“Public Comment Is a Courtesy” — Chetek Citizen Says It’s Not About Flock Cameras Anymore

Our Take

Credit to Municipal Minutes for sitting through another Common Council meeting so the rest of us don't have to. What's happening in Chetek is a pattern we've flagged before: a city quietly rolls out Flock cameras, residents find out after the fact, and the local government's response to scrutiny becomes its own scandal. When a mayor tells the public that their comment period is a "courtesy" rather than a right, he's telling you exactly how much your input is worth to City Hall.

Zach Hodge's framing is the part that should worry every Chetek resident, Flock skeptic or not. Once a police chief is accused of misleading officials about how surveillance equipment was obtained and deployed, the conversation stops being about ALPRs and starts being about whether anyone in local government can be trusted to tell the truth about the tools they're buying. That's a much bigger problem than one camera contract, and it's the kind of erosion that happens town by town, council meeting by council meeting, while most residents aren't watching.

This is exactly why we keep pushing people to check whether their own city has quietly joined the Flock network — see our camera map to find out — and to show up when these meetings happen, even if officials act like your voice is optional. It rarely stays about "just cameras" for long. If you want tools for pushing back where you live, our take-action page is a good place to start.