In my post, “The Final Flock – and the answer is “NO”, the City of Visalia closed out my Public Records Request without providing all of the information I requested, citing privacy laws, and police department policy.
Sorry, that’s not good enough. I’m trying again. Today, August 7, 2026, I’ve filed the following supplemental Public Records Request:
“RE: Formal Public Records Request & Demand for Disclosure — Personal ALPR Data (Plate: JJRJR)
Supplemental to PRAR Dated April 24, 2026 / Response Dated August 3, 2026
Dear Custodian of Records and Ms. Berglund:
I am writing to formally request—and respectfully demand—the release of public records pursuant to the California Public Records Act (CPRA), California Government Code § 7920.000 et seq. This letter serves as a specific, narrow request following the supplemental response issued by Herr Pedersen & Berglund LLP on August 3, 2026 regarding my initial April 24, 2026 request.
1. Scope of Request
Pursuant to the CPRA, I request copies of all Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) records, data files, metadata logs, and associated digital images captured or maintained by the Visalia Police Department (including fixed cameras and mobile units) that reference or identify the following California license plate registered to me:
License Plate:JJRJR
Time Period: The 30-day period immediately preceding and ending on the date this written demand is received by the City/Department.
2. Legal Basis and Response to Department Denials
The City’s August 3, 2026 response asserts that raw ALPR data is exempt under the CPRA balancing test (Gov. Code § 7922.000), cites Department Policy 428.2 stating ALPR data is “not open to public review,” and references Civil Code § 1798.90.55 regarding transfers to non-public agencies. Respectfully, these assertions misapply established California case law and statutory rules regarding individual requests for personal records.
A. Rejection of Blanket Exemptions (ACLU v. Superior Court)
In ACLU Found. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1032, the California Supreme Court explicitly held that routine ALPR data collection is not automatically exempt as an investigative record (Gov. Code § 7923.600) because the scans are indiscriminately gathered rather than generated for a targeted inquiry. Furthermore, the Court established that agencies cannot issue blanket denials or rely on generalized privacy claims to withhold all ALPR records.
B. Absence of Privacy Exemption for the Subject Citizen
The primary justification for withholding raw ALPR data under the CPRA balancing test (Gov. Code § 7922.000) is protecting the privacy of individual vehicle owners. However, when an individual requests their own vehicle’s records, the privacy interest belongs entirely to the requester. Releasing location records of license plate JJRJR to the registered owner of plate JJRJR poses zero invasion of personal privacy. The privacy protections of the CPRA exist to safeguard citizens from government intrusion, not to shield public agencies from disclosing non-sensitive records to the data subject.
C. Statutory Duty to Segregate and Disclose (Gov. Code § 7922.525)
California Government Code § 7922.525 mandates that “any reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be available for inspection by any person requesting the record after the deletion of the portions that are exempted by law.”
To the extent the Department contends that releasing raw database files might expose third-party details or systemic operational configurations, the law requires the Department to redact or segregate those exempt elements and release the non-exempt data points (i.e., timestamps, coordinates/locations, and images matching plate JJRJR).
D. Misapplication of Civil Code § 1798.90.55 and Internal Policy
Civil Code § 1798.90.55 prohibits ALPR operators from selling, sharing, or transferring ALPR information to commercial entities or non-public agency third parties for private commercial use. It does not override an agency’s statutory obligations under the CPRA to release records to a requesting citizen. Furthermore, local agency policy (such as VPD Policy 428.2) cannot supersede state statutory law or Supreme Court precedent.
3. Requested Action & Timelines
Because this request is narrow, limited strictly to a single license plate over a 30-day window, and involves an individual seeking their own vehicle data, it presents minimal administrative burden to locate and process.
Pursuant to California Government Code § 7922.535, please provide a determination within 10 calendar days of receipt of this letter as to whether the City will comply with this request. If the Department asserts that any portion of the requested 30-day dataset or images remains exempt, please cite the specific statutory exemption for each redacted or withheld portion and demonstrate how the public interest in withholding clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure under Government Code § 7922.000.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter and your continued service to our community. I look forward to receiving your response and the responsive data files.”
