The letter candidates receive

Benicia's Flock contract runs five years, co-terminous from the first camera installed, so renewal falls to the Council that takes office after this election. The sole-source letter that justified skipping competitive bidding in 2021 was drafted by Flock itself, and the staff report template came from the vendor too. When renewal reaches you: would you put the contract out to competitive bid, renew it, or end it — and what would you need to know first? If you do not yet have the annual cost figure, say so; I am as interested in whether candidates have looked.

Basis in the record: Finding 1 — Flock wrote the city's no-bid justification · Where Flock has failed

Benicia shares its ALPR data with 82 outside agencies. Until this month the instrument was a one-page letter the receiving agency signed itself — no term, no audit right, nothing running back to Benicia. In August 2026 the City replaced it with a version drafted by counsel that requires the receiving agency to hold its own ALPR policy “which includes a process for periodic system audits” and lets Benicia revoke access for non-compliance. Twenty-five agencies signed it between August 4 and August 12. Hayward PD did not, and the City stamped its file NO ACCESS. Fifty-three agencies are still on the old letter and still have access — among them the San Francisco Police Department, which holds three separate Benicia letters including one filed under NCRIC. Should the standard applied to Hayward apply to all fifty-three, and if so by when?

Basis in the record: Finding 6 — shared by letter, with “no formal MOU” · Who gets Benicia's data

In June 2026 San Francisco disclosed that its Flock network had been queried 299 times on behalf of federal and out-of-state agencies, through NCRIC and onward to the Western States Information Network. Benicia shares with NCRIC. Asked by the Mayor on June 18 whether Benicia's data was exposed the same way, Chief Menesini answered “Yes, for NCRIC.. No to WISN” and added: “We need to do some research to see if NICRIC shared our Benicia cameras with WISN who in return shared with outside federal agencies.” That was the right question. In everything the City has produced since, there is no record of the research being started, assigned or finished, and NCRIC has since said in writing that no record identifying whose cameras answered a query “exists, could be located, or could be created.” Would you require the City to establish whether Benicia's data travelled that route and publish the answer — and what would you do about NCRIC's access in the meantime?

Basis in the record: Finding 17 — the Chief confirmed NCRIC has Benicia's data

Benicia's ALPR policy has required a quarterly audit of search inquiries since 2021 — except in the versions dated January and September 2024, where the section is absent and the only audit language left is that audits “should be conducted on a regular basis”. It returns in September 2025. Separately, of eighteen audits the City has produced from November 2021 to April 2026, the three that reviewed every inquiry found 33 policy violations; the fourteen that sampled ten searches found none — including one quarter where both methods ran against the same data. And in response to a request for the audits themselves, the City has produced the policy requiring them and not a single audit conducted under it. Would you require comprehensive rather than sampled auditing, published on a fixed schedule, and what consequence should follow when an audit documents a violation?

Basis in the record: Finding 8 — 88 letters, one page each, and no outbound audit · PR-2026-180 — the seven policy versions, as produced

Benicia has no ordinance governing how surveillance technology is acquired or used, and no written policy on City use of artificial intelligence — including automated decision tools, facial or biometric matching, and AI features added to systems the City already runs. The City's own records show how capability changes happen on this system: in August 2021 the Chief asked Flock to switch public search-auditing on and the list of sharing partners off, and the vendor did both within minutes. No Council decision was involved in either. Would you vote for a surveillance technology ordinance on the CCOPS model — Council approval before acquisition, a published use policy, annual reporting — and would you extend it to AI capabilities added to existing systems? If not, what would you put in its place?

Basis in the record: Finding 4 — public search-auditing is a switch the vendor flips