City Council Member Omari Shakur says he has brought forward a resolution to cancel Newburgh’s two-year contract with Flock on three separate occasions – and three times the council did not vote on it, including this past Monday.
“I would like to bring Flock as a resolution, and I'm going to bring it up every City Council meeting until we vote on it, so I'm bringing it up as a resolution again,” Shakur said on Monday during the old business portion of the City Council meeting.
Corbin Laedlein, a Newburgh resident, has spoken repeatedly at the City Council meetings and said he’s confused and disappointed by the council’s lack of action.
“I’m not fulling understanding why that is, why some city council members who I expected would be more continuously outspoken and trying to push this forward are just silen[t], at least publicly,” Laedlein told WAMC.
Newburgh Mayor Torrance Harvey said in May that surveillance is a part of public safety and that Americans have been under surveillance since President Bush passed the Patriot Act.
City of Newburgh Police Chief Brandon Rola said in a June City Council work session that cancelling the contract would cost the city over $400,000.
City Council Members Ronald Zorilla said he does not want to live in a surveillance state but he has a fiduciary responsibility and would hate to lose that money.
The license plate readers were purchased through a New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services grant in 2024.
The City Council did not respond to WAMC’s request for comment.
