Gardner's four automated license plate reader cameras are dark, and the city's $13,000 annual contract with Flock Safety is canceled after the City Council voted Aug. 18 to pull the plug on the surveillance system.

The vote came after resident Eric Arnold used the public comment period to push the council for an immediate decision. The Flock contract was not on the meeting agenda.

"So bring it forward and let Gardner see where each of you stands — whether you choose to act or choose to wait, the community is watching now," Arnold told the council, according to the Johnson County Post.

Arnold had first raised concerns about the cameras at the Aug. 3 council meeting. In the 11 days between that meeting and the vote, he sat down with Police Chief Kelly Herron to discuss the system. Herron had already shut the cameras off Aug. 15 to allow time for discussion.

When asked whether losing the cameras would harm public safety, Herron said no.

He told the council his preference was not to renew the contract.

Gardner deployed the four Flock cameras in September 2025 at an initial cost of $33,000, according to Hoodline. The city held two contracts with Flock, one ending in December and one in February. Because the full $13,000 annual fee had already been paid, the council determined it could terminate use immediately without financial penalty.

By Aug. 19 police had physically covered some cameras to prevent recording and formally notified Flock the contract was canceled, KMBC reported.

Resident Bradley Steinmetz told the council that more than 1,200 agencies nationwide could access data through the Flock system, and that city officials had no way to track suspected abuse after data left storage. The system stored license plate data for 30 days on an Amazon cloud service for government agencies, according to the Kansas City Star. Only Herron and the police captain had local access.

Flock Safety announced Aug. 13 that it would cut its default data retention from 30 days to seven days and require officers to attach a case code to every search by the end of 2026. Gardner's vote came five days later.

Councilmember Kelly Johnson wrote on Facebook on Aug. 18 that the decision applies only to cameras owned by Gardner, not those operated by Johnson County or the state. Johnson said the council would look into options regarding cameras run by other jurisdictions in and around the city.

Lenexa meeting draws 150 on same night

The Gardner vote landed on the same night about 150 people gathered at the Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church in Lenexa for a meeting on license plate readers organized by Boots on the Ground Midwest. The event was timed to a National Week of Action by DeFlock, a coalition pushing back against the technology.

Since July, 10 cities nationwide have canceled Flock contracts or deactivated cameras, according to the DeFlock website. Flock Safety operates more than 120,000 cameras across the country.

Lenexa resident Canyen Ashworth told the Lenexa gathering that DeFlock's map shows 2,075 automated license plate reader devices in Johnson County. Ashworth recounted how Lenexa police tracked him using the readers after he wrote a Kansas City Star editorial critical of the department's handling of an investigation.

No exact vote tally for the Gardner decision has been reported. The council did not set a public timeline for reviewing non-city-owned cameras in the area.