City Council Meeting September 28, 2026

Our Take

Credit to Madison, AL Public Record for doing the unglamorous work of filming and posting full city council meetings. Most people will never sit through a two-hour session, which is exactly why local surveillance expansions sail through unopposed. Proclamations and recognitions eat up the first ten minutes, cameras tune out, and that's often when the real business — contracts, budget line items, vendor renewals — gets a quick vote.

We don't know yet whether ALPR funding or a Flock renewal is buried in this particular agenda, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. But the pattern across the country is consistent: license plate reader deals rarely show up as their own headline item. They're folded into "public safety technology" budgets, consent agendas, or grant acceptances that council members approve in bulk. If you live in Madison, this is the kind of meeting worth watching in full, not just the recap.

This is also a good moment to check whether your own neighborhood already has cameras logging every car that passes, regardless of what your council has publicly announced. Look up your area on our map, and if you want to push back before the next contract renewal comes up for a vote, our take-action page has concrete steps for showing up at meetings like this one.