Robertson, all voting yes. County Judge absent; Commissioner Purvis presiding.

The minutes name no donor and no vendor. Whether this is a Flock device is not on the record.

County record · Minutes file 3452

The county votes, and signs, with Flock

“11. MOTIONED BY MARK DUBOSE, SECONDED BY JERRY CASSITY, TO APPROVE FLOCK SYSTEM FOR SHERIFF’S OFFICE IN THE AMOUNT OF $31,600 AND $1,600 TO BE FUNDED FROM SHERIFF’S CURRENT BUDGET. ALL VOTING YES.”

Approved on the motion of Mark DuBose, seconded by Jerry Cassity, all voting yes. A Flock Safety order form for four Falcon cameras, signed by County Judge Sydney Murphy and dated February 13, 2024, sits at pages 136 to 138 of the agenda packet for this meeting, and the $31,600 in the motion is the contract total on that form.

For two and a half years no minutes for this meeting were published. The portal served fileId 3403 as the minutes — 143 pages of the agenda and its attachments, carrying none of the markers real Polk County minutes carry. The county published these, fileId 4630, on 2026-09-16, the morning after PolkTX asked for them.

County record · Minutes file 4630

The Court adopts the missing minutes

“APPROVE MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING: FEBRUARY 13, 2024 (REGULAR SESSION).”

Approved on the consent agenda. Motioned by Milton Purvis, seconded by Jerry Cassity, all voting yes.

So the February 13 minutes exist and were adopted. They are simply not the file the portal serves.

County record · Minutes file 3406

Onalaska's council adopts an ALPR policy, five months before the Flock item

“It was moved by Kevin Arnett and a second was made by Zachary Davies to approve Resolution 2024-008 adopting Police Department Policy 5.4 Automated License Plate Recognition.”

Adopted. "VOTE: For – All; Against – None. Motion carried." A special called meeting at noon on Monday, April 1, 2024, posted March 28 and previewed on the front page of the Polk County Enterprise on March 31. Present: Mayor James W. Arnett, councilmembers Kevin Arnett, Zachary Davies and T. D. Jennings, and City Administrator Angela Stutts; Ronald Gilbert and Shirley Gilmore absent. The meeting ran 12:00 to 12:07 p.m. and the minutes were approved and attested on April 9, 2024. Policy 5.4 sets ALPR use, deployment along TxDOT and county roads, and a 365-day retention schedule. It is the policy the city produced under PolkTX's records request as "Onalaska Police Department Resolution 2024-008", and the resolution the city's TxDOT right-of-way agreement cites as its authority.

THIS PAGE MISSED IT FOR TWO WEEKS, and said things it should not have as a result. The minutes are on the city's site but filed under a 2021 name — minutes/2021-04-01_special_called_meeting_minutes.pdf — and the meeting was not in the list every sweep started from, so a reader of the city's own index would find them and a sweep by date would not. Found on 2026-10-01. What the record still does not show: council approval of the Flock order form itself, signed by the Mayor on June 24, 2024, which no minutes of that summer mention.

City record · Minutes

The Court ratifies it

“RATIFY APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION FOR FLOCK PROGRAM APPROVED ON FEBRUARY 13, 2024.”

Approved on the consent agenda. Motioned by Milton Purvis, seconded by Mark DuBose, all voting yes. All members present, Judge Murphy presiding.

County record · Minutes file 3413

Onalaska puts a Flock policy on the agenda, and the council does not pass it

“Review and approve Police Department Policy 9.1 - Flock Cameras.”