We’ll see if that shakes loose my data stored on the Flock Automated License Plate Reader system employed by the Visalia Police Department. I’m crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath.
As in my previous posts, here are my blogs about the Flock adventure I’ve been on:
Flock Automated License Plate readers have been increasingly in the news recently, as problems with the surveillance system have come to light. Many communities have begun to re-think their use of Flock. Los Angeles PD is one large agency that has decided to revisit their use, and has put renewing their subscription on hold for now. Here are my thoughts on Flock and other similar license plate reader operations.
In a perfect world, computer-based information systems like Flock would be a powerful tool for law enforcement. Put in a license plate number, or a vehicle description, and given enough cameras in the system, pinpoint where a stolen car went (or is), find a missing elderly person who drove off and has become confused on how to get home, or a myriad of other scenarios that might benefit from accessing such a database.
It started April 24, 2026. I filed a public records request for information on the Flock Automated License Plate Reader system the City of Visalia was utilizing. Today, August 3, 2026, I got the final response. Basically, “NO”. The only thing they sent me that was not readily available on the Visalia Police Department Flock Transparency page was a list of “audits”, reporting which agencies had access to Visalia’s Flock network. It was in the tens of thousands of PDF pages. What that revealed is a whole blog post in itself, perhaps at a later date. (I did not see any evidence in those pages of any non-California agencies accessing Visalia Police Department’s database, such as ICE or Homeland Security. There’s a loop-hole about that, however.)
The only thing they were willing to tell me about my vehicle being identified, cataloged, and stored in the Flock database was that they didn’t have any record of Visalia PD checking for my plate. I suppose that’s good. Of course, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t, after my request.
Here are the blog posts I’ve made during this investigation:
“What the Flock?” My first notice of the Flock cameras in Visalia.
“Well, Flock Me!” Stories about agencies cancelling their Flock contracts due to violations of state law by Flock.
“More Flock, More Fun” Another blogger runs the stuff I’ve done through an AI for analysis.
“Flock You Later” The Police Department opts to take their allowed 14 day extension to respond to my request.
“Flock the Lawyers” The Police Department hands my request off to the City’s lawyers. That’s seldom a good sign.
“Flock Me A Little Bit” They send me the list of which agencies can access VPD Flock data, and want me to prove the license plate I asked about is mine.
“Tick Tock Tick Flock” The lawyers dump a huge file on me, with audit logs of agencies that accessed Visalia’s Flock data. Want to know the biggest user, by far? California Highway Patrol. They routinely check thousands of camera files.
So they’ve decided “…data is exempt from public disclosure under the public records act balancing test because the public interest in preventing disclosure clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure…” and “Visalia PD’s policy “Because such data may contain confidential information, it is not open to public view.” (Policy 428.2.)”
They took 14 weeks to determine they wouldn’t give me data on myself. Due diligence, or deliberate delay?
Tulare County’s Republican party is taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook: Lie about your opponents. Why would they do that?
Here are some reasons.
One big one is they are desperate for someone to run against a popular City Council member, Emmanuel Hernandez Soto, and are trying again to smear him with lies. Back in September, they tried to run Soto off the council by saying he was “sympathizing with those who justified the assassination of Charlie Kirk”. That, of course, is a lie. Here’s what really happened.
I wrote a Facebook post, in which I said the following:
I’m afraid I don’t have much sympathy to spare for one particular victim out of the hundreds that will be injured by guns today in the United States. Many of them will die from their wounds. Most are innocent of any crime, and are victims of the easy availability of guns in this country.
Charlie Kirk may die because of the hate he fed our country. He has consistently attacked various communities, spreading lies and hatred. It’s not surprising to me that someone finally broke, and fought back.
Violence is only acceptable to me in immediate self-defense, but that’s never really been what this society has taught its members. The easy availability and glorification of guns has turned what in the past would have been fistfights into shootings.
Whether Kirk lives or dies, he’s now a martyr for the christo-fascists and Christian nationalists. They won’t take the lesson that hate breeds violence, they’ll go after the same minority groups they always have, but with more fervor than ever before.
