County working to answer Flock contract request
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MORGANTOWN - Where's the contract?
It's a question that's been asked time and again during the months of public pushback following the Monongalia County Commission's November 2025 decision to utilize up to $180,000 in directly allocated opioid settlement money for the placement of 20 Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras across the county.
The cameras are up, the reasoning goes, why can't the public see the document that put them in place?
County resident Cynthia Fox has asked it more than once during recent Monongalia County Commission meetings.
"I do think it would go a long way to repairing some of the breach between members of the community and the county commission for what we would think of as the lack of transparency, despite the somewhat ironic term of the 'transparency portal' for Flock," Fox said during the commission's Sept. 23 session. "I'm asking you again to please release this information to the public. Whether you call it an understanding, an agreement, a contract, so that we can see what you all, on our behalf, have agreed to."
As referenced by Fox, the Monongalia County Sheriff's Office maintains a "Flock Safety Transparency" portal on the department website aimed at providing information about how the technology is used as well as data showing the number of unique license plates detected, the number of "hits" detected by the cameras, the number of searches conducted by the department and a link to download internal audits of the system conducted by the MCSD's system administrators.
While the portal does include a link purporting to be the contract between Flock and the sheriff's office, clicking that link takes you a scan of the purchase agreement between Flock and the county. The portal also includes a link to Flock's standard terms and conditions. The combination of the two documents is, in effect, the contract.
During a recent work session between the county commission and Mark Ralston, representing the sheriff’s department, it was explained that while that setup is standard for Flock, it doesn’t satisfy what most people envision in terms of a contract.
To that end, Monongalia County Commissioner Sean Sikora said he has been working with Flock to be able to provide an actual contract document in the form of a master service agreement.
In doing so, the county is looking for a couple things.
One, the terms and conditions are memorialized as they were when the county signed on to the Flock Safety network on Nov. 13, 2025.
And two, to the extent that terms and conditions remain a "living document," meaning it can be changed and updated by Flock, the county wants the ability to review and consent to those changes.
Sikora outlined his thoughts in an email to a Flock Safety representative earlier this month.
"I understand the practical value of maintaining a current or ‘living’ version of the terms and conditions. However, I would expect there to be a documented process for notifying the county of changes, allowing us to evaluate those changes, and providing the county with a meaningful opportunity to accept, reject, or terminate the agreement if a material change is unacceptable," he wrote.
"I have no reason to assume that future changes would be objectionable. My concern, as an elected official, is ensuring that the county is not automatically bound by terms unilaterally established or subsequently modified by a private company without an opportunity for review or an ability to opt out. I am sure you can appreciate how that type of arrangement - or even the appearance of one - could reinforce public concerns that the county and its residents are beholden to a private company."
Sikora told The Dominion Post that he has since received a master service agreement specific to Monongalia County memorializing the governing terms and conditions that the county is in the process of reviewing before making it publicly available.
"I'd just rather have a document that memorializes all the terms and conditions we're working under, so we know; and so we know there isn't something that changes and we're not aware of it," he said. "We hope to finalize that pretty soon."