Bend: the law comes first.

Bend Council voted unanimously (Jan 7–8 2026) to turn off and remove four Flock cameras and not renew.

The Axon ALPR add-on was positioned to advance via the city manager’s $250K-per-increment authority, without a Council vote.

SB 1516 §7(1): an agency must publish a compliant ALPR policy before deploying or using ALPR.

SB 1516 §8(1): no agency may extend, renew, or enter a new ALPR vendor contract unless the agency and the contract comply.

SB 1516 §4(3)(a): 30-day maximum retention for non-case data — a ceiling, not a floor.

Bend Policy 428 (rev. Nov 2023) lacks the retention cap, the vendor end-to-end-encryption term, and the out-of-state-sharing limit; no compliant version is posted as of June 3 2026 (the police-policies page 404s).

City Manager’s Report (May 1 2026): BPD wants to reinstall ALPR via Axon, evaluate two demo units, with a ~$19K grant.

~70 BPD cruisers already run Axon Fleet 3 in-car ALPR (since July 2023) — the stolen-vehicle use is already covered without blanketing the city’s entrances with fixed cameras.

A Vallejo, California randomized trial found 35–37% of fixed-ALPR "hits" were misreads.

ALPR errors have ended with innocent people at gunpoint: a Colorado family including a six-year-old forced face-down ($1.9M settlement); a San Francisco woman held over a single misread digit ($495K).

The Institute for Justice documented at least 18 cases of officers using plate readers to stalk partners or family.

Even at the 30-day retention ceiling, chokepoint cameras log enough ordinary trips — to clinics, houses of worship, union halls, protests — to reconstruct a person’s life.