Fairhaven votes Nov. 17 on Article 9, a ban on the town's Flock license plate cameras
Article 9 would let the town's two Flock contracts run out, take the cameras down within 30 days and bar new plate readers. Police Chief Daniel Dorgan wrote to the Select Board in August that the cameras are a valuable investigative tool and that every search is logged.
FAIRHAVEN Fairhaven town meeting members vote Tuesday, Nov. 17, on whether to ban the Flock license plate reader cameras police run at the entrances to town, and the town meeting warrant gets a public preview tonight at 7.
The preview is Thursday, Nov. 12, in the Walter Silveira Auditorium at Elizabeth I. Hastings Middle School, 30 School St., after an orientation for new town meeting members at 6 p.m. and precinct meetings at 6:45 p.m., the town said. It airs live on Government Access Channel 97 and on FairhavenTV.com, whose link opens the live stream at vimeo.com/event/4107464. The vote is in the same auditorium at 7 p.m. Nov. 17, and only the elected town meeting members vote.
Article 9, a citizens petition filed by Joseph Russell, would bar the town from buying, running or renewing automated license plate readers and would let its Flock agreements run out instead of being renewed. The town has two Flock contracts covering six cameras, and both are set to expire in September 2028, Police Chief Daniel Dorgan wrote to the Select Board in August. New Bedford's City Council takes up plate readers Friday, and Lakeville voters decide a ban of their own at town meeting Nov. 18.
What Article 9 would do
The bylaw would bar every town department, the Police Department included, from buying, leasing, accepting as a grant or donation, installing, maintaining or operating any plate reader system on public ways or town property, according to the warrant. It would also bar renewing, extending or expanding any contract with a plate reader vendor, "including, but not limited to, Flock Safety."
A current agreement could run to the end of its term, which for Fairhaven's two Flock contracts is September 2028 under the dates in Dorgan's letter. The cameras, sensors, mounts and solar panels on town poles and property would then have to come down within 30 days, and the town would tell vendors to delete the plate data they hold, except records the public records law or a court order requires them to keep. Citing the state's 2022 Shield Law, the bylaw would also bar automatic sharing of the town's plate data with out-of-state police, federal civil enforcement agencies and private aggregators.
Police could still use body cameras, cruiser dashboard cameras and ordinary security cameras without plate recognition, search specific vehicle records under a court search warrant, and query the data during an emergency that threatens death or serious injury, such as an AMBER Alert. The petition says its purpose is to protect "individual privacy, civil liberties, cybersecurity, and public safety." It needs a simple majority, and its severability clause says that if a court or the state attorney general, who reviews town bylaws, strikes one part, the rest stands.
What the chief told the Select Board
Dorgan went over the program at the Select Board's Aug. 10 meeting and spoke to a letter he sent Aug. 6 to Town Administrator Keith R. Hickey and Select Board Chair Andrew Romano, which is attached to the minutes of that meeting. The board approved those minutes 5-0 on Aug. 24.
The department signed a five-year contract with Flock Safety in September 2023 for four cameras and paid for it with $62,700 in federal American Rescue Plan Act money, Dorgan wrote. A second contract in March added two cameras for $4,500, paid with federal money the department received from seizures in drug investigations. The six cameras sit at entrances to the town and other choke points on the roads, he wrote, and the town also has separate street cameras without plate reading, which town meeting approved in 2018.
The cameras take still pictures of passing vehicles and their plates with the date and time, and they do not record video, identify the people inside or follow a vehicle's movements continuously, according to the letter. Pictures are deleted within 30 days unless the department flags them for an active investigation. Every search must serve a law enforcement purpose and carry any related incident number, a written reason and the officer's username, and each use is kept permanently in an audit log that Dorgan wrote is a public record. An officer has to confirm an alert by sight before acting on it, and a hit is an investigative lead that does not by itself give probable cause for a charge or an arrest, he wrote.
Dorgan wrote that Flock has no facial recognition, that Immigration and Customs Enforcement "does not use FLOCK technology to find undocumented immigrants" and that Flock has no direct contract with the agency. The department's data "is actively shared with law enforcement agencies," he wrote, and each agency, not Flock, decides whom it shares with. He called the cameras extremely valuable as an investigative tool and wrote that losing them would leave the department's proactive policing as it is while slowing its ability to build cases, find endangered people and solve crimes.