In the next hours, claims will rocket around the internet that the shooter was gay, or transgender, or an illegal alien, or an atheist, or an Islamic terrorist, or…
Now we wait. Will Kirk live or die? Will the shooter be caught? What were their motivations? How did they acquire the weapon?
The only ones I really feel sorry for are his children. They don’t understand why this happened to their daddy. They don’t deserve this pain.
Soto “liked” my Facebook post. Desperate to get another Republican on the Visalia City Council, the local GOP jumped. They tried to skew my post to mean I was justifying the murder of Kirk (it wasn’t an assassination – Kirk wasn’t that important), and by “liking” my post, Soto was justifying it, too. Of course, that’s not what I said, and that’s not what it meant.
That didn’t stop the Republicans of Tulare County. Ten people got up and spoke at a City Council meeting on September 15, 2025, strong in their performative outrage at Soto. They called for his resignation. He did not resign.
Their post claims Soto “consistently votes against District 4’s best interests”. They then claim he voted against Chik-Fil-A and Sam’s Club, but did not provide the dates for those votes.
They really shouldn’t open the “District 4’s best interest” can of worms, though.
Checking the minutes available on the City’s website as of publication date, Soto’s record in the last 71 votes show him voting with the majority 60 times. He voted “NO”, or voted “YES” with the minority, 3 times. He was absent (for his wedding) for 11 votes. (these are total votes, not number of council meetings)
Soto votes with the majority at just under 85% of the time.
If Tulare GOP wants to claim he “consistently votes against the city’s and District 4’s best interests”, they need to admit so do all of the other Council members.
But, as is the case with MAGA and the GOP, facts don’t matter. Tell the lies, because nobody in the base will check what you say. The only priority is to get someone they think of as “liberal” off the council, and fill that seat with a conservative they can control. They can’t control Soto, and that frosts them.
If you live in District 4, vote Soto this November.
Visalia Police Department Public Records Request – update
On April 19, 2026, I posted “What the Flock?“, my first entry about the proliferation of Flock Automated License Plate Readers in Visalia, California.
On April 24, 2026, I posted “Well, Flock Me!“, about a nearby community (Merced, California) disabling their Flock ALPR system after problems with unauthorized access were discovered. On that same day, I filed a Public Records Request with the Visalia Police Department, about Visalia’s recent installation of Flock cameras. The City had ten days to respond.
On May 5, 2026, I posted “Flock you later“, where the City of Visalia takes advantage of a 14 day extension to provide the requested documents.
On May 11, 2026, I posted “Flock the Lawyers“, wherein the City informs me they have to run it past the lawyers first, and they were targeting June 1, 2026 for release of the documents.
On May 27, 2026, “Flock Me A Little Bit” is the next chapter, in which the City is initially refusing to provide some of the requested documentation, since I was requesting the images in the system of a particular license plate. My license plate. I sent them a copy of my vehicle registration. The next target date for complying with my request was June 20, 2026.
On June 29, 2026, I posted to Facebook, tagging both the City of Visalia and the Visalia Police Department, that they were nine days past their own due date for information. That was at 1pm. By 3pm, I received a “supplemental response to your public records request”, via email. This response stated “The attached document shows the result of a Department audit searching for any monitoring and investigating activity for JJRJR. No data exists.” Except that wasn’t what I asked them to provide. I had no reason to suspect the Police Department deliberately did a search for my license plate, for whatever reason. What I asked for was every instance of my plate being recorded by the system. Those are two different things. They are not going to convince me that my plate has never been recorded by their system.
In that response, they also moved the date again. More information was supposed to be available July 20, 2026.
On July 10, 2026, I received this letter, and a link to a DropBox file with audit logs.
They state “The Department’s staff is continuing its diligent search and review of requested records. The Department’s staff members estimate they will be able to supplement this response on or about August 20, 2026, earlier if able.”
On October 14, 2025, the Tulare County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution expressing Tulare County’s stand against Proposition 50, the ballot measure before California voters to redraw Congressional district boundaries. (The proposition passed in the November, 2025 election at 64.42% in favor.)
