SUGAR HILL, Ga. — Sugar Hill will keep its two license plate cameras after its mayor broke a two-way tie.
Council member Gary Pirkle proposed an ordinance that would have turned off the cameras and required council approval for any new ones.
The council vote on that ordinance came in tied, with Mayor Brandon Hembree casting the deciding no.
Hembree then broke another tie to put city staff in charge of writing a policy for how the city uses the cameras.
Stephen Greenewald, a Sugar Hill resident, asked the council in September to shut them off.
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“It’s a broad dragnet of all data. And data does not equal safety,” Greenewald said.
Pirkle said the cameras went up about two years ago without any council discussion.
“We never asked for them as residents of Sugar Hill. Not provided the opportunity to say yes or no, we want Flock cameras, or we don’t,” Greenewald said.
Council member Alvin Hicks pushed for safeguards instead of a ban and first questioned police in four nearby cities, including Johns Creek, where officers run 55 cameras.
“They stated that there was no misuse within their agencies because there are certain levels of auditing and protection in place to avoid that,” Hicks said.
Channel 2 Gwinnett Bureau Chief Matt Johnson learned that Gwinnett police run about 1,100 license plate cameras across Gwinnett County, and the ACLU of Georgia said Doraville, Savannah and other Georgia communities have reached out for advice on the same cameras.
“I think that it’s just a really serious scenario where people don’t realize their rights are going away,” Greenewald said.
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