The Record: a ledger of documented Flock contract actions

31 July 2026. The site now maintains The Record: a running, month-by-month ledger of documented Flock Safety contract actions by American councils, boards, and departments. One block per public decision. A source on every entry. Updated weekly.

Why we built it

Flock contract decisions are being made at a pace no single news outlet is tracking end to end. This month alone, councils acted in Idaho Falls, Stoughton, Monroe County, Harrisonburg, and South Kingstown, each covered locally, none covered together. National tallies exist, but they disagree with each other: one tracker counts 82 ended contracts across 28 states since 2021, others say 53 cities, or 30 and climbing, depending on what is counted and when. Aggregate totals are approximate by nature.

Our answer is not a bigger estimate. It is a ledger. The Record counts only what we can point to: a specific decision, on a specific date, by a named body, with a citation. When the count on our chart says 25, that is not an estimate of the phenomenon. It is the number of documented actions we hold.

What counts as an entry

An entry is a documented public action on a Flock contract. Four kinds appear on the chart, and all four count:

Ended or not renewed. Terminations, non-renewals, and rescinded approvals, from Syracuse’s vendor switch to Monroe County’s early exit, removal fee and all.

Rejected before contract. Proposals that never became agreements, like Portsmouth, Rhode Island’s January vote.

Amended or limited. Contracts kept but changed. Idaho Falls voting unanimously this week to bar the vendor from using local camera data to train AI is the current example, and the kind of entry that tends to be missed entirely by cancellation counts.

Approved or expanded. Yes, these too. Green Bay voted to expand. Arapahoe County added cameras. A ledger that only recorded one direction would be advocacy wearing a ledger’s clothes. The record includes towns that chose to keep their cameras, because that is also what councils decided.

What does not count: petitions, protests, opinion pieces, and vandalism. Cutting down a camera is a crime, not a record, and our position has not changed: the way this gets won is in the meeting.

Solid blocks and dashed blocks

Every entry on the chart is one of two kinds, and the chart shows you which. Solid blocks are confirmed against a primary source or direct local reporting: council minutes, an agenda item, a city notice, or coverage by the reporters who sat in the room. Dashed, lighter blocks are pending verification: the action was reported, usually in a national roundup, but we have not yet confirmed the council record ourselves. They carry a stamp saying so, and they keep it until the record is filed.

This is the same standard as everywhere else on the site. Eleven of the current 25 entries ship as pending. As we confirm each one against the primary record, it turns solid, and its jurisdiction gets a full entry in the directory with contract cost, camera count, and renewal date where the record shows them. Our corrections policy applies to every entry.

How to read it

Select any month and the record card opens: each decision with its jurisdiction, action, vote margin where recorded, one factual sentence, and a link to the source. Filter by category with the chips. Prefer rows to blocks? View as table renders the same records as a sortable list. The chart runs December 2025 through July 2026 today and extends automatically as entries are added.

What the chart shows so far is worth stating plainly: July 2026 is the busiest month on the ledger, with six documented actions, and the mix is shifting. Early entries are mostly terminations; the newest include amendments, towns keeping cameras but rewriting the terms. Whether that continues is a question the ledger will answer as it grows.

Help us fill it in

The Record is only as complete as the records we hold. If your council acted on a Flock contract, in any direction, and it is not on the chart, send us the agenda item, minutes, or local coverage and we will add it, cited to you or anonymously, as you prefer. If a pending entry is from your town, the council record that confirms it is probably one search of your city’s website away, and sending it turns a dashed block solid.

The chart updates weekly. The renewal date for your own town, the single most actionable fact this site tracks, is in the jurisdictions directory.

The Record states documented actions with sources. It does not advise for or against any contract.