Where Our County Commissioners Stand

In New Hanover County, five elected commissioners approve the budget that pays for the Sheriff’s Flock contract — about $219,000 a year. They can fund it, or not. So a fair question for any resident is simple: where does each of them stand?

We went looking — through county records, WECT, Port City Daily, WHQR, StarNews, campaign sites, and candidate questionnaires. Here is the honest result.

Update — July 3, 2026: We have now written to all five commissioners directly, asking each to state whether they support the county’s continued funding of the Flock program and whether they will support putting the contract to a public vote. We asked for a reply by Friday, July 24, 2026. As responses arrive, we will post each commissioner’s position here in their own words — and note, factually, where we received no reply.

The scorecard

Five for five: not one of our commissioners has taken a public position on Flock. That is not an accusation — it is a fact about the record, and a problem in its own right. A quarter-million-dollar surveillance system is running in this county, and the people who fund it have never had to say in public whether they support it.

How is that possible?

Because the cameras never got a real public vote. The only time the board formally touched Flock was December 2021, when a $43,750 Flock contract was approved on the consent agenda — a bundle of routine items passed together with no discussion — and then scrapped weeks later when a competing vendor undercut the sole-source justification. (Port City Daily) The current, far larger program runs through the Sheriff’s Office budget, with no separate commissioner roll-call on the cameras themselves.

The Sheriff’s Office has defended the program in general terms — a spokesperson told WECT the readers are “another investigative tool to help protect the community” — but no commissioner has publicly endorsed it, questioned it, or asked for it to be put to a vote. (WECT Investigates)

Silence is a choice — so make them choose in public

A blank scorecard is not bad news. It is an opening. No one on the board has committed to defending Flock, which means every commissioner is still free to be the one who says this deserves a public vote. Our job is to put the question in front of them, on the record, where a non-answer becomes its own answer.

• Ask them directly. Email all five commissioners one question: will you support a public vote on the county’s Flock contract?
• Make them answer in the room. At the August 17 meeting, ask each commissioner to state their position for the minutes.
• We’ll keep score. As commissioners go on record — in meetings, emails, or the press — we’ll update this page with what they said and when. Got an answer? Send it to us.

Methodology & fairness: “No public position on record” means we found no sourced statement, vote, or questionnaire answer specific to Flock or ALPR as of July 3, 2026 — not that a commissioner supports or opposes it. Verbal remarks during a budget presentation may exist in county meeting video that isn’t web-searchable. If a commissioner is on record somewhere we missed, tell us and we’ll correct this the same day.