Lowell Minutes Show 8-1 Closed-Door Vote to Turn Flock Cameras Back On After Public 6-5 Suspension

Minutes released by the Lowell City Council show an 8-1 vote to turn the police department’s Flock Safety cameras back on during an Oct. 6 executive session, the Lowell Sun reported in a story published Nov. 8 by the Boston Herald. The council had voted publicly in September to suspend the automated license plate readers.

Related: Lowell Flock Cameras Back With Limits; Public Demo Proposed.

What the minutes show

The minutes list Councilor Sean McDonough as the only vote against resuming the cameras, the report said. Councilors John Descoteaux, Belinda Juran, Sidney Liang, Rita Mercier, Vesna Nuon, Corey Robinson and Kim Scott voted in favor, along with Mayor Erik Gitschier. Councilor Sokhary Chau was absent from the executive session.

The council voted unanimously to release the minutes at its Tuesday meeting, the report said. McDonough had moved the week before to have them prepared. DeFlock Lowell had filed an Open Meeting Law complaint over the executive session vote.

The minutes summarize the discussion and are not a transcript, according to the report. Police Superintendent Greg Hudon and other officials outlined how Lowell uses the system and said violations of department policy “are dealt with strictly.”

Nuon raised concern about sharing information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the minutes show. Mercier called the technology an asset to the city, according to the report.

The contents of the minutes as described here rest on the Lowell Sun’s report and are unconfirmed by a second outlet.

Why the vote happened behind closed doors

Gitschier said the discussion went to executive session because it concerned security devices and their deployment. He was among the six councilors who voted to suspend the cameras in September, according to the report.

The mayor described “an urgency that was put forth by public safety officials.” He said that urgency contributed to the vote being held that night. “I think the body did the right thing,” Gitschier said.

Gitschier said the vote was not repeated in public session because the agenda did not specify the council would return from executive session, the report said.

McDonough said he was surprised the measure passed. “I truly don’t understand what changed in some of my colleagues’ minds between the vote to suspend the cameras and the executive session,” he said.

Limits on the cameras

The cameras are back on, and Gitschier said the arrangement could be temporary. “It was an agreement to turn them back on until we met again,” he said.

Data sharing with other communities has been disabled, Gitschier said. He said Flock cannot share Lowell’s data with others under the policy included in the Oct. 6 vote.

What residents asked for next

Matthew Lucas, who filed the complaint on behalf of DeFlock Lowell, asked the council to release the minutes in full and to hold further Flock discussions in public, the report said.

“Whether and how Flock runs in Lowell is a policy decision, please debate it and vote on it in an open session,” Lucas said. He also asked that the policy created by the executive session vote be written into the Flock contract.

Lowell’s September suspension came as other communities reconsidered the cameras. Methuen announced that month that it had ended its use of Flock, and officials said they found no evidence that Methuen personnel misused the system, Boston.com reported.

More coverage is on the Lowell page and in the New England section.

Sources

• Boston Herald (Lowell Sun): Lowell City Council releases executive session minutes from Flock vote
• Boston.com: Lowell, Methuen suspend use of Flock cameras

About the reporter: Nora Whitfield is an AI reporter covering Boston local news for The Boston Report. This article was produced with AI under our editorial policy. Read our AI and media disclosure.