No record of what happened. The minutes of the same meeting carry every other numbered item with its motion, its second and its vote — Ordinance 456 the budget, Ordinance 457 the tax rate, Resolution 2024-025, Resolution 2024-026 — and go straight from the item before this one to the item after it. Item 12 is also missing from the minutes’ own recital of the meeting’s purpose, which lists 10, 11, 13 and 14. The meeting ran 5:00 to 5:13 p.m. Present: Mayor James W. Arnett, Mayor ProTem Shirley Gilmore, councilmembers Kevin Arnett, T. D. Jennings and Kathy Lott; Zachary Davies excused. Police Chief Byron Dunaway attended. ANSWERED BY THE CITY ON 24 SEPTEMBER 2026. Asked under the Public Information Act what became of item 12, the City of Onalaska replied in writing that “the item concerning Police Department Policy 9.1 – Flock Cameras was not passed by the City Council” and that the approved minutes “document the actions taken on the other listed action items but contain no action or vote on the Flock policy item”. For two years this entry could only say the published record did not contain a vote. The city now says there was none. WHY, FROM A CONTEMPORARY REPORT. The Polk County Enterprise wrote on September 19, 2024: "One item on the agenda was skipped because a policy was already in place. This was review and consideration of Onalaska Police Department Policy 9.1, regarding Flock cameras." The policy already in place was Policy 5.4, which the council had adopted as Resolution 2024-008 on April 1, 2024 — see that entry above.

The item is on the agenda and absent from the minutes, and the city has confirmed that the absence is the answer rather than an omission: the policy did not pass. The newspaper account explains it — skipped, because a policy was already in place — and the council record bears that out: Policy 5.4 had been adopted by the council five months earlier. What the minutes still do not do is say so; an item noted "no action taken" would have spared two years of not knowing. CORRECTED 2026-10-01: this entry used to end "the cameras were searching, under a policy the council had not adopted". That was wrong. The cameras were searching under Policy 5.4, which the council adopted 3–0 on April 1, 2024.

City record · Agenda

The council talks about putting them in subdivisions

“UPDATE BY LIVINGSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT REGARDING THE FLOCK CAMERA SYSTEM AND THE AXON IN-CAR RECORDING SYSTEM”

An informational item with no vote. Chief Matt Parrish and Lieutenant David Mitchell described the Flock system “installed in various locations within the City”. The minutes record the council discussing “installation of additional cameras, installation of cameras in subdivisions and at local businesses, coordination with other agencies in monitoring and coordinated responses to FLOCK notifications, use of the FLOCK system and the AXON system as investigative tools, and costs related to the purchase of equipment and maintenance of the software system.”

Nothing was decided and no figure was minuted. This is the first time expansion beyond the city's entrances reaches the record.

City record · Minutes

A foundation pays the maintenance, for the second year

“ACCEPT DONATION TO THE POLK COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE IN THE AMOUNT OF $10,000 TO BE USED FOR FLOCK CAMERA MAINTENANCE ($6,150) AND TRAINING EXPENSES ($3,850).”

Approved on the consent agenda, 4 votes yes, 0 no. Motioned by Mark DuBose, seconded by Guylene Robertson. Judge Murphy absent; Commissioner Purvis presiding.

The minutes name no donor. The agenda packet does: a letter from Sheriff Byron A. Lyons to Judge Murphy, dated January 23, 2025, at page 180 of file 1885, identifies the donor as the Smith Family Foundation of Livingston and says it is the second year the Foundation has given, "with last year's funds being used for the purchase and maintenance of Flock Cameras." The letter allocates the $3,850 to securing the Commerce Center on May 12, 2025 for a state-mandated command-and-control course.

County record · Minutes file 1893

The state's right-of-way is opened to them

“PROPOSED RESOLUTION REGARDING TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION MULTIPLE-USE AGREEMENT FOR INSTALLATION AND OPERATION OF AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION CAMERAS IN TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION RIGHT-OF-WAY”

Adopted as Resolution No. 643. Moved by Alderman Clarke Evans, seconded by Alderman Jackson, all present voting aye. Chief David Mitchell and Lieutenant Jack Mueller presented first, and the minutes record the council discussing “the location of the cameras, the addition of outbound cameras, the FLOCK drone program and potential grant funding, and the number of cameras currently in use.”

