Flock Safety Contract Comes to Light in Pine Plains 

During an emergency meeting on Monday, Feb. 9, the Pine Plains Town Board acknowledged that a contract authorizing the installation of Flock Safety surveillance cameras across the town had been signed nearly a year ago — a disclosure that contradicted earlier statements by Supervisor Brian Walsh that no such agreement existed. Walsh’s claims of ignorance have since been disputed by Flock Safety officials and the Dutchess County district attorney.

A two-year, $80,000 contract between Flock Safety and the Town of Pine Plains Police Department was signed on Feb. 25, 2025, by former Police Sgt. Michael Beliveau, who resigned from the department in July. A company spokesperson said Wednesday that the town has “not been invoiced yet.” 

The meeting — which was not recorded or live-streamed by town officials — convened after the Herald reported last week on four pink survey markings tied to Flock Safety that appeared across Pine Plains, prompting questions about whether surveillance equipment was being installed without public authorization.

Flock surveillance systems nationwide have come under scrutiny from the American Civil Liberties Union and some police departments in recent months because of privacy concerns and whether their data might be accessed by federal agencies without consent. Flock vigorously defends its systems as a vital and valuable tool to assist police departments and fight crime.

The Pine Plains agreement obtained by the Herald authorized the installation of 11 devices across Pine Plains, including nine automated license-plate reader cameras the company refers to as “falcons,” and two “condors,” 24/7 pan-tilt-zoom video cameras equipped with artificial intelligence including capabilities to “track people and vehicles, zooming in for identifying details, and capture high-resolution video for investigations‍.”

At the emergency meeting, Walsh read from a prepared statement following an executive session with the other four Town Board members and Town Attorney Warren Replansky. “This contract is considered to be null and void as of Feb. 3, 2026,” Walsh said. “The contract was not discussed or approved by the Town Supervisor or the Town Board, which would have been proper protocol.”

Walsh added that the town would reinforce internal procedures and protocols to “ensure this does not occur moving forward.”

Walsh’s claim — that he did not discuss the contract with Flock Safety — was contradicted by both a company official and the Dutchess County district attorney. 

A Flock Safety official said Walsh was “involved in the conversations” that shaped the agreement between Flock and the Pine Plains Police Department. 

Last week, Walsh told the Herald that he had communicated with the company last June, several months after the contract had been signed.

Walsh did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment. 

Under Pine Plains Town Law, all equipment purchased by the police department is the property of both the department and the town. The police department is funded through the town’s annual budget, which requires recommendations from the police leadership and approval by the Town Board. Its 2025 budget was $148,000. Salaries and fixed expenses are paid by the town, while other expenditures require approval through established voucher procedures.

Beliveau said that he did not have the authority to approve such an agreement on his own, and that he does not recall who else may have been involved. “If I signed anything, I 100% did not do it on my own,” Beliveau told the Herald. “I had to have contact and permission from somebody to do it. I wouldn’t take it upon myself to sign anything on my own. I can’t stress that enough.” 

Dutchess County District Attorney Anthony Parisi said in a phone call with the Herald that Flock Safety told his office about calls and emails that suggest Walsh was “intimately involved” in conversations related to both the contract and the deployment of Flock Safety equipment in Pine Plains, including “giving them the go ahead to start with the site surveys and installations.”

“I truly believe that transparency is the cornerstone of public trust,” said Parisi. “This incident is concerning to me.”

Parisi took an interest in the matter after the Herald reported last week on the appearance of preliminary site work associated with Flock Safety in Pine Plains. Walsh described that work as “a mistake” and said that “there are no Flock cameras going up in the town of Pine Plains.” 

Walsh also said, “I can’t answer for the county. I can’t answer for the future with the county. I believe there’s been discussions with the DA and the Sheriff’s office on something about their crime prevention program about putting cameras up, but the town of Pine Plains is not putting cameras up.”

In an email, Parisi sought to draw a distinction between the Pine Plains contract and the county’s broader public safety initiatives with Flock. “We would never deploy technology or resources into any community without first engaging local residents, municipal leadership, and other stakeholders, and without clearly explaining the purpose, scope, and limits of any such initiative,” Parisi said.

According to a Flock Safety transparency website associated with devices in Dutchess County, as of Feb. 10 there were 371 Flock Safety cameras and related devices installed throughout the county.

“The Dutchess County Analysis and Real Time Crime Intelligence Center (ARTCIC) uses Flock Safety technology to capture objective evidence without compromising on individual privacy,” the website states. “Dutchess County ARTCIC utilizes retroactive search to solve crimes after they’ve occurred. Additionally, Dutchess County ARTCIC utilizes real time alerting of hotlist vehicles to capture wanted criminals. In an effort to ensure proper usage and guardrails are in place, we have made the below policies and usage statistics available to the public.”

The site lists the identification and location of multiple vehicles involved in hit and run incidents as success stories.

“The site surveys conducted by Flock Safety in the Town of Pine Plains are not the result of, nor are they connected to, the District Attorney’s Office, the Sheriff’s Office, or ARTCIC,” Parisi said. “After researching the matter, I have confirmed directly through Flock Safety that these site surveys are tied to a contract entered into by the Town of Pine Plains and/or the Pine Plains Police Department directly with Flock Safety, independent of any county-level real-time crime center effort.”

According to the website, Flock Safety’s system in Dutchess County is designed to detect license plates and vehicles only, and does not use facial recognition or identify people by gender or race. 

Under its acceptable use policy, all data — owned by the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office — is used solely for law enforcement purposes and is never sold to third parties; prohibited uses include immigration or traffic enforcement, harassment or intimidation, personal use, or actions based solely on a protected class. System access requires a valid law-enforcement reason and is logged indefinitely. Despite listing immigration enforcement on its list of prohibited uses, police departments, including in Mountain View, Calif., have stopped using the technology after it says data was accessed by multiple federal agencies without permission. 

It is not clear which agencies Pine Plains Police Department would have shared its data with had the installation of its 11 planned Flock Safety devices been completed.

The Pine Plains Town Board is scheduled to meet next on Feb. 19.