After hearing repeated public concerns about the city’s Flock Safety network, the Sterling City Council and Sterling Police Department are set to review how the cameras are used.

“We have a study session coming on June 15. This has been a hot topic this past week,” Sterling Police Chief Pat Bartel told the Sterling City Council at its meeting Monday.

During the upcoming study session, which will be open to the public, they will review the city’s use of the cameras and how the information is accessed, he said.

The city’s 18 Flock Safety Automated License Plate Readers have been an ongoing topic of conversation at council meetings and online.

Sterling resident Jeff Gale first voiced concerns about the system to the council in February.

At that meeting, Gale said he had asked to see his data that had been captured by Sterling’s Flock Safety system; he said he was told he could not access his data unless he was the victim of a crime.

At the May 18 meeting, Gale returned to the council to express concerns that cameras near the new Northwestern Steel and Wire Park are directed at the splash pad.

“As a parent, I never would have participated in the planning of a park if I knew it was going to be used to video our children and shared with over 1,500 entities,” Gale said.

At Monday’s meeting, Bartel handed out copies of still shots captured from Flock Safety cameras near the riverfront.

“One of the concerns was that the cameras are viewing everybody at the park or the splash pad,” Bartel said.

Bartel said a Flock Safety camera at Avenue B and West Second Street is not able to capture anyone at the splash pad.

“The one at Avenue B and West Second doesn’t even make it to the farmers market and the one that is on Wallace Street is pointed west and picks up east and west traffic. It comes nowhere close to picking up any persons or anybody in the background,” Bartel said.

Bartel said other cameras around the park are not Flock Safety cameras but are regular security cameras that are monitored at the Sterling Police Department.

At the May 18 meeting, Gale said the Flock Safety Condor camera, which has manual and auto zoom capabilities, is one of the cameras near the splash pad and the NWSW Park.

“Where is the oversight and how will we know if our systems are breached?” Gale asked during his address to the council.

Gale told the council that he recently received a speeding ticket from an ALPR in Hollywood, Florida.

“At the time of the alleged infraction, my car was broken down in the Whiteside Area Career Center parking lot with the gas tank literally falling out of it, awaiting repair from some awesome students,” Gale said.

He thanked Bartel for Bartel’s assistance in contesting that ticket.

Three Flock Safety Condor cameras and 15 Flock Safety ALPR cameras make up the 18-camera package that the city council approved in May 2025 as part of the police department’s allocation within the city’s fiscal 2026 budget. The council approved a two-year contract with Flock Safety. That contract was included as part of the police department’s budget.

At Monday’s meeting, Bartel said he is reluctant to change his stance when it comes to the Flock Safety cameras in Sterling because of their usefulness in apprehending stolen vehicles and in burglary cases.

“Here in the past week, we had a burglary that Flock put us right on the vehicle,” Bartel said. “We did a search warrant at the east end of town with a lot of SWAT people. We also recovered a stolen vehicle this week because of Flock. The vehicle was stolen and, within 40 minutes, we had it on Flock and within an hour and a half, we had him in custody.”