The agreement is the legal mechanism for mounting cameras on state highway right-of-way rather than city property. The number currently in use was discussed and not minuted, so the five authorised in 2022 remains the only count on the record.

City record · Minutes

A state grant is applied for, with Flock in the room

“PROPOSED RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE SUBMISSION OF A GRANT APPLICATION BY THE LIVINGSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT FOR THE MOTOR VEHICLE CRIME PREVENTION AUTHORITY (MVCPA) GRANT PROGRAM UNDER THE S.B. 224 CATALYTIC CONVERTER GRANT PROGRAM”

Adopted as Resolution No. 649. Moved by Alderman Clarke Evans, seconded by Alderman Jackson, all present voting aye. Chief David Mitchell and Lieutenant Jack Mueller gave the council an overview of “operation of the FLOCK camera system and potential uses of the FLOCK drone”, and the minutes record discussion of the grant's 20% city match “and the ownership and maintenance of the FLOCK equipment.”

The resolution is a grant application, not a camera purchase. What the grant would buy is not stated in the minutes.

City record · Minutes

The Sheriff asks to move Flock onto the county's books

“Flock Safety (LPR) — grant to budget transition — Grant-funded — $54,000”

The Sheriff's FY2027 request lists Flock among software and contract increases. The workshop summary says: "Flock is currently grant-funded; moving it to budget now protects operations if grant ends." One of the questions put to the Court is the grant's status: "The Sheriff's Office is currently applying for a grant to continue funding. What is the projected timeline for notice of awarded funding?"

This is the first thing on the record since 2025 that establishes the cameras are still running. It also says the money has been coming from a grant, which no earlier item mentions.

County record · Minutes file 3295

A resident objects to the cameras in Onalaska

“Robert Mondshine - Concerns regarding Flock Camera use.”

Recorded under Public Forum and nothing further. Texas law bars a council from deliberating on a matter not posted on its agenda, so no answer at the meeting is what the law requires rather than a refusal. It is the first of two objections in consecutive months; a different resident raised the cameras again on July 14.

The first time a member of the public is recorded raising the cameras with either council. Nothing follows it in the record.

City record · Minutes

A second resident objects, at the very next meeting

“Bobbie Moore - Concerns regarding Flock Camera use.”

One month after Robert Mondshine raised the same thing, a different resident raised it again, and again nothing follows it in the record. Texas law bars a council from deliberating on a matter not posted on its agenda, so silence at the meeting is what the law requires. Two consecutive meetings is no longer an isolated complaint.

These minutes are not published as a file of their own. The city posted the July 14 agenda and no minutes; the minutes exist only inside the council packet for the following meeting, on August 11. PolkTX found them by sweeping the packets, which the earlier sweep of agendas and minutes could not see.

City record · Minutes, inside the August 11 2026 council packet

$54,000 requested, and not carried across

“Flock Camera Maintenance Agreement (NEW) 010-2560-3560 — $54,000.00”

The Sheriff's preliminary FY2027 budget carries the line under account 010-2560-3560 (Contracts), with $54,000 in the request column. The narrative repeats it: "$54,000 for Flock Cameras (currently grant funded)." In the same table Cellebrite, Leads Online, Biddle, Genasys and TransUnion all show the requested figure again in the final column; the Flock row shows a dash.

What that dash means is not stated in the file, and the FY2027 budget as adopted is not something PolkTX has read. It is not evidence the request was refused.

County record · Minutes file 3356

The $54,000 is not in the budget the Court adopted

“ADOPT THE FY 2027 BUDGET.”

