Sonoma County
Surveillance in Sonoma County
Sonoma County does not have one single Flock camera program. It has at least nine, run by separate agencies under separate contracts, on separate rules that were set independently of one another. A driver going from Petaluma to Healdsburg on an ordinary afternoon passes through several of them without any indication that they have done so.
| Agency | Cameras | Retention | Cost | Contract ends | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Rosa Police Department | 147 | 30 days | $421,650 and $897,999 across two contracts, state and federal funds | unconfirmed | Press Democrat, Jan 2026; Flock transparency portal. More figures on the SRPD questions page. |
| Healdsburg Police Department | 31 11 are plate readers |
90 days | unconfirmed | unconfirmed | Flock transparency portal |
| Town of Windsor | 25 | 30 days | ≤$75,000/yr; ≤$225,000 over the term | ≤May 2029 renewed May 2026, up to 3-yr term |
Town Council agenda, May 2026 |
| Rohnert Park Dept. of Public Safety | 20 plate readers only; its portal does not give a total |
30 days | unconfirmed | 2028 month unconfirmed |
Press Democrat, Jan 2026; Flock transparency portal |
| City of Sonoma Police | 16 | 30 days | ≤$50,500/yr; ~$50,000 initial purchase in 2023 | Sept 2028 | Index-Tribune, Mar 2026 |
| Petaluma Police Department | 4 | 30 days | unconfirmed | unconfirmed | Flock transparency portal |
| Cloverdale Police Department | ? | ? | $37,250 initial (2023), $87,500/yr after 5-yr renewal from Nov 2023 |
≤Nov 2028 | Council minutes, May 2023; Nov 2023 |
| Cotati Police Department | 4 in-car units plus subscription access to fixed cameras hosted by others, e.g. a local Lowe's |
30 days | ? | ? | Secondary source only: an AI-generated recap of a May 2025 Police Advisory Committee presentation. Not yet confirmed against a primary document. |
| Sebastopol Police Department | none found | n/a | n/a | n/a | No Flock/ALPR contract, CEQA filing, or transparency portal found. Sebastopol's 2022 surveillance ordinance names ALPR explicitly and requires a public hearing and council approval before any department acquires one; the city separately banned facial recognition the same year. |
| Sonoma County Sheriff's Office | 63 via the Sonoma County Auto Theft Task Force (SONCATT) |
30 days | $237,950 (Yr 1), $189,000/yr after ≤$1,026,950 if extended to 5 yrs |
≤Aug 2028 initial term to Aug 2025, renewable |
Board of Supervisors item, signed agreement, Aug 2023 |
Sebastopol is included for completeness, not because it has a program: no deployment was found there, which is why it is not counted among the nine above.
Camera counts and retention windows change. Treat this table as a snapshot, verify before quoting it at a public meeting, and tell us when you find it out of date.
Note: several of these agreements, including the Sheriff's Office contract, use Flock's standard renewal clause: the agreement automatically renews for another term unless either party gives 30 days' notice before the current term ends. That means a "contract ends" date above may not produce a public vote on its own. Confirming whether an agency plans to send, or has already missed, that notice is often the more useful question to bring to a meeting.
The retention column is worth a second look. Sonoma deletes after 30 days. Healdsburg holds records three times as long. Rohnert Park was holding them for a full year, which means that for a period, one database held where those cars had been for the previous twelve months. The same drive across the county produced a record that lasted thirty days in one city and a year in the next. None of this was decided countywide, and no resident voted on any of it.
What California law says
California is not a blank slate. Senate Bill 34, in force since 2016, bars California agencies from sharing ALPR data with out-of-state or federal agencies, requires a written usage policy, and requires that an officer state a purpose for every search. In October 2023 Attorney General Rob Bonta issued guidance confirming that reading of the law.
Compliance has been another matter. CalMatters documented more than a hundred violations in a single month in 2025, and The San Francisco Standard reported that the Attorney General had sent warning letters to at least twenty agencies since June 2024 without going to court, while the California Highway Patrol ran a search across 845 ALPR systems labeled "ICE case."
Nothing above required special access. For a step-by-step guide to verifying or extending any of it yourself, see how to take action.
Know something we don't? A contract PDF, a meeting recording, an agency's response letter, or a photo of a camera that isn't on the map. All of it helps. Get in touch.