The massive nationwide effort by the private surveillance company Flock to establish contracts leasing their automated license plate readers arrived in Coralville, Iowa in January of 2025.

The public was informed of this effort for the first time in a news article on June 25, 2025 covering a council work session on June 24, 2025.

Work sessions are open to the public but are not video recorded like regular council meetings.

TIMELINE

January 14, 2025 – Council Work Session – as shown in the minutes for this session, Chief Nicholson buries “license plate recognition system” in a paragraph listing a total of seven budget increases.

April 22, 2025 – Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Public Hearing – in this meeting, Finance Director Ann Hester repeats Chief Nicholson’s list from January 14, 2025.

May 8, 2025 – Emails between Chief Nicholson and City Manager Hayworth obtained through a FOIA request do not demonstrate any interest in informing the public about the pending contract.

May 12, 2025 – Chief Nicholson signs a two-year $36,000 contract with Flock without having discussed any specifics with Mayor Foster or Coralville city councilors and without the public being informed in any significant way.

June 24, 2025 – Trevor Chandler, Director of Public Affairs for Flock, attends council work session.

June 25, 2025 – Article published in local news acknowledges Coralville’s plan to join the Flock surveillance network.

July 8, 2025 – Nine members of the public speak up at the Coralville city council meeting in opposition to Coralville joining the Flock network.

August 20, 2025 ACLU community briefing about the constitutional concerns of the Flock network.

August 26, 2025 – Continued public outcry at the city council meeting. Council introduces policy proposals for a contract that none of them have seen.

August 28, 2025– Coralville resident provides Mayor Foster and city councilors with the $36,000 two-year Flock contract obtained by asking the City Clerk. This is the first time any of them have seen the contract.

September 23, 2025 – the city of Coralville brings Flock VP of Government Affairs , Kam Simmons, to the Coralville city council meeting.

After a long discussion, Councilor Vogelzang moves to approve the Flock policy. Councilor Goodrich seconds the motion and the motion passes 3 (Goodrich, Peterson, and Vogelzang) to 2 (Huynh and Knudson).

November 25, 2026 – Councilor Knudson moves to amend Section 24.7 of the Flock resolution to limit data sharing to Johnson County, Iowa (previously data was shared within the state of Iowa).

Motion is seconded by Huynh and passes 3 (Huynh, Knudson, and Peterson) to 2 (Goodrich and Vogelzang).

January 25, 2026 – a Coralville resident informed Mayor Goodrich and the city council in an e-mail that the Coralville Police Department is sharing data outside of Johnson County in violation of the agreement.

Nobody from council or staff replied to the resident but staff told a Press-Citizen reporter that the Cedar Rapids Police Department had submitted a manual request.

Approving a singular manual request by outside law enforcement does not explain or excuse why access by the Cedar Rapids Police Department is ongoing.

February 10, 2026 – in the work session following the 6:30 pm council meeting, council discussed a letter from the office of the Iowa Attorney General instructing Coralville to change their Flock policy to comply with all immigration detainer requests within 30 days.

Since the city still continues to refuse to make work sessions accessible via livestream and archived video like they do council meetings, Coralville residents have been recording the work sessions ourselves. If you follow the linked text in the previous sentence, you will hear discussion of the Flock camera beginning at 39:17.

You will hear Mayor Goodrich state that, given the majority of council now being against the Flock contract, she feels no need to prolong the discussion any further and she directs City Attorney Olson to communicate with Flock about the city’s intention to cancel the Flock contract.

February 24, 2026 – the council meeting agenda contained the following item for council to discuss and vote upon:

Consider resolution terminating the Agreement with Flock Group and rescinding Police Policy regarding Automated License Plate Readers.

Coralville City Council voted 3-1 to end the city’s contract with Flock.

Councilors Freeman, Huynh, and Knudson voted in favor of ending the Flock contract, Councilor Vogelzang voted in opposition, and Councilor Peterson was absent from the meeting.