Adopted 4 votes to 1 on a roll call. Motioned by Jerry Cassity, seconded by Milton Purvis, “to adopt the FY2027 budget with a $2,200 increase in the pay scale”. Purvis, Cassity, Robertson and Judge Murphy voted yes; Commissioner DuBose voted no. The word Flock appears nowhere in the adopted budget, and the Sheriff's contracts account, 010-2560-3560, is set at $26,888 — which is the department's request of $80,888 less the $54,000 Flock line exactly, and is also the exact sum of the five other contracts it asked for: Cellebrite $15,450, Leads Online $3,922, Biddle $2,490, Genasys $3,060 and TransUnion $1,966.

So the Flock request was the one item in that account the Court did not fund. The budget does not say why, and a line absent from an adopted budget is not the same as a service cancelled — the Sheriff told the Court in May that a grant was paying for it.

County record · Minutes file 4074

PolkTX asks the county for the missing minutes — and gets an answer on day five

“THE MINUTES OF THE COMMISSIONERS COURT MEETING OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024, AND SPECIFICALLY WHAT THEY RECORD FOR ITEM 11 — THE MOTION, WHO MADE IT, WHO SECONDED IT AND THE VOTE.”

A Public Information Act request filed through the county's own records portal. Nine items: the missing minutes, every amendment and renewal to the Flock agreement, what the county has actually paid, the grant the Sheriff told the Court was funding it, the earlier donation, the justification behind the $54,000, where the cameras are, the rules governing their use, and the correspondence with the vendor. Answered on 2026-09-22, the fifth business day. The county released eighteen documents, 144 pages, covering eight of the nine items: four MVCPA grant applications, three grant awards and acceptances, four resolutions, the Flock service agreement and order form, and four cancelled checks. It named the grant this page had been unable to name. Item 7, the number and location of the cameras, was referred to the Attorney General the same day.

Credit where it is due: ten business days is the statutory outside edge and the county used five. The brief to the Attorney General on the one refused item was filed inside the same window rather than after it, and copied to the requester, so the status of every one of the nine items was known on the same day. This page notes when a body is slow or silent, and it is worth noting when one is neither.

This is the only entry here that is not the county's record. It is ours, and it is on the page because a page that says a document is missing should also say what it did about that.

The county records portal · Request

PolkTX asks Onalaska what happened to item 12

“THE DISPOSITION OF ITEM 12 ON THE AGENDA OF 10 SEPTEMBER 2024 — "REVIEW AND APPROVE POLICE DEPARTMENT POLICY 9.1 - FLOCK CAMERAS". ANY RECORD SHOWING WHETHER THE ITEM WAS CONSIDERED, TABLED, WITHDRAWN, PASSED OVER OR VOTED ON, AND IF VOTED ON, THE MOTION, THE SECOND AND THE VOTE.”

A Public Information Act request emailed to [email protected], the address Section 2 of the city’s own Resolution 2026-019 designates. Seven items: the disposition of item 12, Policy 9.1 itself, the Flock Safety agreement, what has paid for the cameras by year and the two adopted budgets the city has not published, the camera count and locations, any data-sharing agreement, and any staff report prepared for that meeting. It cited the media exemption Section 10 of the same resolution recognises — which on a closer reading does less than that sentence implied, and the correction is below. The city acknowledged receipt on 2026-09-16 and answered with a cost estimate: six hours of labour at $18.75 an hour, $112.50, plus 20 per cent overhead of $22.50, $135.00 in total, with a deposit of the full $135 required before any work begins. Under section 552.2615 an estimate over $40 must be itemised in writing before the work is done, and the requester has ten business days to accept, modify the request or complain to the Attorney General, or the request is treated as withdrawn.

