Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, and Police Chief Mindy Castro today announced the city would end it’s subscription to the Flock Safety Automated License Plate Reader service. Citing access by agencies “outside of Fresno’s jurisdiction”, the Mayor and the Police Chief said Fresno would not renew it’s contract with Flock when it expires in February 2027.
It’s a bit odd that they chose “agencies outside of Fresno’s jurisdiction” as one of the reasons they are ending the use of Flock, when the Fresno PD’s Flock Transparency page lists 268 agencies in California as authorized to access the data collected in their city.
Other California agencies, including Los Angeles PD, have ended their use of Flock cameras. Some have transitioned to other companies, and some are still researching their next steps.
Visalia continues to use Flock, and recently authorized the police department to use grant monies to fund the current 13 cameras, and continue the process to add 9 more. Visalia also has access to other Flock cameras in the area, operated by the College of the Sequoias, and private companies such as Lowe’s and Home Depot. Farmersville, Porterville, and other cities in the region also allow Visalia PD to access their camera networks.
Two seats on the Visalia City Council were up for grabs in 2026. (Technically three, but nobody filed to run against incumbent District 3 council member Brian Poochigian, so he was reappointed in lieu of election for the next term.)
As of the Thursday, November 5, 2026 update, the Tulare County Registrar of Voters was reporting incumbent Emmanuel Hernandez Soto leading in District 4. Soto garnered 2,052 votes so far to opponent Nick Kastle’s 1,235 votes. Soto’s percentage vote is 62.43% to Kastle’s 37.57%, a lead unlikely to be significantly changed by still-uncounted mail-in ballots. Soto will return to the Visalia City Council for his second term.
In District 5, long-time incumbent Steve Nelsen is losing to challenger Esther Perez, 33.58% to her 44.48% (1,198 to 1,587 votes). Nelsen faced three challengers, and I expected him to coast to an easy win with the opposition votes split between the three, leaving him in a substantial lead. It appears the residents of District 5 have had enough of Nelsen’s leadership style, which can be assertive, and, frankly, whining at times, along with his issues surrounding the Downtown Visalians, of which he recently resigned as CEO. Even with three candidates opposing him, he still fell short.
Tulare County has until December 3, 2026 to certify the election returns. California will publish certified returns by December 11, 2026.
Visalia Pride Lions, PFLAG Tulare & Kings Counties, and The Source LGBT+ Center offer scholarships for students who are LGBT or raised in an LGBT family. Multiple $500 scholarships are available from each organization, and are available to students who are or will attend an accredited post-secondary institution, including colleges, universities, or trade schools. See the application above for information. Applications for 2027 are being accepted now, and will be selected in May 2027, for issuance in June of 2027. (The application says the deadline is June 30, but that was for last year, after an extension.) Applications for 2027 should be submitted by the beginning of May, to allow for processing and selection. This information may change, so check each organization’s website, and this blog, for updated information.
As the neighborhood on Maple Street dissolves into absolute chaos and panic following the tragic shooting, the camera pans up to a dark, elevated spot overlooking the area. Two figures are revealed to be extraterrestrial observers manipulating the town’s power grid.
The First Alien explains that their strategy doesn’t require complex weapons; they simply shut off local machines, power, and communication lines for a brief period, and then step back to watch the results.
The Second Alien asks if the outcome is always the same.
The First Alien confirms that it follows a consistent pattern: when humans are cut off and left to doubt one another, they inevitably choose themselves as their own worst enemy. They note that all they have to do is sit back and watch.
The Second Alien inquires if this particular suburban street is unique.
The First Alien responds that Earth is filled with similar communities (“Maple Streets”), and that they plan to move from one to the next, letting humanity destroy itself from within.
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosion and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices—to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a madness all of its own…”
Rod Serling
Twilight Zone
Season One, episode 22
“The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”
Putin or Xi don’t have to worry about firing a single shot to destroy America. We’ll be quite happy to do it ourselves. Abraham Lincoln is said to have said no foreign military power could ever conquer or destroy the United States by force. Instead, he warned that if America were ever to fall, it would come from internal division, disregard for the rule of law, and self-destruction from within—stating that as a nation of free men, Americans would live through all time or die by suicide.
If this election doesn’t result in a “blue tsunami”, and allows the Republicans to remain in control of the Congress, I fear Lincoln’s and Serling’s words may become our reality. I’m crossing my fingers.
