City of Woodstock
Woodstock City Council
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What we know
On March 25th, 2024, Woodstock's city council approved a five-year contract with Flock for 6 automated license plate readers, which it pays $15,000 a year for. The motion carried 4-1 (council member Warren Johnson opposed). The term began on April 29th, 2024 and runs until April 28th, 2029. It silently auto-renews unless the council gives at least 30 days notice, meaning that the effective deadline to convince the council is March 2029 before they're locked into a 24-month auto-renewal.
Those six cameras sit at Main Street at the city limits, Ridgewalk Parkway at I-575, Towne Lake Parkway at I-575, Main Street at Serenade Lane, Arnold Mill Road at Hideaway Village Road, and the Woofstock Dog Park. They are all opted in to statewide and national network access, meaning that anyone with access to the Flock network, from anywhere in the country, can pull their data. Flock's own "transparency portal" mentions that the Woodstock PD currently operates 8 cameras in total, and volunteers have mapped at least 16 in the city limits. The remainder likely belong to the county, HOA's, and/or private owners.
Separately, a proposed agreement to join the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Real-Time Intelligence Center is expected on the local agenda this month. That's its own can of worms.
Make your voice heard
| Role | Name | |
|---|---|---|
| Mayor | Michael Caldwell | mcaldwell@woodstockga.gov |
| Ward 1 | Warren Johnson | wjohnson@woodstockga.gov |
| Ward 2 | David Potts | dpotts@woodstockga.gov |
| Ward 3 | Colin Ake | cake@woodstockga.gov |
| Ward 4 | Tracy K. Collins | tcollins@woodstockga.gov |
| Ward 5 | Brian Wolfe | bwolfe@woodstockga.gov |
| Ward 6 | Rob Usher | rusher@woodstockga.gov |
Read the draft letter
Written for Woodstock specifically. To cast a wide net, email mayorandcouncil@woodstockga.gov. Change it: add one sentence in your own words about what bothers you, specifically.
Dear Mayor Caldwell and members of the Woodstock City Council: I am writing to ask you to cancel the city's contract with Flock Safety and have the cameras removed. As deflockcherokee.com has documented: Flock cameras don't accomplish what they're sold to do. The one peer-reviewed evaluation of a major plate reader expansion found no reduction in violent crime. It doesn't help to solve crime, either: Atlanta's camera network grew eightfold between 2021 and 2026, to over 28,600 cameras, and their clearance rates didn't improve at all. They get misused. Four Cherokee County Sheriff's Office employees have been fired and arrested for unlawfully searching the county database. Every month, more and more officials are being arrested for misuse: the number state-wide is up to 20. They get it wrong and distract our police. Roseville, California's own review of 1,427 Flock alerts found 71% were misreads. The same money has better uses for public safety. A randomized trial found that better street lighting cut nighttime crime by about a third. And the National Institute of Justice rates "focused deterrence" (concentrating on the small number of people driving violence, rather than photographing everyone), as "promising" across 24 studies. Inside the public safety budget, the same money could fund detectives to clear the cases residents already report, training, or victim services. Please cancel the Flock contract, and remove the city of Woodstock from its five year agreement with Flock early. Respectfully, [Your name] [Your street, city, ZIP, so they can see you are a constituent]
Fill in what we don’t know
If you live in Woodstock and can add anything to this page (a correction, a contract, a date, a dollar figure, a copy of something a clerk sent you, etc.), email deflockcherokee@proton.me and it goes up with your source attached.