Intersection of routes 355 and 351 in Poestenkill, where the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office proposed installing an automatic license plate reader. The Town Board rejected the request during its meeting on Thursday.
Will Waldron/Times Union
Intersection of routes 355 and 351 in Poestenkill, where the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office proposed installing an automatic license plate reader.
Will Waldron/Times Union
Intersection of routes 355 and 351 in Poestenkill, where the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office asked permission to install an automatic license plate reader.
Will Waldron/Times Union
Poestenkill resident Steve Saur speaks at Thursday’s Town Board meeting against the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office proposal to place Flock Safety automated license plate readers at Town Hall.
Tyler A. McNeil/Times Union
Intersection of routes 355 and 351 in Poestenkill, where the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office asked permission to install an automatic license plate reader. The Poestenkill Town Board rejected the request on Thursday.
Will Waldron/Times Union
Poestenkill resident Diane Geary speaks at Thursday’s Poestenkill Town Board meeting against the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office’s proposal to place Flock Safety automated license plate readers at Town Hall.
Tyler A. McNeil/Times Union
Poestenkill Town Supervisor Tom Russell addresses the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office’s request to place Flock Safety automated license plate readers at Poestenkill Town Hall during a Town Board meeting on Thursday. The board rejected the proposal.
Tyler A. McNeil/Times Union
Poestenkill resident Richard Ring speaks out on Thursday against the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office proposal to place Flock Safety automated license plate readers at Poestenkill Town Hall.
Tyler A. McNeil/Times Union
POESTENKILL — Several residents have sent a clear message to the Town Board: We don’t want government surveillance cameras in Poestenkill.
And the Town Board members listened, rejecting a proposal during a meeting on Thursday to install automated license plate readers on municipal property.
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The Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office had requested permission to place the technology designed to identify criminal suspects at Poestenkill Town Hall, facing a five-way intersection. Residents were quick to raise privacy concerns online, many of which were echoed at the recent meeting.
“We’re losing our rights in this country, and this is just another example of it,” Scott J. Bidwell, of Deer Creek Road, told the board.
“This is not Manhattan, and let’s keep it that way,” said Diane Geary, of Hinkle Road.
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“I don’t think we need to keep track of each other to that extent,” said Richard M. Ring, also of Hinkle Road.
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Flock Safety, which would have provided those cameras, has readers in more than 5,000 communities and 4,800 agencies nationwide. It allows agencies within the national network to store and share data up to 30 days, according to the company’s website.
Rensselaer County Sheriff Kyle Bourgault and Capt. Justin Walraed pitched the concept as a limited-use means of protecting rural public safety in lieu of getting state approval to set up readers closer to highly trafficked, New York-owned thoroughfares.
But many residents have argued that the technology clashed with the sleepy town’s charm and would open up the door to abuse. Town Supervisor Tom Russell said in an interview that he received letters, emails and phone calls from residents opposed to the measure, and only saw a few comments in support of it on social media.
The outgoing Democrat told reporters on Thursday that he wanted to remain objective before making a decision on the issue. According to him, he only recently learned about the technology.
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“I listened to what the sheriff said out of courtesy to get better educated and then listened to various input from residents who looked up articles, sent them in and read through them to be able to be educated and make the correct decision,” Russell said.
Town lawmakers didn’t have a resolution on the matter prepared at the start of the meeting. They voted to draft a rejection letter to the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office only after a slew of opponents, including former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Judith Enck, spoke against it during public comment.
Stewart’s Shops also declined a proposal from the sheriff’s office in August to place readers at five retail locations across Rensselaer County and rejected a similar request from the Hudson Police Department in Columbia County.
According to Cooper, it wasn’t clear how the readers would be maintained, and a number of Rensselaer County customers had expressed concerns to the company since news of the proposal surfaced.
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“There were too many uncertainties, and we just decided to pass,” Cooper said.
Bourgault didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office has had some success pitching the readers. Petersburgh lawmakers recently approved the agency’s request to install license plate recognition systems at the town’s municipal complex.
Petersburgh Town Supervisor Heinz H. Noeding considers the move, made without controversy, vital to fighting drug trafficking from neighboring Massachusetts and Vermont. The rural town’s eponymous hamlet is located at the crossroads of state routes 2 and 22.
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Privacy is not guaranteed on public roads, Noeding told the Times Union when asked about concerns in Poestenkill. “That’s the reality,” he said.
License plate readers are already placed across the western portion of the county, namely in North Greenbush, East Greenbush and Troy.