League City City Council at its Aug. 11 meeting will consider passing an ordinance calling for a special election referendum on Nov. 3 where voters could decide on League City Police Department’s continued use of automated license plate reader cameras.
The details
Mayor Nick Long, who sponsored having council vote on whether to call the special election, said he was inspired by feedback from concerned residents. Residents said abuses of Flock cameras were observed in nearby cities, such as Houston and Pasadena.
“If you [do] a quick Google search, [it] can show you about another 100 [cases] all across the country,” Long said.
Also of note
If council approves calling the special election, it will be the first referendum the city has called since it updated its charter in 2025 to allow it, Long said.
Long said if council votes in favor of leaving the decision to voters, League City could be one of the first cities statewide to have a referendum on whether to keep or do away with Flock cameras.
In July, Conroe City Council tabled a motion to call a referendum for voters to decide on whether the city should use the cameras, according to previous reporting by Community Impact. Council has not yet set a future date for considering the election again.
How we got here
In December 2022, LCPD began installing Flock cameras along major roadways in the city, according to previous reporting by Community Impact.
The cameras are positioned to capture the license plates of vehicles driving away from them. Scanned license plates are kept on file for 30 days before automatically being deleted, according to previous reporting.
At least 55 Flock cameras have been installed to date, with another 16 cameras in the Texas Department of Transportation permitting process, according to a July LCPD social media post.
Since July 2025, the cameras aided police in 305 criminal investigations, including homicides, robberies and theft, allowing law enforcement to recover $1 million in stolen property, according to the post.
LCPD shares data captured with the cameras with the FBI, but does not share it with U.S Border Patrol or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the post.
LCPD declined to comment for this story.
According to law enforcement
Police can use the technology to see if a vehicle matching a desired license plate has passed any of the cameras in the past month, which helps police in their investigations, Harold Lee, League City Police Department captain said in previous reporting.
In addition to solving crimes, the cameras may help police find missing people, such as children and elders, and deter crime from occurring, Lee said.
Police can’t enter the Flock database without investigating a high-level case, Lee said. Therefore, the cameras will be used only for major crimes, not smaller crimes, such as speeding or parking tickets.
Additionally, the cameras don’t have facial recognition technology, according to previous reporting.
Mapping it out
If the referendum is approved and voters ultimately decide to remove the cameras, the city will break its existing contracts with Flock Safety and remove the cameras, Long said.
However, if the voters decide to keep the cameras, the city will consider changing the privacy rules for data captured by the cameras and create a citizen-led advisory committee to ensure accountability on policies, such as having a case number tied to accessing the cameras and that data is properly handled and destroyed, Long said.
Stay tuned
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Aug. 11 at Council Chambers, located at 200 W. Walker St., League City.
