St. Johns County Commission Votes 3-2 to Remove About 45 Flock License Plate Cameras From County Roads

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. - The St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners narrowly voted to revoke permits for about 45 Flock license plate cameras on county roads, a decision that will take the sheriff's cameras down from county-maintained streets. The vote came Tuesday, Oct. 20, after a discussion that lasted two hours, according to Jacksonville Today. It follows Gov. Ron DeSantis's order, nearly two months earlier, that law enforcement remove cameras along state roads.

How commissioners voted

Commissioners Sarah Arnold, Ann Taylor and Christian Whitehurst voted to remove the cameras. Commission Chair Clay Murphy and Commissioner Krista Joseph voted to keep them. Many agencies went further than the governor's order and pulled cameras from local roads, and St. Johns County was the exception until this vote.

Whitehurst said he would favor bringing the cameras back once state lawmakers "put guardrails on this technology." Arnold said "the technology has outpaced the safeguards." Joseph called removal a "radical" position and said she would not "jeopardize one child in this county."

The sheriff's case

Sheriff Rob Hardwick did not attend the meeting. In a social media statement, he said the decision "encroaches on my ability to keep our community safe" and that the office will keep "working to bring it back to St. Johns County."

Howard "Skip" Cole, director of the Sheriff's Office criminal investigations division, called the cameras valuable and cited an armed bank robbery the week before. He said an audit changed how the data is handled, and it is no longer stored as long or shared outside the agency. Cole said the office previously shared data with 2,600 agencies and now shares with none. He said 70 people in the Sheriff's Office have access to St. Johns County data. The audit found one personal use. A detective used the database to check whether a used vehicle he had bought was being delivered.

Supporters and opponents

Forrest Bailey, whose daughter Tristyn was murdered in 2021, spoke in favor of keeping the cameras, saying he knew they were a tool available to law enforcement. Opponents outnumbered supporters at the meeting. One speaker said law-abiding taxpayers should not be forced to fund a surveillance system that monitors everyone by default.

What stays and what goes

The vote applies only to county-maintained roads, and cameras on state roads were already removed. Cameras in communities run by homeowners associations and community development districts can stay up and keep sharing data with the Sheriff's Office. Jacksonville Today did not report a timeline for taking down the county-road cameras or any future vote on bringing them back. The decision leaves a gap between the commission and the sheriff, who is elected separately and has said he will keep pushing. Whitehurst's comments suggest at least one commissioner could revisit the question if the Legislature sets rules for the technology.

Source: Jacksonville Today (Noah Hertz), reviewed by Jax Times.