Text blast to Republican-leaning residents of Visalia 10-29-2026
A $1,000 donation from the Service Employees International Union local 2015 to Soto is branded as from “a Los Angeles PAC”. This donation is from the union local, whose members include District 4. In their rather selective outrage, however, the Tulare County Republican Central Committee failed to mention this:
Tulare County Republican Party Facebook page post 10/26-2026
In a blatant lie, the Tulare County Republican Party’s Facebook page today made a political post, directed against a sitting Visalia City Council member, Emmanuel Hernandez-Soto. In that post, TCRP claims Soto voted against approving a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Visalia. That is false.
To “bury the lede” means to start a story, article, or conversation with secondary details while hiding or delaying the most important and newsworthy fact. City of Visalia, I’m looking at you.
On November 6, 2023, this item appeared on the Visalia City Council’s consent agenda. Rather innocuous looking, isn’t it? This is where the public trail begins in Visalia’s Flock saga. You’ll notice this item does not mention Flock, or ALPR (automated license plate reader) details. It just looks like the police department is getting money from a grant for something, and entering into some kind of agreement with the Sheriff’s Office. All nice and neat and dull. If you’re at a City Council meeting, and you’ve picked up the printed agenda to peruse, that’s all you see.
If you have access to the internet, though, you might find this:
Now even knowing only the number of times my plate was registered in the Flock network is a “privacy” concern. And since the California state law doesn’t specifically state they have to provide this information, they’re refusing. Here’s my (and Gemini’s) response:
October 20, 2026
Rachele Berglund, Esq.
Herr Pedersen & Berglund LLP
Attorneys for Visalia Police Department
RE: Response to Determination on Public Records Act Request #26-1986 (License Plate JJRJR ALPR Count)
Dear Ms. Berglund:
Thank you for your response dated October 19, 2026, regarding CPRA Request #26-1986. I am writing to clarify the legal basis of my request, address the exemptions asserted in your determination, and narrow the scope of the request to assist the Visalia Police Department in fulfilling its statutory duties.
1. Database Extraction Is Not “Record Creation” Under California Law
Your response states that no record containing the requested tally exists and that the CPRA does not require the Department to create a new record. While I agree that agencies are not required to generate custom written reports or conduct legal synthesis, the California Supreme Court has clarified how this rule applies to electronic databases.
Under Gov. Code § 7922.570 (formerly § 6253.9) and the California Supreme Court’s decision in National Lawyers Guild v. City of Hayward (2020) 9 Cal.5th 1178, performing a search query or extracting compiled data from an existing government database does not constitute the creation of a new record. The underlying raw ALPR data exists within the software system maintained and used by the Department. Executing a search in the Flock software interface for a specific license plate over a 30-day window to yield a hit count is a standard data extraction process under Gov. Code § 7922.575, not the manufacturing of non-existent data.
2. The ACLU Privacy Exemption Is Inapplicable to an Aggregate Count
Your response relies on ACLU Foundation of Southern California v. Superior Court (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1032 and the catch-all exemption (Gov. Code § 7922.000) to argue that disclosure implicates privacy interests regarding vehicle locations and movements.
The privacy concerns highlighted in ACLU center on location tracking—specifically, GPS coordinates, timestamps, and contextual photographs that reveal individual travel patterns over time. My request explicitly excludes all location data, GPS coordinates, timestamps, photographs, and officer details. A single, aggregate numerical count contains zero location or tracking information and therefore does not compromise personal privacy. Under the balancing test of Gov. Code § 7922.000, the public interest in understanding the scope of local ALPR system usage clearly outweighs any privacy claim attached to an isolated number.
3. Modified and Narrowed Request Scope
To minimize administrative burden and resolve the jurisdictional objections raised regarding third-party feeds under Gov. Code § 7920.530, I am revising and narrowing my request as follows:
Narrowed Request: I request an electronic export or system-generated query summary showing the total numerical count of recorded instances in which California license plate JJRJR was recorded, captured, or logged during the most recent 30-day retention period, restricted exclusively to ALPR cameras owned, leased, or directly operated by the Visalia Police Department. As before, this request explicitly excludes dates, timestamps, geographical locations, GPS coordinates, vehicle photos, context images, officer names, and associated case numbers.
4. Statutory Duty to Assist (Gov. Code § 7922.600)
Under Gov. Code § 7922.600, public agencies have an affirmative duty to assist requesters in identifying records and information that are responsive to the request, describing the information technology and physical location in which the records exist, and providing suggestions for overcoming any practical obstacles to disclosure.
