South County cities plan to ask for $3 million for surveillance technology.

South County cities have banded together to ask for $3 million from U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, for automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, to address public safety concerns.

Led by the District 3 county supervisor, the mayors of Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King City, along with Supervisor Chris Lopez, signed a draft letter asking for funding for surveillance technology, citing increased violent crimes and inadequate law enforcement staffing.

In a July 16 version of the draft letter, the mayors and the supervisor said they would use the funding specifically for Flock cameras on a three-year contract.

An updated draft no longer specifies that they would seek the money for a Flock contract. The most recent draft is generalized to describe license plate reader technologies.

The money could come through a Congressional Directed Spending request. If submitted and approved, members of Congress can direct funds from annual federal appropriations bills to projects in their own communities. Soledad would be the fiscal agent.

Lopez says public safety requires multiple solutions. The letter highlights $10 million in funding for youth and after-school programs in South County as part of the solution.

The funding request has not yet been submitted to Lofgren’s office. Lopez says he does not have a specific deadline for submitting it.

But the landscape for ALPRs has changed since the first version circulated in July. On Sept. 22, Lopez was one of two dissenting votes, along with Supervisor Luis Alejo, when the Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to end the use of Flock cameras by the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.

In a statement, Lofgren acknowledged concerns about the misuse of Flock cameras by immigration law enforcement agencies. California law enforcement agencies have previously broken state law by sharing data with immigration enforcement.

Soledad Mayor Anna Velazquez says the sharing of Flock data with ICE greatly concerns her. In March, the city implemented rules to prevent use by immigration enforcement, given the many immigrants and mixed-status families in Soledad.

She signed the letter after two “egregious and heinous” murders in Soledad, in which Miguel Godoy was shot and killed in front of his daughter while leaving a soccer game, and when Elizabeth Saavedra and Aldo Mandujano were killed in what police believe was a gang-related shooting.

Velazquez says she has not received much feedback from the community about the use of ALPRs.

For Soledad, its proposed share of the federal funds would be $400,000 for 14 license-plate reader cameras, 16 public safety cameras, a Drone-as-First-Responder system and more.

After the Flock cameras for the Sheriff’s Office were voted down, Velazquez says it signaled that they needed to revise the letter to not commit to any one company.

Not all ALPRs are owned or run by Flock. For example, King City contracts with SurveillanceGrid.

“[Flock] is just a business to me,” King City Mayor LeBarre says. “The technology is what’s important.”