Get The Flock Out of Monterey County
Board of Supervisors, Tuesday, October 13, Item 12 (heard after 1:30 pm). Email the Board by 5:00 pm Monday, October 12.
Three weeks after the Board voted to remove the Sheriff's Flock cameras, the Sheriff's Office is back with a bigger ask: $3,034,343 with Axon Enterprises, retroactive to September 1, 2026 and running to August 31, 2034. The fleet would grow from 3 drones to as many as 18, including a long-range "Drone as First Responder" system that is still in development. Costs jump from about $115,000 a year to about $465,000 a year starting in 2028. The board report shares no drone policy, and the policy we found (Sheriff's Policy 340) is an inadequate vendor template: it lets drones record homes and yards with a warrant or "exigent circumstances" and sets no limit on how long footage is kept.
Send the letter to the Board (Contract Tracker) · Read the board report
On October 5, 2026, the Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council took up a draft drone policy and a plan to build a drone program for the Carmel Police Department. Residents and neighbors from across the county wrote in and spoke up about mass surveillance, and about why drones belong with fire, Coast Guard and search-and-rescue crews rather than law enforcement.
That concern was enough for the council to turn the proposal down. At the city manager's urging, the council tabled it instead of rejecting it outright, so it can come back, possibly after the November election. Thank you to everyone who spoke and wrote in.
What's next: we can wait for the drone request to return, or get ahead of it. If Carmel wants drones for emergencies, policy and control should sit with the fire department for fire, rescue and search-and-rescue work, not with the police, and not on an Axon network. We don't want military surveillance technology in our community.
On September 22, 2026, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to reject a 10-year, roughly $1.7 million Flock Safety agreement. The Board directed the Sheriff's Office to take down all 63 of its Flock license plate reader cameras within 60 days, which puts the deadline around November 21, 2026.
Supervisors Wendy Root Askew, Kate Daniels and Glenn Church voted to end the program. Supervisors Luis Alejo and Chris Lopez voted to keep it. Flock's original proposal would have grown the network to 103 cameras at a cost of about $2.8 million.
The vote followed hours of public comment about privacy, who can see and share the data, and the length and terms of the contract. Thank you to everyone who spoke, wrote and showed up.
What's next: the vote covers only the Sheriff's cameras, and only the Flock contract. Flock cameras run by Salinas, Monterey, Seaside, Marina, Pacific Grove and Carmel are still in place. See the Contract Tracker for each city's renewal deadlines, and help us make sure the County's cameras actually come down on schedule. We don't want any mass surveillance technology watching us.