Mitchell says he will veto New Bedford's license plate reader ban and send councilors police rules instead

NEW BEDFORD New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said Wednesday that he will veto the City Council's ordinance banning license plate reader cameras in the city, and that he will send councilors a different ordinance, one the police chief has been drafting, that would let police use the cameras under what he called "fairly strict guidelines."

Mitchell spoke during his weekly "Midweek with the Mayor" segment on WBSM's "SouthCoast Now" with host Chris McCarthy, answering a caller who asked whether New Bedford would turn to another kind of camera now that it is dropping Flock Safety. The council's ordinance, he said, "says no license plate readers at all." He added, "I think that goes too far. That is not something I'll support. I will veto it."

What the mayor wants instead

Mitchell said the replacement ordinance is one "that the police chief has been working on for some time," and that councilors themselves had asked the chief to propose it. He said it would control which officers may use the system, how they are trained and supervised, and that any use "has to be related to a criminal investigation or a missing person." He added, "You can't just get online and start doing searches for no reason at all."

He said it would also require an annual audit with periodic reviews during the year, and limit both how long data is kept and whom it is shared with. "The ordinance will spell all that out," he said. Mitchell said plate readers can help police find an armed suspect on the loose or "help catch people who have abducted a child," and that "we can do that without intruding unreasonably on people's privacy interests." He said he expects to put the ordinance before the council "fairly soon" and believes most councilors will be fine with rules that strike that balance.

The chief's September proposal

Police Chief Jason Thody set out the rules he favors in a Sept. 24 letter to the council, which was on the Committee on Ordinances' agenda Monday, Oct. 26. Under his framework, the council would approve the kind of technology, the governing standards, contract renewals and funding, while the Police Department would decide where cameras go, who has access and how they are used day to day.

The letter backs a public hearing before the city buys a new kind of surveillance technology, a written assessment of its effect on civil liberties, a short fixed limit on how long data is kept, individual user accounts with every search documented, monthly internal audits, a yearly independent review and a separate budget line or appendix for the technology. Among the parts of the draft then in committee that it objects to are forcing the current system to shut down, publishing exact camera locations and limiting the sharing of data with other police agencies. It proposes a 90-day window for an existing system to come into compliance. Among the legal concerns the letter lists after consulting the City Solicitor: "unilateral termination of current agreement constitutes a breach and entitles vendor to contract damages."

The ban the council passed

The ordinance was up for its second and final reading at the council's Oct. 22 meeting, the agenda shows, and the council passed it that night, WBSM and NBC 10 reported. Its text says no city department "shall acquire, purchase, lease, license, renew, extend, expand, deploy, operate, or materially modify" a license plate reader or other mass location-tracking technology, and it bars contracts and city money for them.

Councilor at Large Shane Burgo, who proposed the ban and chairs the Committee on Ordinances, said after the vote, as WBSM reported, that his hope was that "the Mitchell administration signs this ordinance into law," which he said "would demonstrate good faith in its stated interest in developing meaningful safeguards and regulations for surveillance technology." Council President Ryan Pereira told NBC 10 that night that he would "anticipate a veto."

The Police Department switched off its Flock cameras in August while it reviewed how they had been used, and it told The New Bedford Light it will not renew the Flock contract, which expires Nov. 12.

Related: New Bedford City Council votes to ban Flock and other license plate cameras; New Bedford police will not renew Flock license plate camera contract

What happens next

Under state law, a mayor who disapproves an ordinance returns it to the council with written objections within 10 days after it is presented to him, or it takes effect. The council can then pass it again over the veto by a two-thirds vote of all its members, but not until seven days after the veto comes back.

The council's next scheduled meeting is Thursday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m., the same day the Flock contract runs out, and the Committee on Ordinances meets Wednesday, Nov. 18, the city's meeting calendar shows. Meetings are held in the council chamber, Room 214 at City Hall, 133 William St., and are streamed live. The City Council Office can be reached at 508-979-1455.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.