Huntington City Council discusses new ordinance for Flock cameras
The short version: Huntington's city council is moving an ALPR ordinance to a second reading, and the fine print on oversight will decide whether this is real accountability or just paperwork.
Our Take
Credit to WOWK 13 News for covering this while it's still in process, because ordinances like this are usually finalized long before most residents even know a vote happened. The fact that Huntington's council is calling Flock cameras "highly divisive" in public session is itself notable — it means residents are pushing back, and that pressure is exactly what gets policy details into the record instead of buried in a vendor contract.
What matters now is the second reading. Vague ordinance language is how cities end up with ALPR systems that technically have a "policy" but no real limits on data retention, cross-agency sharing, or audit access. Does this ordinance specify who can query the data, how long it's stored, whether ICE or out-of-state agencies get access, and who actually checks that the rules are followed? Those are the questions residents should be emailing council members before the next vote, not after the cameras go live.
Huntington wouldn't be the first West Virginia city to quietly join the Flock network — check our map to see what's already deployed near you — and it won't be the last to face this fight. If you're in the area, now is the moment to speak up, because once the second reading passes, the leverage residents have largely disappears. Our take-action page has steps for making your voice count before that happens.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WOWK 13 News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.