WNC Surveillance Watch.

Hendersonville

Where it stands
contested; chief presented Sept 3, no vote
The systems
  • Flock Safety. 16 city cameras, 15 of them plate readers, about $45,000 a year, up since 2024. Portal read Aug 22, 2026: 373,294 vehicles in 30 days, 83 searches, 4,703 hot-list hits. Retention 7 days per the chief, Sept 3, 2026; 30 days in both posted order forms. Two Flock order forms (2024, 2025) and the August 2026 search audit are posted; the master agreement they incorporate is not.Blair Myhand

Hendersonville decides on its cameras separately from Henderson County: the city’s police department runs fifteen license plate readers, and the sheriff’s office runs thirteen more under the county’s own budget. The city’s cameras have run since 2024, three at first and twelve more from November 2025, at about $45,000 a year, under Flock order forms the city posted on its Police Technology page by Sept 21, after the city manager asked on Sept 3 that the contract be put on the website. On Sept 3, 2026 the council heard a presentation from Police Chief Blair Myhand, filed on the agenda with no motion attached. It ended without a vote or any direction to staff, and the mayor said public input sessions would follow without giving a date. The chief chairs the International Association of Chiefs of Police working group that is writing the model policy and public communication tools for plate readers, and he is to moderate a panel with Flock’s chief executive in October. The presentation did not mention the $3,000,000 Real Time Crime Center in the city’s adopted capital plan. What he said, with timestamps, what the city committed to on the record, and what the budget already contains, follow.

The sheriff’s cameras, the county commissioners, and the removal petition are on Henderson County.

The posted order forms and the August audit

At the Sept 3 meeting City Manager John Connet asked the chief to put the signed contract on the city’s website (1:05:08). The police department’s Police Technology page now links three documents, each dated Sept 21, 2026 on the city’s server:

  • The 2024 order form (PDF), signed Aug 1, 2024: two Flock Falcon cameras, a 24-month term, $13,300 in total, retention 30 days.
  • The 2025 order form (PDF), signed Mar 28, 2025 by Chief Myhand: $31,400 a year for solar and standard plate-reader cameras (quantities of 3, 4, 1 and 6 across four product lines), a 12-month first term renewing for 24 months unless either side gives notice 30 days before the end, retention 30 days. The city’s standard addendum is attached; under it the contract ends on June 30 of any year the council does not fund it in the budget.
  • The August 2026 audit (PDF), a memo to the chief dated Sept 10: 321 searches by the department’s own users in August; 35 of them without a proper case number, across seven cases and four users, each reviewed and found to be a permitted use; three searches flagged by Flock’s audit tool, each found legitimate; “no evidence of misuse.”

What the posted documents do not include, as of Oct 2, 2026:

  • The master agreement. Both order forms incorporate “the terms of the previously executed agreement,” which govern use of the system. That agreement is where data ownership and sharing terms would be, and it is not among the posted documents.
  • Other agencies’ searches. The August audit covers searches by Hendersonville’s own officers. It does not count searches of Hendersonville’s cameras by other agencies, which the chief described to council on Sept 3 as requests sent through the state law enforcement network.
  • Retention. The order forms set 30 days; the chief told council on Sept 3 that retention is 7 days, the default Flock announced in August. Which setting governs the city’s cameras today is a question for the department.

What Hendersonville’s adopted budget already contains

The public conversation ahead of September 3 is about Flock cameras. The city’s adopted FY27 budget, voted by council, covers more (the adopted budget, capital improvement plan at printed page 85). The plan separates two columns, and the difference between them matters:

  • Appropriated this year, meaning money council has actually voted: a police mobile deployment drone at $20,000, and the first $25,000 of a six-year, $150,000 camera infrastructure program.
  • Scheduled for FY28, meaning in the adopted plan but not yet funded: a Real Time Crime Center at $3,000,000, a Drone as First Responder program at $265,000 with $23,500 a year recurring, and a mobile surveillance trailer at $190,000 with $15,000 a year recurring.

An out-year line needs a future appropriation, and councils drop out-year lines routinely, so the crime center remains a plan that would need a future vote. The plan also does not say what the center would do, what data would feed it, or whether the Flock cameras would be one of the feeds; the line is a title and a number. The September 3 presentation did not mention it, so the questions below are still open for the input sessions the mayor said will follow.

Questions a resident can ask in two minutes, each answerable from documents the city already holds:

  1. The FY28 capital plan includes a $3,000,000 Real Time Crime Center. What would it do, what data would flow into it, and would the Flock cameras be one of the feeds?
  2. Would the center’s data retention and audit rules be the police department’s own policy, or would council set them?
  3. Drone as First Responder is planned at $265,000 with $23,500 a year recurring. What does the recurring fee buy, and from which vendor?
  4. What does the six-year camera infrastructure program cover, and are any of those cameras on public streets?
  5. What is the city’s annual Axon subscription amount, and does any part of it pay for data storage?

Who decides here

Mayor Barbara Volk, whose seat is on the November ballot; Mayor Pro Tem Jennifer Hensley, a candidate for mayor in November; Council Members Gina Baxter and Melinda Lowrance, both on the November ballot, and Lyndsey Simpson (the city’s council page · the candidate list); City Manager John Connet; Police Chief Blair Myhand. No public input session on the cameras has a date as of Oct 2, 2026; the mayor said sessions would be advertised (1:04:41).

Related: Henderson County · Blair Myhand · How Camera Systems Get Sold to Towns · What the Law Lets the County Do

Last verified: September 8, 2026