On June 5, 2026, I became interested in who requested this item be brought forth before the Board of Supervisors, and filed a Public Records Act request. To it’s credit, Tulare County responded quickly and thoroughly.
In that request, I asked who directed the item be placed on the agenda, and who wrote the suggested resolutions (one supporting the proposition, and one opposing it). After wading through a bunch of emails, and numerous copies of the same documents providing background (everyone seems to forward responses with the attachments), it became relatively clear.
Supervisor Vander Poel, in an email to the Board of Supervisors Chief of Staff, Israel Sotelo, on September 29, 2025, said, “I was approached this weekend regarding Tulare County’s position on Proр 50. I noticed Kern County took a position recently. Can we get an agenda item set for mid October to consider the same?”
On October 14, the item was on the Board agenda, with two drafts presented. One in support of the proposition, and one opposed.
Staff researched the issue, with emails flying fast and furious from hither and yon as they worked on Vander Poel’s request.
On June 5, 2026, I made a public records request of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, regarding their resolution to stand in opposition to Proposition 50 on the California ballot. I asked for documentation on who requested the Board place the item on the agenda for the October 14, 2025 Board meeting. That request was satisfied later the same day, with the requester being identified as Supervisor Vander Poel. I immediately made another request, the same day, as to who wrote the voted-on resolution, and any emails, memos, or other documentation regarding the wording of the resolution. That request was responded to today, June 15, 2026. In it, they sent me various drafts of the resolution, and documentation from the state regarding the proposition (the same information from voter guides put out by the state of California). Those documents did not reveal who actually wrote the approved resolution, or who requested or influenced that wording. Their response to me today says they expect to have the rest of the information by June 29, 2026.
“As requested, the following documents are attached: Board Agenda Item Packet, Revised Board Agenda Item Packet, Proposition 50 Ballot Title and Summary, Opposition Resolution, Opposition Resolution Draft 1, Opposition Draft 2, Support Resolution and Support Resolution Draft 1.
The Board of Supervisors has completed an initial review of your request and pursuant to Government Code § 7922.535(a), has determined that your request, “in whole or in part, seeks copies of disclosable public records” in our possession. We estimate that disclosable records will be made available to you by June 29, 2026.
Thank you
Here are those resolutions, in draft forms, both supporting and opposing Proposition 50. You’ll notice those in opposition are more fleshed out than the ones in support. Foreshadowing?
The next chapter in our Flock Me series is here! Today I received this email from the Visalia Police Department’s lawyers. (I’m going to have to ask why they have an out-of-town law firm doing this, and not the city attorney.)(UPDATE: It’s not actually an out-of-town firm. It’s a local, Visalia law firm. Not sure why I was thinking it’s an out-of-town company. Oops.)
I’ve sent them an image of my vehicle registration, so I hope to get the images of every time my car has been photographed by the system in Visalia. We’ll see.
Here’s the data on the agencies who can access the Visalia Police Department’s camera system. I’m going to have to study it a bit to figure out exactly what it means, and it does not (so far) answer the question of who *actually* accessed the data. This seems to indicate who is allowed to have access, which is not really what I asked. We’ll see if future information dumps include that little detail.
I asked Gemini AI to create a profile on me, so I could have it compare candidates for office in California’s primary election, and recommend who would be good choices for me to select for my votes. Here’s what it came up with.
This is the political profile I have developed for you, based strictly on the content and commentary found on your blogs, primarily jimmiejoe.com and alternatingcurrents.net. I have used this specific set of values and priorities to analyze candidate platforms and determine which individuals most closely align with your viewpoints in the 2026 California primary.
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!
Flock Me – Round 2
August 7, 2026
Jim Reeves commentary, geek, News, Personal ai, ALPR, Flock Camera, Flock License Plate Reader, License Plate Reader, News, politics, technology, visalia, visalia police department Leave a comment
In my post, “The Final Flock – and the answer is “NO”, the City of Visalia closed out my Public Records Request without providing all of the information I requested, citing privacy laws, and police department policy.
