Oshkosh Hits Pause on Flock Renewal After Hours of Public Pushback

The Oshkosh Common Council voted Tuesday night to delay a decision on renewing the Oshkosh Police Department's Flock Safety contract — a significant pause that came only after three hours of debate and a public comment session in which every single speaker urged the council to reconsider.

The vote to delay passed 4-3, with Council Members Jacob Amos, Joseph Stephenson, Karl Buelow, and Brad Spanbauer in favor of tabling the decision. Council Members Matt Mugerauer, Jacob Floam, and DJ Nichols voted to press forward. The issue will return to the council at its April 21 meeting.

The proposed renewal is for a two-year contract at $81,750 per year — a real number the public is now, finally, being asked to weigh in on.

The delay landed at the tail end of a 7.5-hour meeting — a measure of how seriously at least some council members are taking the public's concerns.

"Instead of Continuing to Use This Emerging Technology..."

According to Fox 11 News, roughly a dozen residents showed up to speak at Tuesday's meeting. Not one of them spoke in favor of the contract renewal.

Oshkosh resident Juan Garcia put it plainly: "Instead of continuing to use this emerging technology, we are considering fully the risks or understanding exactly how it works and what it does with the data that it collects. I encourage the city council to pause the renewal of this contract."

Oshkosh Police Chief Dean Smith made the department's case for keeping the cameras: "We are successful in what we do as a police department because of the tools that you have provided to us. We can't do what we do without your help. We can't do what we do within the community to keep them safe without our community's help."

The contrast with the cameras' original adoption couldn't be starker. According to council members themselves, Oshkosh first installed 20 Flock cameras three years ago with what the Fox 11 report described as "little fanfare." Six more were added last year. There was no comparable public process, no packed chambers, no three-hour debate — just a quiet vote to let a surveillance company install 26 cameras across the city.

That's how Flock works: it gets in easy and stays harder to remove.

The Flock Sales Pitch, Live in the Council Chamber

Tuesday's meeting included a presentation from Flock Safety representatives — the company making its case directly to the governing body deciding its contract fate.

This is a standard part of Flock's playbook. The company is not a passive vendor; it actively works to retain and expand its contracts. In Oshkosh, that meant sending employees to pitch their product during a public meeting where every community member who spoke was asking the council to walk away.

One council in Wisconsin has already decided they don't need to hear that pitch. The Sturgeon Bay Finance/Purchasing Committee, which debated its own Flock contract in March, voted to refer the matter to the full council without inviting a Flock representative. Council President Dan Williams explained the reasoning directly: "I don't need to have somebody, with a suit on, read out of a manual that tells me all the things I need to hear, because that's what they want me to hear, and I'm not sure there would be value in doing that."

That's a level of skepticism Oshkosh's council would do well to adopt.

The Election Complication

Here's the wrinkle that makes the April 21 date especially significant: Oshkosh's spring election is April 7, two weeks before the scheduled vote.

Three council members whose terms expire this spring are Jacob Floam, DJ Nichols, and Jacob Amos. Floam and Nichols — both of whom voted against delaying the decision, meaning both wanted to renew the contract now — are not running for reelection. By the time the council votes on April 21, neither of them will be at the table.

Amos, who proposed the delay, is running for a full term. His vote to slow down the process means the council that ultimately decides Oshkosh's Flock future will be a different one than sat in chambers Tuesday night. Two pro-Flock votes walk out the door on April 7. The incoming council members will vote on the contract with fresh eyes — and, presumably, having watched Tuesday's public comment session.

Whether that changes the outcome remains to be seen. But it matters.

What Oshkosh Residents Should Be Asking

While the delay is a genuine win — the council heard the community and pumped the brakes — the April 21 meeting is when the real decision gets made. Here's what Oshkosh residents and the incoming council should be demanding before that vote:

Full audit data. Oshkosh has a Flock transparency portal. How many searches have officers run? How many were by agencies outside Oshkosh — including federal agencies like CBP, ICE, and HSI? The council approved cameras for a local police department. They should know who else has been using them.

Access policies in writing. Flock's standard 30-day retention sounds reassuring. But as Verona discovered, what's in the brochure and what's in the audit logs can be very different things. Before Verona voted to end its contract, Verona Police Chief Dave Dresser told the council his department had disabled data sharing with federal agencies. The audit logs showed something different: Verona's cameras had been searched nearly 3,200 times by Border Patrol as part of broad nationwide sweeps. What do Oshkosh's network audit logs show?

A clear answer on the Morales precedent. Menasha is less than 20 miles from Oshkosh. Officer Cristian Morales — a Menasha PD officer hired just months earlier — used Flock from his personal phone, off duty, to run seven searches of his ex-girlfriend's vehicles in October 2025. He was arrested in January and now faces felony charges. The misuse wasn't caught by any internal audit. It was caught because the victim contacted a different police department. What does Oshkosh's audit process actually look like? Has the council seen it?

The full cost picture. The original 20 cameras. The additional six added last year. The renewal now on the table at $81,750 per year for two years. What has Oshkosh actually spent on Flock to date, and what has the community received in return — in independently verified, specific terms?

A Pattern Across the Fox Valley

Oshkosh joins a growing list of Fox Valley municipalities where Flock contracts that sailed through originally are now facing real scrutiny:

• Green Bay renewed its contract for $1.3 million in December 2025 — but not before public commenters "overwhelmingly raised privacy and security concerns" and alderpersons successfully added a data-safeguard amendment requiring the city attorney to verify that Green Bay controls its own data.
• Appleton held a public meeting in January 2026 explicitly prompted by the Menasha scandal, where residents questioned ICE access and misuse prevention.
• Neenah adopted its cameras in April 2022 with a council discussion but limited community input; no comparable public meeting has been reported since.

The Fox Valley's surveillance infrastructure was built largely in the dark. Tuesday's Oshkosh meeting is a sign that the lights are coming on.

What Happens April 21

The incoming Oshkosh council inherits this vote. The community showed up once — in numbers, unanimously, and with real arguments. The question is whether they show up again on April 21 to make sure the council that decides their surveillance future heard the message.

We'll be watching.

DeFlock Fox Cities tracks Flock Safety camera deployments, contract renewals, and public accountability efforts across Outagamie, Winnebago, Calumet, Brown, and Fond du Lac counties. Have a tip, a camera sighting, or information about an upcoming council vote? Contact us at deflock.foxcities@protonmail.com.