NORTON, Ohio — For the second time in nine months, Norton City Council has rejected a proposal for a camera system that reads license plates.
Last June, council said no to an $80,000 plan that would have placed 15 Flock cameras in the city.
Last week, a scaled-down version was also turned down. In that proposal, Fred Martin Superstore offered to pay $22,000 over two years to put up four cameras near the dealership on Barber Road, according to Cody Huff, the operations manager.
Flock Safety, headquartered in Georgia, says its cameras do not use facial-recognition technology and help reduce crime. Information gathered for a database is purged after 30 days.
Akron Police have used the license plate readers for several months and credit the cameras for helping them find stolen cars and track down an endangered senior citizen.
East Cleveland, Beachwood, Twinsburg and Macedonia are some of the other Northeast Ohio cities using Flock.
Huff said Fred Martin Superstore got behind the cameras partly due to crimes committed at the dealership.
In the last year, Huff said that 16 cars and several catalytic converters had been stolen from the lot.
He shared a surveillance video that showed masked thieves on the lot in November. The video captures a Jeep being driven off the lot, one of six vehicles stolen that night. Several of the crimes remain unsolved.
"Right under a half million dollars of inventory or parts or customers' vehicles stolen right off the lot," Huff said.
Huff believes if Norton had the license plate reading technology, some potential thefts could be prevented.
"Every time something has been stolen off our lot, a stolen vehicle has dropped the perpetrators off. If a plate was read by one of those cameras and the police were dispatched immediately, the crime never would have happened," he said. "We could buy Flock cameras with our own money. The power in the Flock cameras that we wouldn't have the ability to do is connect that to the police department and dispatch police officers immediately."
Norton Councilwoman Charlotte Whipkey is among the members who voted no on both proposals, citing privacy concerns as one reason.
"I just don't like the idea of cameras being everywhere watching everybody," Whipkey said.
Whipkey also questions whether the information gathered by the cameras could be used for purposes beyond law enforcement.
"These things are artificial intelligence, and generally, they upgrade. So where does it stop?" she said.
Gary Daniels, spokesman for the ACLU of Ohio, said one of his concerns is what he calls a "lack of regulation" of the cameras.
"Right now, it's the Wild West in Ohio. There are not statewide laws governing this type of technology and so the locals are just left to fend for themselves," Daniels said. "You're not going to make the ACLU of Ohio comfortable with this type of technology."
But Huff believes the cameras would be a difference-maker for police and victims of crime. He won't rule starting a petition and drawing up a third Flock proposal for Norton City Council to consider.
"I don't know that answer right now. I think a little bit of time has to be put between now and the vote to see if we could get more support behind it," he said.
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