Sorry, that’s not good enough. I’m trying again. Today, August 7, 2026, I’ve filed the following supplemental Public Records Request:
“RE: Formal Public Records Request & Demand for Disclosure — Personal ALPR Data (Plate: JJRJR)
Supplemental to PRAR Dated April 24, 2026 / Response Dated August 3, 2026
Dear Custodian of Records and Ms. Berglund:
I am writing to formally request—and respectfully demand—the release of public records pursuant to the California Public Records Act (CPRA), California Government Code § 7920.000 et seq. This letter serves as a specific, narrow request following the supplemental response issued by Herr Pedersen & Berglund LLP on August 3, 2026 regarding my initial April 24, 2026 request.
1. Scope of Request
Pursuant to the CPRA, I request copies of all Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) records, data files, metadata logs, and associated digital images captured or maintained by the Visalia Police Department (including fixed cameras and mobile units) that reference or identify the following California license plate registered to me:
2. Legal Basis and Response to Department Denials
The City’s August 3, 2026 response asserts that raw ALPR data is exempt under the CPRA balancing test (Gov. Code § 7922.000), cites Department Policy 428.2 stating ALPR data is “not open to public review,” and references Civil Code § 1798.90.55 regarding transfers to non-public agencies. Respectfully, these assertions misapply established California case law and statutory rules regarding individual requests for personal records.
A. Rejection of Blanket Exemptions (ACLU v. Superior Court)
In ACLU Found. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1032, the California Supreme Court explicitly held that routine ALPR data collection is not automatically exempt as an investigative record (Gov. Code § 7923.600) because the scans are indiscriminately gathered rather than generated for a targeted inquiry. Furthermore, the Court established that agencies cannot issue blanket denials or rely on generalized privacy claims to withhold all ALPR records.
B. Absence of Privacy Exemption for the Subject Citizen
The primary justification for withholding raw ALPR data under the CPRA balancing test (Gov. Code § 7922.000) is protecting the privacy of individual vehicle owners. However, when an individual requests their own vehicle’s records, the privacy interest belongs entirely to the requester. Releasing location records of license plate JJRJR to the registered owner of plate JJRJR poses zero invasion of personal privacy. The privacy protections of the CPRA exist to safeguard citizens from government intrusion, not to shield public agencies from disclosing non-sensitive records to the data subject.
C. Statutory Duty to Segregate and Disclose (Gov. Code § 7922.525)
California Government Code § 7922.525 mandates that “any reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be available for inspection by any person requesting the record after the deletion of the portions that are exempted by law.”
To the extent the Department contends that releasing raw database files might expose third-party details or systemic operational configurations, the law requires the Department to redact or segregate those exempt elements and release the non-exempt data points (i.e., timestamps, coordinates/locations, and images matching plate JJRJR).
D. Misapplication of Civil Code § 1798.90.55 and Internal Policy
Civil Code § 1798.90.55 prohibits ALPR operators from selling, sharing, or transferring ALPR information to commercial entities or non-public agency third parties for private commercial use. It does not override an agency’s statutory obligations under the CPRA to release records to a requesting citizen. Furthermore, local agency policy (such as VPD Policy 428.2) cannot supersede state statutory law or Supreme Court precedent.
3. Requested Action & Timelines
Because this request is narrow, limited strictly to a single license plate over a 30-day window, and involves an individual seeking their own vehicle data, it presents minimal administrative burden to locate and process.
Pursuant to California Government Code § 7922.535, please provide a determination within 10 calendar days of receipt of this letter as to whether the City will comply with this request. If the Department asserts that any portion of the requested 30-day dataset or images remains exempt, please cite the specific statutory exemption for each redacted or withheld portion and demonstrate how the public interest in withholding clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure under Government Code § 7922.000.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter and your continued service to our community. I look forward to receiving your response and the responsive data files.”
We’ll see if that shakes loose my data stored on the Flock Automated License Plate Reader system employed by the Visalia Police Department. I’m crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath.
As in my previous posts, here are my blogs about the Flock adventure I’ve been on:
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