FORT PIERCE – The St. Lucie County Commission majority voted Sept. 1 to eliminate automatic license plate readers from all county-owned roadways in tandem with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ decision the day prior to do the same from all state highway rights of way.
Controversy over ALPRs – many of which are manufactured by Flock Safety of Atlanta – has been growing nationally over the last year or so with several allegations against law-enforcement officers for using the company’s nation-wide data base for personal gain.
Locally, the City of Port St. Lucie has seen so much protest of that municipality’s use of the cameras that the City Council was forced to address the issue as an unscheduled matter on Aug. 24.
Exactly a week later, Gov. DeSantis dropped the hammer while assuring the public he was “pro law enforcement.”
“I don’t want to have this become a surveillance state,” he said during a press conference Aug. 31. “But, you also have to say, how could a private company – but also law enforcement – misuse the data? We know an officer in Florida was using the ALPR data to track an ex-girlfriend.”
The next day District 1 County Commissioner James Clasby insisted his colleagues follow suit, although the issue did not appear on the Sept. 1 agenda. After he got confirmation from County Attorney Katherine Barbieri that he could legally make a motion to add it to the agenda,” Clasby forged ahead.
“I stand by that motion,” he said. “There’s been several counties do this literally today.”
Indeed, some Florida counties had already complied earlier that day with the governor’s edict for the Department of Transportation to over see the removal of the cameras along state highways and interstates, but they didn’t all necessarily go further as Clasby desired. Pinellas County, Tampa and St. Petersburg complied with taking the ALPRs off state rights of way but did not as yet agree to remove them from their own jurisdictional rights of way. With a few days, however, some 13 Florida counties, including St. Lucie, had agreed to remove them from their own jurisdictions as well.
Both Chairwoman Jamie Fowler and Commissioner Cathy Townsend subsequently disagreed with Clasby’s urgency, citing the need for more transparency.
“My concern stems from the process,” Chairman Fowler said. “We are required to provide reasonable public notice to allow residents to weigh-in. It does make me a little uncomfortable to throw this on last minute.”
Her final words got drowned out as Commissioner Clasby interrupted her and spoke right over them.
“Madam Chair, I reviewed my actions with the county attorney and felt comfortable with what she told me prior to coming here today,” he said. “So, I made a motion just trying to see if we can get a second.”
That put Fowler on the defensive.
“That wasn’t an attack sir,” she told him. “I am also entitled to my opinion, and I was stating that, so thank you.”
District 3 Commissioner Erin Lowry ultimately seconded Clasby’s motion to get the ball rolling.
“I don’t think there’s any issues discussing what the issue is at hand,” she said.
Commissioner Clasby’s agenda motion passed 3-2, with Chairwoman Fowler and Commissioner Townsend dissenting. Clasby than began a lengthy discussion after passing out a three-page document that he’d prepared beforehand.
“Florida is experiencing lots of counties ordering the removal of Flock cameras and other surveillance devices from rights of way,” he began. “Sheriffs are completely pausing their service due mainly to Gov. DeSantis coming out against them. The Florida Department of Transportation revoked approvals on Aug. 31 for automated license plate readers in state highway system rights of way.”
Clasby proceeded to parrot much of what was stated in the governor’s press release as his reasoning to now justify the removal of all Flock cameras from county-owned roadways.
“Gov. Ron DeSantis has publicly raised even broader privacy and data concerns,” he explained. “He called the spread of license-plate readers out of control and warned against a digital AI surveillance state. FDOT, in their memorandum, stated the basis for immediate action is the rapid increase in roadway deployments together with concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns and surveillance schemes. Those are very serious concerns in my opinion. At least 25 of Florida’s 67 counties had decided to take down Flock cameras after the state action.”
What Commissioner Clasby didn’t explain, however, was that those 25 counties had agreed to the governor’s order but not necessarily to go as far as the commissioner proposed. By Sept. 7, the Hometown News could only confirm that 13 of those had actually agreed to remove them from their own jurisdictions as well, but that number is still very fluid. Clasby found the simply majority he needed in his previous seconder and Vice-Chairman Larry Leet.
“The fact that DeSantis has made this loud and clear is kind of scary because we have to protect residents,” Lowry said. “Public safety’s important, but so is the privacy of all these people. It’s kind of become a nuisance, [and] I’m fully onboard with it.”
Vice-Chairman Leet concurred.
“It looks like the Port St. Lucie Police Department has issued the same order to take them down,” he said, having noted something on Facebook. “As much good as they [cameras] do in helping, there is definitely the concern of privacy. We don’t know where our information is being sold to, and I agree we need to get some legislation before we start approving these. That being said, I am in support.”
For her part, Commissioner Townsend wanted to get input from local law enforcement before shutting the ALPR program down completely.
“By everything I’ve researched, they don’t look at people,” she said of the cameras. “They are there to scan the tags like when you go through the Turnpike. I would personally like for Sheriff del Toro and the two police chiefs to come in and let them educate us a little bit more on this before I make a decision.”
Chairwoman Fowler closed it out with her previously aired concerns.
“Any controversial matters coming before the Board, where the public has not been given notice that it’ll be discussed, is almost like a violation of their Sunshine rights,” she said. “It makes me very uncomfortable to do this without the public’s knowledge. Even if 99 out of 100 were to come up to this podium and say remove them, I like the process.”
The County Commission then voted 3-2 for approval with Fowler and Townsend dissenting. The next day the Port St. Lucie Police Department formally announced the suspension of all ALPR use.
As for Gov. DeSantis’ Aug. 31 decision on Flock cameras, it was actually an abrupt about-face of his previous support for their use.
For the last year, he’d been working with the Florida Cabinet’s State Board of Immigration Enforcement to get grant funding for 18 local law enforcement agencies working in tandem with U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement to arrest and deport undocumented aliens.
He and the State BIE had already received $4.6 million in grants to purchase 440 automated license plate readers for those agencies.
As of Aug. 31, those funds are now frozen. The State Legislature passed laws in February of 2025 requiring Florida’s 67 sheriff’s offices to collaborate with ICE on President Trump’s immigration enforcement goals.