Tuesday, August 25, 5 PM, Council Chamber, second floor of City Hall, 70 Court Plaza. The Flock resolution is New Business item VI.A (agenda · resolution · the chief’s memo). Speakers sign up at the chamber door; be there by 4:30. Emailed and voicemail comments go into the record only if received by 9:00 a.m. Tuesday (the city’s rules).
This page is not a script. Twenty people reading the same three points spend twenty slots on one argument; twenty people each saying the thing they actually know and care about, with a fact behind it, build a record council cannot wave off. Use the site to find your fact and your ask. A worked example is at the bottom if you want to see one put together.
What council is actually deciding
Council cannot rewrite a contract from the dais. What it can do Tuesday is pass the resolution, amend it, or send it back. So the useful comment points at a section of the resolution and says what should happen to it. Here is the whole thing, plainly:
| Section | What it does | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Directs the city manager to terminate the Flock contract and “immediately request that Flock remove their hardware” | No removal deadline, no public confirmation |
| 2 | Bars city employees from searching “data collected through the City’s Flock Technology” | Says nothing about APD’s logins to Flock’s national network or searching other agencies’ cameras |
| 3 | Existing data “retained, preserved, or deleted in accordance with applicable law” | No deletion, no certification from Flock |
| 4 | The city “does not utilize any facial recognition technology” and won’t link Flock data to anyone’s | Nothing about the vendor’s own products upstream |
| 5 | The manager reviews ten topics, including sharing, retention, sensitive activities, “an independent civil-liberties policy reviewer,” and “whether the City should resume use of Flock Technology” | No hearings, no public comment period, no say in who the reviewer is |
| 6 | No new Flock technology or Flock agreements during the review | Flock only. The 162 Axon readers in patrol cars and the plan to expand them are untouched |
| 7 | Effective on adoption |
Two facts sit behind every section. The chief’s memo, now an agenda document, says APD “is not pursuing a full transition away from Flock” and plans to have “the Axon ALPR infrastructure operational” by February 2027 (scored section by section). And APD says it runs 11 Flock cameras and 162 Axon plate readers in marked cars (828NewsNow, Aug 20). Ending Flock removes eleven.
Pick your angle
Say the thing you know. Each line below is a reason people in this city have given, the page that documents it, and one fact you can say out loud with a source attached. Pick one. Two at most.
- The process. The RTIC passed at midnight on May 12 with 21 signed-up residents sent home unheard; the Axon contract went to signature nine weeks later and has still not been released. Read: 2026-05-12 City Council, Promise Tracker. Say: “The contract council approved in May has never been shown to the public.”
- The Constitution. The mayor herself said on August 20 that replacing Flock with Axon readers means “the question around constitutional protection would come back into play.” Read: 2026-08-20 Agenda Briefing, What They Can Actually Learn About You. Say: “The concern is the technology, not the logo on it.”
- Immigration. Local police ran thousands of lookups for ICE through Flock’s network before any safeguard existed; North Carolina law now compels cooperation the city once chose. Read: Who Gets Watched, What the Law Lets the County Do. Say: “Every promise about federal access has been a policy, and policies change without a vote.”
- Reproductive care and protest. A Texas sheriff searched 83,000 cameras in states where abortion is legal; fusion centers monitored people protesting these cameras this month. Read: Stories That Check Out. Say: “The dates are on the record. This is not hypothetical.”
- Public housing. The county sheriff’s own audit log shows 58 percent of camera viewing on Asheville Housing Authority cameras, almost all of it live, Pisgah View the most-watched place in the county. Read: The Sheriff’s Audit Log, Watching the Poor. Say: “That is what a center does when nobody is watching it.”
- Schools. Deputies viewed school cameras live 65,678 times in 28 months across 51 sites, on an agreement the school board never voted on in public. Read: Board of Education. Say: “My kid’s school is on that list.”
- Money. Axon’s business model is escalation: a 7.5-year bundle whose payments are “non-cancelable,” with a separate July agreement for 20 more readers that council never heard about. Read: What Axon Contracts Do, Follow the Money. Say: “Every budget vote from now on is a vote on this contract.”
- The exit. The contracts allow a budget exit, not a free one; Axon’s is immediate on notice if council doesn’t fund it. Read: the clauses, quoted. Say: “There is always a way out, and it’s the budget.”
- The vendors. Flock’s safeguards arrived after each harm; Axon sells streetlight readers “designed to completely blend in.” Read: Flock Safety, Axon. Say: “The replacement is built not to be noticed.”
- The neighbors. Henderson’s sheriff shares plate data with 2,048 agencies including the FBI; Macon’s commissioners voted 5 to 0 to take theirs down. Read: WNC and NC, How Cities Won. Say: “A county an hour west already did this, unanimously.”
- You support the cameras and want rules. The site is built for this too. The city’s own policy promises audits, a 30-day retention, and no federal sharing; none of it is in an ordinance, and the audit reports state law requires have never been published. Read: Promise Tracker, The RTIC Policy. Say: “If the safeguards are real, put them where a future council has to vote to remove them.”
Thirty-six residents have already made arguments at the podium, verbatim and timestamped, on The People Who Showed Up. Reading three of them is the fastest way to find your own.
Decide your ask
A comment that ends in a specific request creates a record; venting doesn’t. Four shapes fit Tuesday:
- Support. “Pass the resolution.” Say why, in your angle’s terms.
- Amend. Name the section and the change. “Amend Section 6 so the pause covers any vendor.” “Amend Section 1 with a removal date.” “Amend Section 5 to require public hearings.” Council members can move an amendment during the meeting; the clearer the sentence, the easier it is to move.
- Oppose or hold. If you think the resolution is a vendor swap dressed as a win, say what would change your mind.
