Pasadena’s Flock license plate readers are finally headed to the full City Council. Vice Mayor Jess Rivas announced Friday evening that the city’s Flock contract will be on the council agenda for Tuesday, November 17 — a discussion she asked Mayor Victor Gordo to schedule, and one that arrives as the city approaches the last one-year option on its contract with Flock Safety.
I’ve been writing about these cameras for months — the backlash against them here and beyond, and what Pasadena’s agreement with Flock actually says. Until now the fight has played out in the Public Safety Committee, when that committee could hold a meeting at all. November 17 is the first time the whole council takes it up.
Rivas, who chairs Public Safety, announced the date in a short video on her District 5 Instagram account. Her reasoning: the city is nearing the final option year, and it is time to reflect on how the program has been going, what has been learned about the company over the past couple of years — including reporting on federal immigration enforcement gaining access to local Flock data — and to decide whether residents still want the technology in their neighborhoods. The mayor agreed to put it on the November 17 agenda.
If the embed doesn’t load, watch Rivas’s announcement on Instagram.
Where Rivas stands
Rivas is not coming to November 17 undecided. In an August 25 update to her district, published on the city’s website, she wrote: “My position is that we should cancel the Flock contract and not replace it with another ALPR vendor.” If the rest of the council votes to keep Flock or switch vendors, she said she will argue to greatly reduce the number of cameras and how long the data is retained. She spoke at the DeFlock Pasadena rally in front of City Hall in August, and as Public Safety chair she has put Flock on that committee’s agenda repeatedly this year — while the committee itself has struggled to hold the discussion, with meetings cancelled or short of a quorum. Her ask now is that the full council weigh in.
What the council is weighing
Pasadena’s police department operates 61 fixed Flock cameras under a contract the council approved on July 17, 2023; the contract runs through September 25, 2027, with the option year now in view. A recent 30-day period on the department’s transparency portal logged about 1,018,754 vehicle detections and 500 searches, with data retained 30 days. An Independent Police Auditor review in July found the program compliant with state law and department policy, with no evidence of immigration use — but in June the department cut off the NCRIC fusion center’s access to Pasadena data after reporting that outside agencies, including federal ones, had reached it. The Public Safety Committee split on the program’s future: Rivas for ending it, Councilmember Steve Madison for keeping it with adjustments. In August, Councilmember Tyron Hampton asked staff to suspend the cameras pending further discussion. Pasadena Privacy, the group behind the DeFlock campaign, says it has delivered more than 2,700 letters urging the city not to renew. My sister site AltaPasa laid out the full state of play in Pasadena and Altadena earlier this week, and follows the November 17 discussion there as well.
How to be heard on November 17
The council meets Tuesday, November 17, at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber at City Hall, 100 N. Garfield Ave. The published agenda and any staff report on Flock are not out yet — the agenda typically posts the week before the meeting — and Rivas says participation details are linked from her Instagram bio. The usual channels apply: attend in person, join by Zoom at cityofpasadena.net/cczoom or by phone at 1-669-900-6833 (Meeting ID 161 482 446), watch on KPAS (Charter Channel 3), Pasadena Media’s YouTube channel, or Granicus, and send written comments to the City Clerk at cityclerk@cityofpasadena.net for the record. Rivas’s own advice is simpler: if you care about this one, contact your councilmember, the mayor, or the full council before the 17th — and show up.
Sources: Vice Mayor Jess Rivas, Instagram announcement (Nov. 6, 2026) and District 5 newsletter on Flock ALPRs (Aug. 25, 2026, cityofpasadena.net); City of Pasadena council meeting schedule for November 2026; Pasadena Police Department ALPR transparency portal and Independent Police Auditor review (July 2026).
