Flock is out, Axon is in and Reno will still use license plate readers — but with a few extra privacy conditions attached.

The Reno City Council on Wednesday voted 5-2 to approve an eight-year, $21.8 million agreement with Axon Enterprise that includes license plate readers to replace the city's Flock cameras. The deal also includes body cameras, Tasers, drones and AI software to help police write reports.

Mayor Hillary Schieve and Councilmember Meghan Ebert voted against the agreement. The vote came less than two weeks after the city confirmed it would not renew its contract with Flock Safety, the license plate reader company that has faced mounting privacy and civil rights concerns nationwide. 

Many residents who submitted comments argued that Axon's license plate readers raised the same concerns.

Read more: Reno is latest city in Nevada to end contract with Flock Safety

"Ending a contract with Flock, only to open another contract with Axon, is not acceptable," Jeremy Creighton, a Ward 2 resident, wrote in a comment submitted to the council.

During the meeting, dozens of people spoke against the contract and many asked the council to delay a vote.

"Ending Flock was the right move, but replacing [it] with Axon just changes the logo on the camera," said Preston Mattson, who spoke alongside members of Northern Nevada Democratic Socialists of America.

Others focused on the timing. John Helmreich, a Ward 2 resident, said the first he heard of the contract was this week, even though police said they had worked on it for seven months.

"You have to bring that public along, and I don't think today you've done that, and I don't think you have time today to do that," Helmreich told the council.

Of the 79 written comments submitted on the item ahead of the meeting, 71 opposed it, five supported it and three were neutral or concerned, according to city records. Assm. Selena La Rue Hatch (D-Reno) was among those who submitted a written comment in opposition.

Supporters of the contract included Bill Thomas, executive director of the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) of Washoe County. He wrote that RTC's security team recently worked with the Reno Police Department to use these technologies to "identify, locate and apprehend a person who posed a serious potential threat to our public transportation system."

A new contract with privacy strings attached

The council approved the agreement with conditions proposed by Councilmember Devon Reese, including that license plate data not tied to an investigation be deleted after 15 days, rather than the 30 days under department policy.

The conditions also require quarterly audits, public reports from the police chief every three months and council approval for any new surveillance technology. They also give the city the right to end the contract on 30 days' notice without penalty. If Axon does not agree to the conditions, there would be no deal and the item would come back to the council, according to the city attorney's office.

Councilmember Naomi Duerr, who voted for the agreement, said she first asked for written policies on license plate readers when the council approved the Flock contract about a year and a half ago. She said she wanted the council's conditions in writing and suggested keeping data for seven to 14 days, arguing that the shorter the city keeps it, the less likely it is to be hacked.

"I do think that Axon, right now, based on what I know, is better than Flock," Duerr said.

Reese said he was looking for a middle ground between banning license plate readers and allowing them without restrictions. He said he had supported 30-day retention two weeks ago, but conversations with residents persuaded him the limit should be much shorter.

Schieve said the city should have done more public outreach before bringing the contract forward and questioned why it was not put out for competitive bids.

"I don't think this is about Axon or Flock. Let's be honest, people, this is about trusting your government with the technology," Schieve said.

Police Chief Corey Solferino told the council the department had responded to public concerns with new safeguards rather than dropping the technology.

"I've listened to this council. I've listened to the community. I feel that we've addressed a majority of the concerns versus just getting rid of it and throwing it away," Solferino said.

Solferino said every plate search will require a case number, searches will be logged and audited, and officers who misuse the system could face discipline up to termination. He also said that under the Axon agreement, federal agencies would not have access to the city's database and that the city would own the data and decide case by case with whom to share it.

"This technology is not being misused in our community, and I will make that claim to each and every one of you and to our community because I believe in it that much," Solferino said.

Cameras, drones, Tasers and AI police reports

According to the staff report, most of the contract's value covers equipment Reno police already use from Axon, including body-worn cameras, Tasers, in-car cameras and the cloud system where the department stores digital evidence. The agreement also includes license plate readers on fixed poles and in patrol cars, drones that can reach a call before officers do and software that writes draft police reports from body camera audio for officers to review.

City staff have framed the agreement as a way to keep license plate data on the same system as the department's other evidence, under city control. The staff report says the city will own its data and that Axon cannot train AI models on it without the city's written consent. Without naming Flock, the report says the data will be handled as evidence "rather than being made available through a vendor-managed sharing network."

When the city announced it was ending the Flock contract, officials said the next vendor would need to keep data under city control, set clear privacy guardrails and automatically log searches and the people who run them.

Harrison Emery, who spoke on behalf of the Flock Off Coalition, said those assurances are not new.

"It is still an ALPR [automated license plate reader] and an ALPR network, and many of the claims are the same between the vendors," Emery said.

Josh Hebert, a Ward 5 resident, wrote in his comment that the system could serve its purpose with a much shorter retention period.

"A month-long map of the movements of innocent citizens is unacceptable," Hebert wrote.

Hebert also criticized a new police department technology policy that bars data sharing for the sole purpose of civil immigration enforcement, arguing it leaves a loophole because federal immigration agencies can cite other reasons to request the data.

Sparks made a similar switch earlier this year. In June, the Sparks City Council unanimously approved a five-year, nearly $1 million contract for Axon license plate readers to replace its Flock cameras. Public commenters there argued that changing vendors would not resolve their privacy concerns.

The Reno City Council first approved the Flock contract in November 2024, using $450,000 in pandemic relief funds. The Indy reported earlier this year that Reno operates at least 40 such cameras. That contract runs through mid-March. The Axon agreement would take effect Jan. 1.