Every claim here links its evidence. Cite the source, not me: a fact traced to the LAPD Inspector General or a city audit can’t be dismissed as activist talk. Claims are grouped by the argument they support.
”The process was undemocratic”
- City staff requested the federal earmark in 2024 without informing council. (CAMS chronology)
- The first RTIC funding passed via consent agenda (the no-debate section for routine items) in March 2025. (BPR)
- Council member Roney’s 29 written questions to APD about data control and constitutional implications were never publicly answered. (BPR)
- When 40+ residents came to speak on April 14, 2026, the item was pulled from the agenda right before the meeting. (BPR)
- The April 28 “work session” featured Axon and Flock sales reps presenting to committee, with no public comment allowed. (CAMS)
- On May 12, the item was placed at the end of a budget meeting; comment was capped at one hour; 21 signed-up residents were sent home unheard; the vote came near midnight. Of ~36 who spoke, nearly all opposed. (BPR · 828NewsNow)
- The final Axon contract was not available for council or public review before the vote. (GAP)
- The B1 motion was made and seconded before public comment opened: residents spoke for an hour against a motion already pending. The vote came six seconds after the last speaker, off-microphone amid shouting; a council member had to announce “in case you didn’t notice, there was just a vote.” The Axon contract item then passed by voice vote in 25 seconds. (city video, timestamped)
- On the night of the vote, searching the city’s own council minutes archive and ashevillenc.gov returned zero results for “Axon,” “Fusus,” or “RTIC”, demonstrated on the record by a resident. (city video, 0:25:56)
- Even Asheville Watchdog (not an activist outlet) editorialized that the city “needs to be more transparent” about the proposal. (Asheville Watchdog)
Council’s tactics, and how to counter them
Every tactic below is documented in Asheville’s own record. Name the tactic out loud at the podium; officials rely on these working unnoticed.
| Tactic | Documented instance | The counter |
|---|---|---|
| Consent-agenda burial: controversial items placed in the no-debate bundle | First RTIC money, March 2025; even the 2023 check-in reform itself | Read the agenda posted each Friday; email members demanding specific items be pulled for discussion; any single member can pull an item; make them refuse in writing |
| Staff commits first, council learns later: funding requested before any public process | The 2024 earmark request to Rep. Edwards, without council’s knowledge | Records-request pending grant applications quarterly; ask at the podium: “What surveillance funding has staff applied for that council hasn’t seen?” |
| Vanishing agenda items: pull the vote when a crowd shows up | April 14, 2026: 40+ speakers arrived, item disappeared | Come back. The item returns when the room is empty; sustained turnout across consecutive meetings is the only counter |
| Vendor-led “public process”: sales reps as the expert briefing, no comment allowed | April 28, 2026 work session: Axon and Flock presented; the public watched in silence | Demand equal time for independent experts (EFF, ACLU-NC, academics); rebut the sales claims at the next regular meeting with the national record |
| The midnight schedule: big item last, comment capped, room exhausted | May 12, 2026: end of a budget meeting, 1-hour cap, 21 speakers sent home, vote near midnight | Sign up the moment doors open; coordinate so speakers don’t duplicate; email written comment (it’s unlimited and enters the record even when the clock cuts you off) |
| Motion pre-loaded: moved and seconded before the public speaks | May 12: motion pending through the entire hour of comment | Ask on the record: “Is there already a pending motion on this item?” Make the pre-decision visible |
| The off-mic vote: inaudible, instant, deniable | May 12: vote taken amid shouting, announced after the fact: “in case you didn’t notice, there was just a vote” | Demand recorded roll-call votes on major items, on the record and in advance; film the dais (legal at public meetings); note-takers log the exact time of every motion |
| The three-by-threes: deliberation moved to unminuted private groups sized to dodge the law | The Check-In Meetings: since ~2018, “ended” 2023, resumed; Roney: staff “counting votes throughout the day” | The three asks on the check-ins page, and the candidate question: “Will you refuse to participate in unminuted check-ins?” |
| Transparency theater: tours and resolutions instead of records and audits | RTIC tours while the city refuses to release Flock audit logs and the promised ALPR dashboards 404; a “civil liberties resolution” with no enforcement | Take the tour with the Promise Tracker; file the requests on the Documents page; ask for the thing, not the gesture: the audit, the contract, the dashboard |
”The scale is out of proportion”
- APD’s 11 Flock cameras scanned ~3.1 million plates in 21 months, in a city of ~95,000. (Asheville Watchdog)
- That data is shared with law enforcement agencies across a 500-mile, multi-state radius: a circle reaching Atlanta, Nashville, and Washington, DC, including states with different laws on abortion and immigration. (Annie Dance)
- The county network Asheville plugs into includes ~1,500 cameras inside Buncombe County schools. (Citizen Times via Yahoo)
- The Axon contract runs 7.5 years, to 2033, signed unseen. Axon’s own investor pitch touts ~25%/year customer spending growth (“Flywheel of Growth”). (BPR)
- Total known costs: $1.14M federal grant, ~$400K video wall, $467K software over the contract, ~$250K operational. (Asheville Watchdog)
“The promises don’t hold” (already, locally)
- The city refused a public records request for APD’s Flock audit logs (July 2025), citing G.S. 20-183.31(b) and the criminal-intelligence exemption, while officials tout the system’s “robust audit trail.” (Sunshine Request dispute)
- APD’s transparency page promises Axon and Flock ALPR dashboards that don’t exist: no links, and the dashboard page 404s (checked Aug 17, 2026). (APD transparency page)
- APD’s ALPR policy was revised May 5, 2026 (a week before the vote) and already assigned duties to “the RTIC supervisor” for a center council hadn’t approved yet.
