Clear Lake Police Department looks at purchasing automated license plate reading cameras

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council last week gave positive feedback on a proposal by the city’s Police Department to purchase automated license plate reading cameras to place at multiple locations throughout the city.

The city budgeted the acquisition and implementation of the cameras from FLOCK Systems as part of their Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

Chief Mike Colby says one of the goals of his department this year is to elevate what they are doing and capitalize more on technology available to law enforcement. He says the cameras are not automated traffic enforcement device, but will take a photo of the rear license plate when it goes by the camera. “What it can do is if we have a missing person, or a missing person from Texas, or anyplace else that’s on this system, it can alert us immediately that this vehicle that is associated with the missing person just went through this intersection. If you have your car stolen, it can say this stolen car just went through this intersection, or if we have suspects in a burglary, we can enter that into the system, and when that vehicle goes through any FLOCK monitored intersection in the nation, we can be notified of that or where that vehicle is at.”

Colby says Clear Lake has benefited from other communities in the state and region who are already using this type of license plate reading technology. “We had a vehicle reported stolen from here in Clear Lake. We entered it into the national crime computer database for vehicles that get stolen. We were able to track that vehicle down to Louisiana off these LPR hits and actually get it recovered. We had a vehicle reported stolen in Clear Lake here. It was getting hits down at this intersection in Des Moines, and it was going about the same time every day. A trooper went and just sat at the intersection about that time of day, saw the car go through, and recovered about a $60,000 car that was stolen from here in Clear Lake and was able to get the suspect into custody without incident.”

Colby says if the council gives final approval for the project at one of their September meetings, FLOCK would offer a $6000 to $7000 discount of free installation and setup of the equipment.