Grass Valley canceled Flock… so why did cameras come back?
The short version: Grass Valley's Flock cancellation didn't stick the first time, and that flip-flop shows how hard it is to actually get these cameras to disappear.
Our Take
ABC10's reporting on Grass Valley is a case study in why "we canceled the contract" doesn't mean what you think it means. A city council votes to end its Flock Safety agreement, and somehow the cameras go back up anyway before police walk them back down again. That's not a conspiracy, it's just how these contracts are built: vendor-managed installs, rolling renewal language, and timelines that don't match what elected officials announce at a podium. The gap between a public cancellation and actual camera removal is where accountability goes to die.
This matters because it reveals how little control local governments sometimes have over infrastructure they supposedly own. If a city council can vote no and still see cameras reappear on their poles, that's a signal the off-ramp from these contracts was never as simple as the on-ramp. Credit to ABC10 for following up after the headlines faded, because most communities never get a second look at whether a canceled contract actually resulted in cameras coming down.
If you're in a town where Flock got voted out, don't assume the hardware is gone — check our camera map and verify, then use our take-action guide to push your council for a real, enforceable teardown timeline in writing.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of ABC10, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.