Questions from the board
Romano and Vice Chair Natalie Mello watched a demonstration of the system at the police station earlier that day, the minutes say. Board members asked what data is collected, how access to it and the audit logs works, how it is stored and how another community asks for Fairhaven's data. One member asked for a copy of the updated Flock agreement and said he had concerns about its indemnification language.
Police told the board that a February 2026 update to Flock's terms replaced the 2023 terms and says the data belongs to the town, while letting Flock use it to provide its service and improve its products. An officer said that for another agency to see Fairhaven's data, the Fairhaven department has to authorize the sharing and the other agency has to accept it, and police said sharing beyond Massachusetts had helped them recover a stolen vehicle in a case that reached Florida.
The public hearing question
A board member asked whether there were public hearings when the technology was first put in. "I don't know if there was a public hearing," an officer answered, adding that when the cameras were installed in 2023, the police chief at the time met with town officials, including the Select Board chair. The officer said the town meeting vote in 2018 covered the town's roughly 40 street cameras and that there would have been public input then.
The same member said people had contacted him through the Select Board's portal objecting to the cameras, and he suggested a meeting at Town Hall to give the presentation to the public. Dorgan agreed to hold question and answer meetings at Town Hall as needed, the minutes say, and Romano offered to help set them up. The board made no motion and took no vote on the cameras.
In the days after the meeting, a resident emailed the board asking for the cameras' immediate removal on privacy and Fourth Amendment grounds, and the two emails, dated Aug. 14 and Aug. 16, were filed as correspondence at the Aug. 24 meeting.
Questions to the town
South Coast 360 asked Dorgan on Thursday about the contracts, how many agencies receive the town's plate data, what the 2018 vote covered and the department's view of Article 9, and asked Hickey whether the town has taken a position. Their answers will be added to this story.
Asked Thursday whether the Select Board will make a recommendation on Article 9, Romano answered by email, "Yield to petitioner, typical for citizen petitions to allow for further info." Asked whether the public question and answer session on the cameras had been scheduled or held, he wrote, "It has not." He added that he is excited to hear the members' perspective.
South Coast 360 has also asked the Fairhaven Police Department, under the state public records law, for its plate reader contract, its written policy on the cameras, a count of them and its usage reports, in the same request we made of police departments across the South Coast.
Around the South Coast
In New Bedford, the City Council takes up Mayor Jon Mitchell's veto of its plate camera ban at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13. Mitchell wrote that the Police Department chose not to renew its Flock contract, which expires Nov. 12, as our preview of Friday's meeting reports.
Lakeville voters decide a plate reader ban Wednesday, Nov. 18, at Apponequet Regional High School, after the Select Board and Finance Committee made no recommendation. The town has one plate reader on a contract of about $3,000 a year, its town administrator told the boards, as we reported.
In Freetown, Town Clerk Cheryl Estrella told South Coast 360 on Thursday that her office has received no citizen petition on license plate reader cameras.
What happens next
Tonight's session covers all nine articles on the Nov. 17 warrant, which our full preview lays out. Questions about the articles go to the Select Board and Town Administrator's office at Town Hall, 40 Center St., 508-979-4023. South Coast 360 will report how members vote on Article 9 on Nov. 17.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
Notes
Every fact about the Aug. 10 Select Board meeting comes from the town's minutes of that meeting, which the board approved Aug. 24, Police Chief Daniel Dorgan's Aug. 6 letter attached to them, and the FairhavenTV recording of the meeting. Article 9 comes from the final Nov. 17 Special Town Meeting warrant, and the preview details from the town's notice and FairhavenTV.com. Other facts come from an email from the Freetown town clerk and our earlier stories built from New Bedford and Lakeville records. We read them Nov. 11 and Nov. 12. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar. We asked Dorgan, Town Administrator Keith R. Hickey and Select Board Chair Andrew Romano for comment Thursday, and Romano answered by email.
Corrections
No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.
Sources (14)
- Town of Fairhaven, Warrant for the Special Town Meeting, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2026 (2026.11.17 STM Warrant Book, final, 10 pages)Town of Fairhaven, linked from the Town Meeting Warrants page; signed by the Select Board Oct. 13, 2026; file dated Oct. 19, 2026. Article 9 full text and summary, petitioner Joseph Russell, the majority vote line, the Select Board office contact and the Town Hall posting. Read Nov. 11, 2026, from our saved text.
