Brunswick resident starts petition initiative regarding Flock Safety cameras

BRUNSWICK — Brunswick residents continue to raise concerns about Flock Safety cameras within the city and submitted an initiative petition to the city to ban them. Flock Safety cameras take pictures of license plates as vehicles pass by and can be used by the police department for warrants, stolen vehicles, Amber Alerts and other investigations. Resident Jennifer Arida spoke about the cameras in front of Brunswick City Council during its meeting Monday. She said she sees the cameras as a violation to the Fourth Amendment. "I know I'm not the only one who was raised to love America, and I was taught to value our Constitution, which was made to protect our God-given rights," she said. "I understand this tool helps police solve crimes, but we cannot violate the Constitution to do it." Arida described it as a "slippery slope," which she believes could affect other rights. "This isn't about if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide," she said. "I'm sure you guys are aware that the right to privacy is the core foundation to all of our other rights. If we lose this right, people will be more scared to speak out. It will infringe on our First Amendment, and it would also infringe on our Second and Fifth Amendment rights." Therefore, Arida said she submitted an initiative petition to the city to completely ban systems like the Flock Safety cameras as well as ban "any mass collection of our biometrics." "To me, this is the safest bet to just ban this technology completely," she said. "Maybe in the future, there will be a tool that can function like Flock that doesn't require the mass indiscriminate data collection of innocent residents, but right now this ain't it." Law Director Dennis Nevar said the city's charter authorizes initiative petitions that involve a group of people circulating petitions and bringing forward a proposed ordinance that the electorate votes on. "There's a whole laundry list of statutory conditions that are required for these petitions," he said. "Once that occurs, the petitioner goes out, and they have to get signatures from qualified electors of the city. In terms of the initiative petition, it is 10 percent of the number of electors who voted at the last gubernatorial election back in 2022." Then, the initiative petition would go through a review process. Nevar said there is language within the petition that claims Council made findings and statements that it has never made. "We are not authors of this," Councilman-at-Large Joe Delsanter said. "We are not behind this initiative as it is written. Even though people might see it in the media, and they're going to make an assumption right off the bat that it's the City Council's project, it is not." Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.