Toledo’s Flock license-plate reader cameras will stay on for now — and their future may be decided by a single vote from Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz as early as Tuesday, November 17, after City Council failed, deadlocked and stalled through a series of votes on ending the city’s Flock contracts, WBCL News reported.
The measure at the center of the fight, resolution R-435-26, asks the city to terminate and not renew all of its agreements with Flock Group, Inc., remove or deactivate the company’s equipment, and delete Flock-generated data as far as the law allows, according to the resolution text published through Toledo’s Legistar system and summarized by the Lake Erie Inquiry. Because the contracts belong to the mayor’s administration, even a passed resolution would urge — not order — the mayor to end them, the Lake Erie Inquiry reported.
The November 4 council meeting produced three separate failures, according to WBCL News and the Lake Erie Inquiry’s account of the city’s own meeting video. A motion to hold the resolution for two weeks while an independent audit of the police department’s Flock use is finished failed. The resolution itself then failed, 6 to 5, with Driscoll, Theresa Gadus, Nick Komives, Erin Kramer and Sam Melden voting yes, the Lake Erie Inquiry reported. After Councilwoman Brittany Jones arrived later in the meeting, a motion by Councilman Mac Driscoll to pull the measure back out of committee tied 6 to 6 — one short of the seven votes that move requires — and failed as well, leaving the resolution in committee, the Lake Erie Inquiry reported.
That is where the mayor enters. WBCL News reported that it will be up to Kapszukiewicz to break the tie as early as November 17, and the Lake Erie Inquiry reported that the mayor, who was not at the November 4 meeting, can pull the measure out of committee before the next meeting. The cameras remain live in the meantime, and Toledo police continue to use the system while council argues over it.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. Confirmed: the resolution is in committee, the termination vote failed 6-5, the rescue motion tied 6-6, and the next regular council meeting is November 17. Still outstanding: the independent audit of Toledo police Flock use that council requested on September 22 — covering searches by city employees, access by outside agencies and controls meant to catch misuse, according to the Fostoria Free Press’s account of the audit request — and any public statement from the mayor about which way he will break the deadlock.
The audit is the fault line inside council. Councilwoman Cerssandra McPherson has argued the resolution should wait until the audit is in hand, while Komives is ready to vote the contracts down and tied his position to the November 3 election results, the Lake Erie Inquiry reported. Toledo has had Flock cameras in place since 2022, the Toledo Free Press reported, and the city expanded its partnership in late 2025 through a three-year, $800,000 contract that brought the network to 107 cameras, according to Public Good News Lab.
The debate is not only happening in council chambers. Approximately seven Flock cameras in Toledo have been vandalized during the public push to end the contract, Public Good News Lab reported — a smaller-scale version of the damage NewsForce247 covered in Akron, where seventeen of Akron’s 145 Flock cameras were damaged and three people face felony charges. Toledo’s new police chief also has a stake in the outcome: Kevin Braun, a Toledo native who joined the department in 2000, took over as chief on November 1 and has defended keeping the cameras while council weighs ending the contract, the Fostoria Free Press reported, citing 13 Action News.
A separate proposal would regulate the cameras rather than remove them. Councilman Adam Martinez has introduced a measure that would restrict Flock data sharing related to reproductive health care, gender-affirming care and immigration status, and would require Toledo police to develop a policy preventing the technology’s use to stalk, harass, racially profile or retaliate against citizens, Public Good News Lab reported, citing WTOL 11. Forty miles of context sits in Wood County, where Bowling Green police have used plate readers for almost four years under a different system with more restrictive data sharing, Public Good News Lab reported.
The stakes run through Toledo policing well beyond one contract. The cameras are one of the department’s most visible technology tools at a moment when the city’s homicide numbers are moving in two directions at once — the subject of NewsForce247’s earlier coverage, Toledo Homicides Fall 27 Percent, But More People Are Being Shot. Supporters of the system credit it with helping officers find suspects and stolen vehicles; opponents argue the data trail it builds on every passing driver is too broad to keep without tighter rules.
What happens next is the November 17 council meeting. If the mayor pulls the resolution from committee or breaks the 6-6 tie there, Toledo could vote again on asking him to end the Flock agreements, switch the cameras off and delete the data. If he does not, the resolution stays in committee, the audit remains the next milestone, and the 107 cameras keep reading plates either way.
Photo: Tony Webster, CC BY