- Town of Fairhaven, Fairhaven Select Board Meeting Minutes, Aug. 10, 2026 (16 pages)Town of Fairhaven; accepted by the Select Board Aug. 24, 2026. Page 1, "Discussion on Flock Cameras": the chief's presentation, the demonstration at the station, the board's questions and the Q&A meetings at Town Hall; page 6, the attachment list. Pages 7 to 9, Attachment A: Police Chief Daniel M. Dorgan's letter of Aug. 6, 2026, to Town Administrator Keith Hickey and Chair Andrew Romano, on the two Flock contracts, their cost, funding and expiration, the six cameras, the 2018 street cameras, data retention, search rules, audit logs, sharing and his view of the program. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Town of Fairhaven, Fairhaven Select Board Meeting Minutes, Aug. 24, 2026 (36 pages)Town of Fairhaven. Page 5: the 5-0 roll call accepting the Aug. 10 open session minutes. Pages 35 and 36: two resident emails on the cameras, Aug. 14 and Aug. 16, filed as correspondence. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- FairhavenTV recording, "Select Board 8/10/26" (3 hours, 58 minutes)Fairhaven TV, government access Channel 97, Vimeo video 1215639722 in the station's government meeting showcase. Flock item from 6:19 to 24:55 into the recording: the contract figures (7:34), six cameras at the points of entry and about 40 street cameras (8:06 to 8:45), the 2026 Flock terms (9:39 to 11:28), the stolen vehicle case that reached Florida (13:59 to 14:11), the updated agreement and indemnification question (18:05), sharing authorization (20:01 to 20:22), the public hearing question and answer (22:28 to 23:12), the Town Hall meeting suggestion and the offer to help set it up (23:12 to 24:33). Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Town of Fairhaven, Select Board meeting agenda, Aug. 10, 2026Town of Fairhaven, posted Aug. 6, 2026. Item B, Appointments and Community Items: "Discussion on Flock Cameras." Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Town of Fairhaven, MA, Facebook post, "SPECIAL TOWN MEETING PREVIEW"Town of Fairhaven, posted Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. Preview Nov. 12 at 7 p.m., Walter Silveira Auditorium; live on Channel 97 and FairhavenTV.com; new member orientation 6 p.m.; precinct meetings 6:45 p.m. Page lists 508-979-4023. Read Nov. 11, 2026.
- FairhavenTV.com home page, "Special Town Meeting Preview 11/12 @ 7:00p"Fairhaven TV, government access Channel 97; the link opens the station's live Vimeo event, vimeo.com/event/4107464. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Town of Fairhaven calendar, "Special Town Meeting Orientation, Precinct Meetings, Special Town Meeting Preview"Town of Fairhaven, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026: orientation 6 p.m., precinct meetings 6:45 p.m., preview 7 p.m. in the Walter Silveira Auditorium, Hastings Middle School, 30 School St.; live on FairhavenTV.com and Government Access Channel 97. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Fairhaven Select Board discusses Flock camera systemFairhaven Neighborhood News, Beth David, posted Aug. 19, 2026: the newspaper's earlier report on the Aug. 10 meeting. Every fact in this story about that meeting is taken from the town's minutes, the chief's letter and the FairhavenTV recording. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Email from Fairhaven Select Board Chair Andrew Romano to South Coast 360Sent Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, 3:10 p.m.: answers to our questions on a board recommendation on Article 9 and the camera question and answer session. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Email from Freetown Town Clerk Cheryl Estrella to South Coast 360Sent Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, 7:54 a.m.: no citizen petition on Flock or other plate reader cameras has reached the clerk's office. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- New Bedford council takes up plate camera veto, data center ban and overnight RV ban FridaySouth Coast 360, Nov. 11, 2026, from the council agenda, the mayor's Nov. 4 veto letter and his Nov. 4 ordinance cover letter. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Lakeville boards take no stand on plate reader ban and blight fines before Nov. 18 town meetingSouth Coast 360, Nov. 6, 2026, from the LakeCAM recording of the Nov. 4 joint meeting and the warrant. Read Nov. 12, 2026.
- Fairhaven town meeting votes Nov. 17 on a license plate reader ban and eight other articles, with a preview ThursdaySouth Coast 360, Nov. 11, 2026, from the final warrant. Read Nov. 12, 2026.