The massive nationwide effort by the private surveillance company Flock to establish contracts leasing their automated license plate readers arrived in Coralville, Iowa in January of 2025.

The public was informed of this effort for the first time in a news article on June 25, 2025 covering a council work session on June 24, 2025.

Work sessions are open to the public but are not video recorded like regular council meetings.

TIMELINE

January 14, 2025 – Council Work Session – in the minutes for this session, Chief Nicholson buried “license plate recognition system” in a paragraph listing a total of seven budget increases.

April 22, 2025 – Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Public Hearing – in this meeting, Finance Director Ann Hester repeats Chief Nicholson’s list from January 14, 2025.

May 8, 2025 – Emails between Chief Nicholson and City Manager Hayward obtained through a FOIA request do not demonstrate any interest in informing the public about the pending contract.

May 12, 2025 – Chief Nicholson signs a two-year $36,000 contract with Flock without having discussed any specifics with Mayor Foster or Coralville city councilors and without the public being informed in any significant way. 

June 24, 2025 – Trevor Chandler, Director of Public Affairs for Flock, attends council work session.

June 25, 2025 – Article published in local news acknowledges Coralville’s plan to join the Flock surveillance network.

July 8, 2025 – Nine members of the public speak up at the Coralville city council meeting in opposition to Coralville joining the Flock network.

August 20, 2025 ACLU community briefing about the constitutional concerns of the Flock network.

August 26, 2025 – Continued public outcry at the city council meeting. Council introduces policy proposals for a contract that none of them have seen.

August 28, 2025– Coralville resident provides Mayor Foster and city councilors with the $36,000 two-year Flock contract obtained by asking the City Clerk. This is the first time any of them have seen the contract.

NEXT

September 23, 2025 – Coralville will be bringing a Flock sales rep to the council meeting and council plans to vote on one of the three following options:

1. End the contract with Flock
2. Keep the contract with Flock and add the policies* proposed at the August 26, 2025 meeting.
3. Keep the contract with Flock with no added policies.

*Flock is a shared data network with cooperating agencies all over the world so any policies that attempt to limit Coralville have no effect on the data that Coralville pours into the shared network.

Johnson County already has unlimited, warrantless access to all current and future Flock portals nationwide, including Coralville’s.

We oppose the contract itself as well as the way that the public was circumvented in these negotiations. We will ask the council to end the contract.

CONSEQUENCES

Three of the five councilors who will vote on this contract will be on the November 4, 2025 ballot. Mike Knudson and Hai Huynh are running to be re-elected to council and Laurie Goodrich is running for mayor.