Conroe City council to debate Flock camera funding

All right. It's not just about the price tag anymore. Across the Houston area, the debate over flock cameras is raising serious concerns over public surveillance, privacy, and how how much monitoring is actually too much. Our Angie Rodriguez takes a closer look. Conroe City Council is about to discuss the future of the town's flock cameras. With over 900,000 license plates scanned last month alone, will local leaders try to keep the surveillance network active or will they attempt to pull the plug? How effective is it? Are we getting any of those people? Thursday afternoon, Conroe City Council will discuss the amount of funds in the 2026 to 2027 budget that will be allocated to flock safety license plate readers in the town. With more than 50 in the city, council finds themselves on both ends of the spectrum. Who decides how the city is watched? The people should decide that. And we have that opportunity to take a step back. A contract that nobody voted on five years ago, other than the city council, but the citizens didn't vote on it. I wanna give the citizens what they're asking for. And I think this is the way to do it. I don't see an issue with the cameras. And I am listening to our police officers when they say that it helps them complete their work more efficiently, more effectively. And as a resident, you know, as also a taxpayer here in Conroe, that translates to me as if I had a problem, it would be solved much faster with this tool. But we've already seen this play out across the Houston area. Wednesday night, the Chambers County Sheriff's Office defended the tech and said they plan to add more flock cameras in the near future. But the city of Manville unanimously approved to remove the cameras during a Tuesday night city council meeting. The information collected from a flock safety license plate readers is stored by the Conroe Police Department for 30 days. This information, according to the Conroe police chief, has been helping them make arrests across the city. And we do know this discussion will happen during a city council meeting scheduled for six o'clock. We'll keep you updated on Fox Local. Angie Rodriguez, Fox 26 News.