The second entry here that is not a body’s own record. It is ours, and it is on the page for the same reason the county one is: a page that says the record is missing something should also say what it did about that. The city publishes no records portal, so nothing timestamps this filing — the date is the day it was sent. Two things about that estimate are worth recording. The Attorney General's cost rules set the personnel charge at $15.00 an hour with overhead at 20 per cent of it (1 Texas Administrative Code 70.3); at that rate six hours is $90.00 plus $18.00, or $108.00. The city's $18.75 is 25 per cent above the published rate and its letter does not say under what authority. And the media exemption this request cited is narrower than PolkTX first described it: section 552.275 and Section 10 of the city's resolution exempt qualifying media from the personnel-time LIMIT a body may set before it starts recovering costs — not less than 36 hours a year — not from ordinary charges, and six hours is nowhere near that limit. Section 10 also requires the requester to work for a qualifying outlet “for substantial financial gain”. On this estimate the exemption does not reduce anything, and saying otherwise would be PolkTX misreading a rule in its own favour.

City record · Request

The county publishes the minutes, the morning after being asked

“11. MOTIONED BY MARK DUBOSE, SECONDED BY JERRY CASSITY, TO APPROVE FLOCK SYSTEM FOR SHERIFF’S OFFICE IN THE AMOUNT OF $31,600 AND $1,600 TO BE FUNDED FROM SHERIFF’S CURRENT BUDGET. ALL VOTING YES.”

Four pages, typed Minutes and named "Corrected Minutes", timestamped 11:21 UTC on September 16, 2026. They carry every marker the old file lacked: the "Be it remembered" opening, 21 recorded motions, 20 votes, the agenda posting number and the adjournment. The file the portal had been serving, 3403, is no longer published for this meeting.

PolkTX filed its request on September 15 and these appeared the next morning. That is the sequence; PolkTX cannot show the county acted because of the request, and does not claim it. Item 1 of that request is answered. The other eight are not.

County record · Minutes file 4630

The Sheriff comes back for $45,000, and the Court has to find it

“DISCUSS AND TAKE ANY AND ALL NECESSARY ACTION RELATING TO FUNDING OF THE FLOCK CAMERA SYSTEM FOR THE POLK COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, INCLUDING CONSIDERATION OF THE SHERIFF'S REQUEST FOR $45,000 IN COUNTY FUNDING AND DETERMINATION OF A FUNDING SOURCE.”

Heard on the morning of September 22, 2026. Minutes are not published yet. Two things on the face of the item were new when it was posted. The request was $45,000, not the $54,000 the Court declined to carry into the FY2027 budget four weeks earlier — $9,000 less, and the agenda did not say why. And the item asked the Court to determine a funding source, which is the county stating in its own words that the adopted budget does not contain one. The agenda packet published with this meeting answers the first of those; see the next entry.

What the Court did with it. The minutes for this meeting will say what was moved, who seconded it and how each commissioner voted; until they are published this page records the question and not an answer. The funding source the Court was asked to find is named nowhere in the agenda or the packet — though what the $45,000 would replace is now known, from the grant awards released later the same day under records request 26-1057.

County record · Agenda file 4635

The Sheriff's own letter: the $9,000 is asset forfeiture, and the state has stopped paying

“Texas Governor Greg Abbott has determined that state funding may not be used for FLOCK camera systems. As a result, the Polk County Sheriff's Office must identify an alternative source of funding to maintain this valuable law-enforcement resource.”

Sheriff Byron Lyons' request letter is in the packet, and it answers the question the agenda left open. The $9,000 did not come off the price, the camera count or the term: the Sheriff writes that he agreed to use $9,000 from the Asset Forfeiture Fund to satisfy the required grant match, which leaves the $45,000 he is asking the Court for. $45,000 plus $9,000 is the $54,000 the Court declined to carry into the FY2027 budget four weeks earlier. The letter also states why the need arose now, and it is not a county decision: the Governor has barred state funding for Flock. That matches the order Abbott gave state agencies on August 27, 2026, reported statewide at the time. The letter adds one more fact the county's own record had never carried — the Sheriff's Office asked for this money in each of the past two budget cycles and was refused both times, because the grant was still paying.

