JACKSON, Wyo. — Vice Mayor Arne Jorgensen, Councilwoman Jessica Sell Chambers and Jackson Police Chief Michelle Weber will host a Zoom discussion about license plate readers in town, Wednesday, Sept. 27.
The Zoom meeting is open to everyone and kicks off at 12 p.m.
Back in June, the town council approved a contract with Flock Group Inc. to install 30 license plate reader cameras within the town.
Vice Mayor Arne Jorgensen voted against the $184,800 project, because of the recurring annual maintenance costs of $87,500. Mayor Hailey Morton Levinson also voted against approving the contract.
“What makes me not in support is these cameras become public information, which is different than the cameras that are out there now,” Morton Levinson said. “I can see a lot of benefits and I can see that it’s part of the world now, we have cameras everywhere. At this time I’m not going to support it, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t revisit it later.”
According to JPD, the cameras do not include facial recognition capabilities and do not capture personally identifiable information.
JPD has used LPRs since 2015 to enforce parking restrictions. The additional cameras will be used for parking control, stolen vehicle investigations, amber alert cases and other investigations to determine what vehicles might have been at the scene of a crime.
