Fifteen Flock cameras. Thirty-two months “at no cost.” Then $47,500 a year. Documented here.
The City of Arvada, Colorado has Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader cameras over its streets, and a second plate-reader system, from Genetec, on its patrol cars. A Colorado Open Records Act request for every contract between the city and Flock produced five documents, and they are published in full here: a 2023 order form signed by the police chief, a December 2025 contract converting what it calls a no-cost pilot into a paid, self-renewing subscription, a Genetec in-car purchase, and the two police policies that govern all of it.[1][2]
This is an independent watchdog site, critical of how Arvada has run and disclosed that program. Every claim is footnoted to a named public source, and every place the record still goes silent is marked as silent rather than filled in.
A note on scope. This site covers only the City of Arvada, which sits in Jefferson and Adams counties, and only its police department's plate readers and the real-time center they feed. Flock cameras run by neighboring agencies, businesses or homeowners' associations inside Arvada are not the city's, and a camera on a pole does not say whose it is. deflockarvada.com is an independent public-record compilation, not affiliated with the City of Arvada, the Arvada Police Department, or Flock Safety, Inc.; nothing here alleges unlawful conduct by anyone. Methodology and corrections: Records. Compiled September 28, 2026.
At a glance
- Who: The Arvada Police Department. Every Flock document in the release names the customer as “CO - Arvada PD,” and every one was signed for the city by the chief of police, above signature blocks for the City Clerk and the City Attorney. None cites a City Council vote.[1][2]
- How it started: In March 2023 the chief signed a Flock order form for 40 Falcon cameras at $2,500 each a year, plus “Advanced Search” and installation: $116,500 for year one, with a 60-day pilot the city could cancel at no cost.[1]
- What it became: The December 2025 contract describes that 2023 arrangement as a pilot provided “at no cost to Arvada,” under which 12 Flock cameras were by then “installed and operating.” It converts the pilot into a paid subscription for 15 cameras at $47,500 a year, plus $5,250 to install, bought sole-source, and renewing itself up to four times. A separate Flock “Falcon Flex” agreement exists; it was not in the release.[2] The documents do not explain how a 60-day pilot ran for about 32 months: the gap, laid out.
- What it can reach: The 2025 order form lists Flock's state and nationwide lookup networks, “a nationwide system boasting 10 billion additional plate reads per month,” and “direct access to feeds from privately owned” Flock cameras “in neighborhoods, schools, and businesses.” Nothing in the release says whether Arvada's own cameras are opened to anyone else. In September 2025, CBS News Colorado named Arvada among the Colorado agencies that “allow law enforcement nationwide to search their cameras”; that December, the chief told City Council that access to Arvada's network is granted to Colorado law enforcement “only.” No released record reconciles the two.[2][7][8]
- The rules: Arvada's ALPR policy, PM 460, says “reasonable suspicion or probable cause is not necessary before using an ALPR,” lets data go to other agencies “at any time,” keeps patrol-car plate data for 364 days and copies it to LexisNexis, and says audits “should” happen “on a regular basis.” A newer policy, PM 461, routes plate readers, drones, body cameras and city cameras into one Real Time Information Center.[4][5]
Bracketed citations resolve on the Records page. Every other page carries its own source list at the bottom.
Five numbers
The 15 is the city's contracted quantity, not a verified field count; the contract itself disagrees with itself about whether two or three were still waiting to be installed, and no location list was released. The 32 months is this site's arithmetic from the two signature dates, March 2023 to December 2025. The five-year total assumes the price never changes, which the contract does not promise. The 0 reflects the documents produced under CORA: if a council action exists elsewhere, this site will publish it.
Where the readers are
Every reported automated license-plate reader inside Arvada's city boundary, drawn from the same OpenStreetMap data that powers the DeFlock project. The tight knot of red at the bottom of the map is the intersection of Wadsworth Boulevard and West 52nd Avenue: 10 of the 31 Flock-tagged reports sit within 600 meters of it, and 13 lie within 250 meters of Wadsworth somewhere along its length. In the northwest, five more are within about 400 meters of Candelas Parkway or Highway 72. Thirty-one is more than twice the 15 cameras on the city's 2025 contract,[2] so if these reports are accurate, at least half of the Flock hardware below is not accounted for by that contract. The map cannot say whose it is: one of the 37 readers carries a private operator tag, for a Lowe's store, one is tagged as the Arvada Police Department's, and 34 name no operator at all.[6]
The whole record, one page at a time
Five pages, each one self-contained and fully footnoted. No trust required. If you read one thing, read the first.
- The Program What a Flock camera does, what Arvada signed for in 2023 and 2025, the pilot that ran 32 months, and how the contract ends. Read first
- The Policies PM 460 and PM 461, checked against the contracts they are supposed to govern.8 min
- Context The Colorado cases, the law that exists, the bill that died, and the Boulder lawsuit Arvada sits beside.7 min
- Timeline How Flock came to Arvada, dated and sourced: from the March 2023 order form to the renewal date this December.6 min
- The Records Every primary document, what the release left out, the method, and the corrections log.Reference