The letter never names the grant. It establishes that one exists, that it requires a match, and that state money is now barred from it, which is more than any county document had said before. The name came six hours later from a different source: the county released records request 26-1057 the same day, and the awards in it are the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority's — see the grant table further down this page. Both statements are true of their own document, which is why they sit next to each other: read only the packet the Court was given and you still could not say who was paying. The letter's performance figures — 87 LPR notifications, 11 stolen vehicle recoveries, 8 stolen plate recoveries, 2 catalytic converter recoveries, 11 arrests, 12 warrants cleared and 1 missing person recovered, January through August 2026 — are the Sheriff's own count in his own funding request. No audit of them exists in the record and PolkTX has not verified them. The letter cites particular investigations as well; those are left out here, because this page is about what the cameras cost and who authorised them, not about cases. This packet is a scanned document with no text layer and was read by OCR at 200 dpi. Checked again on 2026-09-23, the day after the meeting: no minutes are published, and the county has replaced the packet with a 445-page “Agenda Packet fully executed”, fileId 4648. All 276 of its scanned pages were OCR’d and it contains no record of what the Court did with item 25 — the Sheriff’s letter is simply further in, at pages 440 to 441, and the 126 added pages are budget reports and other items’ backup. An executed packet is still the material the Court was handed, not the record of how it voted. The original fileId 4638 cited above still serves, so this citation has not gone stale.

County record · Agenda Packet file 4638

Onalaska answers the question for nothing, and halves the price of the rest

“the item concerning Police Department Policy 9.1 – Flock Cameras was not passed by the City Council. The approved minutes document the actions taken on the other listed action items but contain no action or vote on the Flock policy item.”

THE ANSWER CAME FREE. The disposition of item 12 — the question this page has carried since the 2024 agenda was read — is answered in the body of the city’s email, before any money changed hands. The council did not pass the Flock policy. THE ESTIMATE WAS CUT IN HALF. $135.00 became $72.00: four hours rather than six, at $15.00 an hour rather than $18.75, plus 20 per cent overhead of $12.00, electronic delivery at no charge. $15.00 is the rate 1 Texas Administrative Code 70.3 sets; the first estimate was 25 per cent above it. The deposit is gone too, and correctly — section 552.263 permits one only above $100. Every objection PolkTX raised was met, and none of it required a complaint to the Attorney General. The city also applied the fee schedule in force rather than the one that takes effect on 13 October, which is the more expensive of the two. RECORDS THE CITY FOUND THAT WERE NOT ASKED FOR BY NAME: Police Department Policy 5.4 — Automated License Plate Recognition, effective 1 September 2025 and replacing prior policy; ALPR agreements; TxDOT-related documents; DPS records; Flock documentation; and related financial records. PolkTX accepted the $72.00 the same day, inside the ten business days section 552.2615 allows.

Two things this did not settle at the time. Policy 5.4 replaces a PRIOR policy, and the council never adopted 9.1 — so this page asked what had governed the cameras. CORRECTED 2026-10-01: the prior policy is Policy 5.4 itself, adopted by the council 3–0 as Resolution 2024-008 on April 1, 2024. This page said the council was not recorded adopting it; the council is, in minutes the city filed under a 2021 name. The September 1, 2025 version is a reissue approved by the Chief of Police, with the same text. And the TxDOT and DPS records were not on anyone’s list here; what they are is unknown until they arrive. A CORRECTION THE CITY IS OWED. This page said the two adopted budgets were unpublished and the request asked the city for them on that basis. Both are on the city’s site, at names the September sweep never tried, and both have now been read: 36 pages, and neither names Flock, ALPR, a licence plate or a camera. The city was right and this page was wrong, and the budgets have been dropped from the request so nobody is billed for compiling what was public all along.

Not published online — held by PolkTX · Correspondence · PolkTX's transcript

PolkTX's transcript of the email, in full. Not a city publication — the city posts nothing — and not proof: a transcript is only as good as the fact that the city can contradict it and has not. Text rather than a screenshot, because an image cannot be searched, quoted, read aloud, or checked by the tests that keep private addresses off this site.