- The executed Axon contract has never been released: Resolution 26-99 authorized the City Manager to sign it; the public has never seen what was signed. (Documents)
“The promises don’t hold” (the national record)
- ICE: ICE has no Flock contract, and got 4,000+ searches run for it by local police as informal favors. Santa Cruz found ICE had accessed its data ~4,000 times and canceled. (404 Media · Yahoo)
- Reproductive privacy: a Texas sheriff searched ~83,000 cameras nationwide with the logged reason “had an abortion, search for female”; no warrant, sweeping states where abortion is legal. (EFF)
- Officer misuse: at least 50 officers charged with or accused of using plate readers against partners, exes, and women they wanted to meet, 46 of 50 via Flock (Washington Post investigation), including a Charlotte officer charged July 29 and a Mooresville officer accused of 31 falsified stalking searches, whose department then found ten more officers in violation and charged none. (The Abuse Record)
- Vendor honesty: Sedona officials said they were “misled and lied to”; Evanston caught Flock reinstalling terminated cameras without authorization; the ACLU published a report documenting Flock’s pattern of misrepresentations to city councils. (ABC7 · ACLU)
- Security: researchers rooted a Flock camera in under 30 seconds; ~70 cameras were found streaming unauthenticated online; Congress asked the FTC to investigate. (Krishnamoorthi/Wyden)
“It doesn’t reduce crime”
- LAPD’s Inspector General: 32.3% of stolen-vehicle alerts were false positives: an innocent driver investigated every time. LAPD dropped Flock. (Knock LA)
- Austin’s audit: 117 million scans → 228 arrests, and 10–20% of searches had no documented reason. (KUT)
- The peer-reviewed literature finds plate readers have no deterrent effect on crime; Atlantic City’s camera expansion produced no reduction in violent crime. (CrimRxiv · Justice Evaluation Journal)
- Flock’s “solves 10% of US crime” claim was company-funded and publicly rejected by six criminologists. (404 Media · Forbes)
- Innocent people pay for the errors: a Black family (four children) held face-down at gunpoint in Aurora, CO after a plate misread; the Institute for Justice has compiled dozens of wrongful stops and jailings. (Gizmodo · IJ)
“Removal is possible; alternatives exist”
- 50–102 communities have canceled, rejected, or paused Flock; ~two dozen in 2026 alone. (DeFlock tracker)
- Macon County, NC (an hour west) voted 5–0 in July 2026 to remove its 12 cameras, on largely Republican-led opposition. Hillsborough, Pittsboro, Chatham County, and Boone have also canceled or paused. (Smoky Mountain News)
- Nashville voted down Fusus itself in December 2024. (WKRN)
- ~26 US cities have CCOPS ordinances requiring council approval and annual public reporting for surveillance tech: the enforceable version of the promises Asheville got as a nonbinding resolution. (ACLU) Apex, NC residents have drafted one for their town.
- Even Flock’s own recommended default retention is now 7 days (announced Aug 2026). Asheville keeps your data 30. (AP)
What officials said, in their own words
For quoting back at the podium; each of these is on the record:
- Deputy Chief Shawn Aardema, to WLOS at the RTIC’s approval (May 2026): “We control Axon Fusus and we will not be sharing information with federal immigration.”
- APD Tech Manager James Wingo, July 8: blocks cover “anything to do with immigration, anything to do with reproductive issues.” (WLOS)
- Interim Chief Jackie Stepp: “There’s a really robust audit trail built into all of this.” (Annie Dance)
- Capt. Brandon Moore, on why speed mattered more than deliberation: “The longer it takes for us to get some of this, the less access to information we have.” (WLOS)
Every one of these is a measurable commitment or a revealing priority. The Promise Tracker holds them to it.
Building something with these? Speak at Council has the delivery kit. Want the full stories behind the claims? The National Wave and Timeline.