- Ask a question, on the record. “Where are the audit reports state law requires?” “When will the Axon contract be released?” “Who decided to sign for 20 more in-car readers in July?” Unanswered questions are answers too.
Then write it. Three minutes is about 400 spoken words; an email lands best under 150.
Who you are (one line): name, neighborhood, your stake. What you know (one fact, with its source named out loud): from your angle above. What you’re asking (one sentence): support, the section to amend and how, or the question. That you’ll be back (one line): the date of the next meeting you’ll attend.
Ask each council member for their position on your ask, not only on the resolution. Silence is an answer.
One worked example
This is one way to put it together, built from the angle “the exit isn’t the exit.” It is an example, not the ask. Yours may be narrower, or about something else entirely.
Support ending Flock. Amend so the pause covers every plate reader. Amend so the review is real.
- Section 6, vendor-neutral. Replace with: “During the review described above, the City shall not purchase, lease, activate, deploy, or expand automated license plate reader technology from any vendor, whether fixed or vehicle-mounted, and shall not enter into any new or amended agreement for such technology, without a separate vote of City Council taken at a public meeting after public comment.” A fallback that may be easier to pass: strike “or expand,” so existing in-car readers continue but nothing new goes up without a public vote, which is the mayor’s August 20 statement made binding.
- Section 2, the network. Add: “The City Manager shall terminate all City user accounts, search licenses, and network lookup access to Flock Safety systems, including access to data collected by other agencies.” The memo’s “Flock software license that would preserve access to the Flock network” is otherwise still on the table.
- Section 5, a real review. Add: “The review shall include at least two public hearings, a public comment period of not less than thirty days on draft recommendations, and an independent civil-liberties reviewer selected through an open process with community participation. The reviewer’s report shall be published before City Council takes any action on it.”
- Sections 1 and 3, prove it. A removal date (“no later than thirty days after adoption, with removal publicly confirmed”) and a written deletion certification from Flock, published.
- The paper. A new section: “Within fourteen days, the City Manager shall release the executed Axon agreements, including the July 2026 agreement for vehicle-mounted readers and all pricing schedules, and shall publish the current sharing list and retention settings for every automated license plate reader system the City operates.”
As an email, that example reads:
Council members,
I live in [neighborhood]. I support ending the Flock contract on Tuesday, and I’m asking you to amend the resolution before you pass it.
Amend Section 6 so the pause covers automated license plate readers from any vendor, fixed or in-car, not only Flock. Chief Stepp’s memo says the plan is to expand Axon readers by February 2027; APD already runs 162 of them. Ending one vendor does not answer the constitutional concerns residents have raised for a year.
Amend Section 5 so the review includes public hearings and an independent reviewer the community helps choose, with the report published before you act on it.
Please say which way you vote on the amendment, not only the resolution.
[Name, neighborhood]
Who decides
Seven members; four votes pass an amendment. Where each stands, in their own recent words, so you can address the one whose vote your ask needs:
| On record | |
|---|---|
| Kim Roney | ”It’s not enough to cancel Flock then replace it with a similar mass surveillance system”; wants to end “all automated license plate use” (Aug 20) |
| Esther Manheimer | Replacement “is something that is in the pipeline, and we need to have a discussion about it for sure” (Aug 20) |
| Sheneika Smith | Asked the dais’s sharpest questions before voting yes on May 12 |
| Antanette Mosley | Asked the one ICE question at committee |
| Sage Turner | Her Axon vote was conditioned on Flock ending; the plate readers are “maybe a part of the contract we wish wasn’t there” (Aug 20) |
| Maggie Ullman | Pull Flock, keep Axon: her first public position, at the Aug 20 briefing |
| Bo Hess | Defends the Axon partnership: body and dash cameras are “actually what keeps everybody safe” (Aug 20, BPR) |
Every profile has the full record and the question this site would put to them.
How to be heard
In the room. Sign up at the chamber door for item VI.A; you can also sign up for the general comment period at the end (item VII) for a second three minutes. Item VI.A comes after the consent agenda and two public hearings, one a citywide zoning change that will draw its own crowd, so plan to stay; the mayor committed to overflow rooms on the sixth floor. The rules give “a person representing a group (speaker plus three others) present in the council chamber” ten minutes: four neighbors with one ask get more time than four separate speakers. If the clock runs out on you, your written comment is still in the record.
Email. Two addresses, two jobs: avl-city-council@publicinput.com puts your comment in the meeting record (deadline 9:00 a.m. Tuesday); ashevillenccouncil@ashevillenc.gov reaches all seven members directly, any time. Send to both. A subject line that names a section (“Aug 25, item VI.A: amend Section 6”) is a sentence a council member can act on.
Voicemail for the record: 855-925-2801, meeting code 10332, by 9:00 a.m. Tuesday. Your name, your neighborhood, “item VI.A,” your ask.
Mail: Asheville City Council, P.O. Box 7148, Asheville, NC 28802, or hand-deliver to the City Clerk at City Hall. A letter arriving after Tuesday still matters; the review runs for months.
Share, in your own words. Council votes Tuesday at 5 on ending Flock. The resolution leaves APD’s other 162 plate readers and the Axon plan untouched. Find your angle and your ask here, and email avl-city-council@publicinput.com by 9 a.m. Tuesday.
After Tuesday
Watch for four things: who moves an amendment and who seconds it; whether Section 6 leaves the meeting vendor-neutral; whether a removal date and a deletion certification went in; and whether the executed Axon contract gets a release date. Each member’s vote on any amendment, not just the resolution, goes on their profile. The Promise Tracker picks up whatever was promised from the dais, and the Records Center has the requests that check it.
Related: Speak at Council · Getting Flock Out · The People Who Showed Up · Claims Library · 2026-08-20 Agenda Briefing · Election 2026 · Get Involved