If the Department maintains that entering a license plate query into its ALPR user interface to generate a result count presents a technical obstacle, please outline the specific technical limitations under Gov. Code § 7922.600 so we can reach a practical resolution.
Please confirm receipt of this modified request and advise when the responsive data extraction will be provided.
Sincerely,
Jimmie Joe Reeves, Jr.
*****************
We’ll see if this budges them on releasing the information. I’m not holding my breath.
On September 10, 2026, I filed a California Public Records Act request of the City of Visalia, and the Visalia Police Department. On October 5, I got my response.
A lot to digest there, but let’s start with “5. The Department’s case/incident number is withheld.” A lot of verbiage to deny giving me the case numbers associated with each incident that was allegedly solved with the use of the Flock ALPR system.
They’re also saying they don’t have to release “arrest and incident information” that is more than a year old, and that “much” of my requested information predates that by “many months”, but they are giving it to me (minus what they decided to withhold) “in the interest of transparency”.
They tell me how generous they were being by including information that was more than a year old, citing a court case that they claim means they didn’t have to.
Visalia, I hate to say it, but “transparency” went out the window a long time ago. (Encrypting police radio transmissions and removing a data field on the Flock transparency page was just the beginning.)
Other information gleaned from the “response” –
From January 1, 2025 through May 29, 2026, there were 123 incidents solved which were attributed to Flock ALPR use by the Visalia Police Department.
To justify mass surveillance, proponents of ALPR systems often talk about two types of incidents: missing persons, and stolen cars. In Visalia’s record, there are no cases of missing persons found using the Flock system. Out of 123 incidents that were attributed to the Flock system, only 45 are stolen vehicles.
Six were violent crimes – assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, and a home invasion.
The rest of the cases “solved” by Flock ALPR data are not classified as violent crimes.
I had asked for location information, as well. Either addresses of incidents, or the hundred block and street name. They refused to provide that, stating the “existing” data only listed VPD “area” zones, and they didn’t have to provide the address or location information more detailed than that.
In the time period covered by the data released, Flock ALPR cameras took more than 5,950,000 images of license plates. Perhaps many more. The “transparency” page lists an average monthly “unique plate reads” of more than 300,000 every 30 days. Multiply that by the 17 months of data released, and the total number surveillance images is staggering.
And, at $3,000 a year per camera, expensive. (The cameras are not bought by and owned by Visalia. They are a subscription. The cameras and related equipment remain the property of Flock.)
Random thoughts, occasional rants, illuminating commentary, and an odd story now and then from the world of 9-1-1 dispatching. All this and more from a gay liberal atheist living in California’s Bible belt. I recently married, so MAGA beware! I’m your worst nightmare! Some names have been omitted to protect the innocent, but the guilty will be hung out to dry!
Visalia City Council election results – so far
November 5, 2026
Jim Reeves commentary, News election results, Emmanuel Hernandez Soto, Esther Perez, Steve Nelsen, Visalia City Council, Visalia City Council District 4, Visalia City Council District 5 1 Comment
Two seats on the Visalia City Council were up for grabs in 2026. (Technically three, but nobody filed to run against incumbent District 3 council member Brian Poochigian, so he was reappointed in lieu of election for the next term.)
As of the Thursday, November 5, 2026 update, the Tulare County Registrar of Voters was reporting incumbent Emmanuel Hernandez Soto leading in District 4. Soto garnered 2,052 votes so far to opponent Nick Kastle’s 1,235 votes. Soto’s percentage vote is 62.43% to Kastle’s 37.57%, a lead unlikely to be significantly changed by still-uncounted mail-in ballots. Soto will return to the Visalia City Council for his second term.
In District 5, long-time incumbent Steve Nelsen is losing to challenger Esther Perez, 33.58% to her 44.48% (1,198 to 1,587 votes). Nelsen faced three challengers, and I expected him to coast to an easy win with the opposition votes split between the three, leaving him in a substantial lead. It appears the residents of District 5 have had enough of Nelsen’s leadership style, which can be assertive, and, frankly, whining at times, along with his issues surrounding the Downtown Visalians, of which he recently resigned as CEO. Even with three candidates opposing him, he still fell short.
Tulare County has until December 3, 2026 to certify the election returns. California will publish certified returns by December 11, 2026.
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