FORT PIERCE \u2013 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\u2019 decision the day prior to do the same from all state highway rights of way.<\/p>\n
Controversy over ALPRs \u2013 many of which are manufactured by Flock Safety of Atlanta \u2013 has been growing nationally over the last year or so with several allegations against law-enforcement officers for using the company\u2019s nation-wide data base for personal gain.<\/p>\n
Locally, the City of Port St. Lucie has seen so much protest of that municipality\u2019s use of the cameras that the City Council was forced to address the issue as an unscheduled matter on Aug. 24.<\/p>\n
Exactly a week later, Gov. DeSantis dropped the hammer while assuring the public he was \u201cpro law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to have this become a surveillance state,\u201d he said during a press conference Aug. 31. \u201cBut, you also have to say, how could a private company \u2013 but also law enforcement \u2013 misuse the data? We know an officer in Florida was using the ALPR data to track an ex-girlfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n
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,\u201d Clasby forged ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stand by that motion,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s been several counties do this literally today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, some Florida counties had already complied earlier that day with the governor\u2019s edict for the Department of Transportation to over see the removal of the cameras along state highways and interstates, but they didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Both Chairwoman Jamie Fowler and Commissioner Cathy Townsend subsequently disagreed with Clasby\u2019s urgency, citing the need for more transparency.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy concern stems from the process,\u201d Chairman Fowler said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her final words got drowned out as Commissioner Clasby interrupted her and spoke right over them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMadam Chair, I reviewed my actions with the county attorney and felt comfortable with what she told me prior to coming here today,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I made a motion just trying to see if we can get a second.\u201d<\/p>\n
That put Fowler on the defensive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t an attack sir,\u201d she told him. \u201cI am also entitled to my opinion, and I was stating that, so thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
District 3 Commissioner Erin Lowry ultimately seconded Clasby\u2019s motion to get the ball rolling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any issues discussing what the issue is at hand,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Clasby\u2019s 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\u2019d prepared beforehand.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida is experiencing lots of counties ordering the removal of Flock cameras and other surveillance devices from rights of way,\u201d he began. \u201cSheriffs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clasby proceeded to parrot much of what was stated in the governor\u2019s press release as his reasoning to now justify the removal of all Flock cameras from county-owned roadways.<\/p>\n
\u201cGov. Ron DeSantis has publicly raised even broader privacy and data concerns,\u201d he explained. \u201cHe 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\u2019s 67 counties had decided to take down Flock cameras after the state action.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Commissioner Clasby didn\u2019t explain, however, was that those 25 counties had agreed to the governor\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that DeSantis has made this loud and clear is kind of scary because we have to protect residents,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cPublic safety\u2019s important, but so is the privacy of all these people. It\u2019s kind of become a nuisance, [and] I\u2019m fully onboard with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice-Chairman Leet concurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like the Port St. Lucie Police Department has issued the same order to take them down,\u201d he said, having noted something on Facebook. \u201cAs much good as they [cameras] do in helping, there is definitely the concern of privacy. We don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her part, Commissioner Townsend wanted to get input from local law enforcement before shutting the ALPR program down completely.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy everything I\u2019ve researched, they don\u2019t look at people,\u201d she said of the cameras. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chairwoman Fowler closed it out with her previously aired concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny controversial matters coming before the Board, where the public has not been given notice that it\u2019ll be discussed, is almost like a violation of their Sunshine rights,\u201d she said. \u201cIt makes me very uncomfortable to do this without the public\u2019s knowledge. Even if 99 out of 100 were to come up to this podium and say remove them, I like the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
As for Gov. DeSantis\u2019 Aug. 31 decision on Flock cameras, it was actually an abrupt about-face of his previous support for their use.<\/p>\n
For the last year, he\u2019d been working with the Florida Cabinet\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
He and the State BIE had already received $4.6 million in grants to purchase 440 automated license plate readers for those agencies.<\/p>\n
As of Aug. 31, those funds are now frozen. The State Legislature passed laws in February of 2025 requiring Florida\u2019s 67 sheriff\u2019s offices to collaborate with ICE on President Trump\u2019s immigration enforcement goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 The St. Lucie County Commission majority voted Sept. 1 to eliminate automatic license plate readers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[32917,171,173,172],"class_list":["post-393365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-indian_river","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}