Flock Pitched Leland a $180,700 Camera System. The Town Hasn’t Bought It.

On August 25, 2026, in response to a DeFlockILM public-records request, Leland Town Clerk Sabrena A. Reinhardt wrote back plainly: the Town “does not currently have an automated license plate reader program in place.” Attached, she said, were “the emails with the Flock sales representative and a quote.” Those attachments are the story. They are a complete picture of the pitch — the demo, the quote, and the presentation to elected officials — that Leland received and, so far, has not acted on.

The sales trail, in order

Read together, the records trace a textbook Flock courtship of a small-town police department:

• May 8, 2025 — the opening. Leland Police Chief Jeremy Humphries and Flock account executive Taylor Ellison trade emails to set a meeting. Ellison sends a calendar invite for an in-person demo.
• June 11, 2025 — the demo. Flock presents in person at Leland Town Hall (102 Town Hall Drive).
• June 13, 2025 — the quote. Ellison emails Chief Humphries a budgetary quote (Q-146418) for the products “discussed during our meeting,” and floats a second meeting to scope a larger “Safe City” deployment — the upsell.
• December 15, 2025 — the Council presentation. Flock gives a formal presentation to the Leland Town Council at the Leland Cultural Arts Center. The town’s IT director, Anthony Thomas, coordinated slides for the meeting — and flagged that slide 16, about Alexander County, NC, carried the wrong agency’s image.

That is the entire pipeline in one records production: demo, quote, pitch to the elected board. What is missing from the file is the last step — a signed contract. As of the Clerk’s August 2026 response, there isn’t one.

What Flock quoted: $180,700, eighteen cameras, and ten “Condors”

The quote is a budgetary, non-binding proposal — Flock’s words — but it is specific about what a Leland deployment would look like. Over a 24-month term with a 30-day retention period, the numbers:

• $85,500 per year recurring; Year 1 total $95,200 (with one-time implementation fees); estimated tax ~$12,197; Contract Total: $180,700.
• 8 Flock LPR cameras (“fka Falcon”) — the plate readers, with Vehicle Fingerprint machine-learning.
• 5 “Solar Video Camera, fka Condor” (fixed video) and 5 “Solar Video Camera PTZ, fka Condor” (dual-lens pan-tilt-zoom) — ten live-video cameras in all.
• FreeForm — Flock’s AI add-on that lets users “search using plain language across LPR images and video footage” — plus Flock Nova OSINT (open-source-intelligence data and inter-agency sharing) and the Enhanced LPR upgrade.

Note one detail in Flock’s own line items, because it settles a question that has come up elsewhere. Flock lists its video cameras as “Solar Video Camera, fka Condor” and its PTZ model as “Solar Video Camera PTZ, fka Condor.” In other words, “Condor” is Flock’s own product name for its solar video-camera line — both the fixed and the pan-tilt-zoom versions. When an agency says its PTZ cameras “aren’t Condors,” Flock’s own paperwork tells you a PTZ solar video camera is the Condor line.

Why this matters

Leland is not a cautionary tale about a program gone wrong. It is the moment before one — and that is exactly why it is useful. Everything New Hanover County residents have spent the summer trying to unwind — the plate readers, the live-video cameras, the AI search, the nationwide sharing — sat in a budgetary quote on a Leland police chief’s desk in June 2025, and went in front of the Town Council that December. The difference is that Leland has not signed.

That leaves Leland’s council with the one thing New Hanover’s never used: the chance to decide, in the open and on the record, before the cameras go up. The town functioned without an ALPR network last year. It can keep functioning without one. If Leland’s leaders want to know where residents stand, the answer is the same one heard in every packed room from Macon to Wilmington: don’t sign. You can tell them so through our contact directory, where the Leland council’s emails are set up for one-click group contact.

Source: records produced by the Town of Leland on August 25, 2026, in response to a DeFlockILM public-records request — the Town Clerk’s email, six emails between Flock and Leland Police, and Flock budgetary quote Q-146418 (dated June 13, 2025). The complete production is mirrored at the Internet Archive. The quote is described by Flock as a non-binding proposal for informational purposes; pricing is subject to change. This article is general information for public discussion, not legal advice, and alleges no wrongdoing by the Town of Leland or its staff. Corrections: mark@deflockilm.org. First published August 26, 2026.