Residents urge pause on sheriff's Flock ALPR funding until state-law governance is demonstrable

At the start of the meeting, Ben Porter and Abraham Gonzalez asked the Union County Board of Commissioners to withhold budgeted funding for the sheriff's automated license plate reader (ALPR) program until the sheriff's office can demonstrate written policies meet North Carolina Chapter 20 Article 3D.

Ben Porter (resident, Weddington) said the sheriff implemented Flock cameras four years ago without a policy that fully satisfies the nine statutory requirements; he noted the department's policy points to the vendor contract, which Porter said addresses only one of the nine requirements partially. Porter asked the board to pause the Flock contract for a year, redirect the roughly $200,000 annual ALPR program budget into building a compliance/governance program, and place ALPR governance on a business agenda next year.

Abraham Gonzalez (resident, Wesley Chapel; regulatory-affairs professional) framed the issue as constitutional and civic: he said Article 3D exists to ensure surveillance technologies operate inside the law and argued the county should withhold funding in the FY2027 budget until the sheriff can show written policies implement the statute's requirements. Gonzalez urged a cautious approach, describing privacy as a precondition of liberty and urging the board to insist the sheriff operate "inside the law, not because we have stopped asking the question." Neither presenter recorded a direct response from sheriff's staff in the transcript; the manager later summarized sheriff staffing and IT requests but did not address an immediate policy compliance demonstration.

What commissioners can do next: the board may request a formal presentation from the sheriff documenting how policy and contracts map to the nine statutory requirements, include an ALPR governance item on a business agenda for full discussion, or direct staff to withhold or condition ALPR-related budget amounts until compliance evidence is provided.