On June 16, 2026, the Fort Collins City Council packed a full evening into one night: two proclamations, a regular meeting with a 25-item consent calendar and four discussion items, and a follow-on work session. The night’s defining action was the Council’s 6–1 vote to cancel the city’s contract with Flock Safety, the company that supplies its automated license plate reader cameras – stopping data collection immediately, removing the cameras, and holding off on any replacement surveillance technology until the city writes a surveillance policy. The Council also gave unanimous backing to a future passenger rail station in Midtown.
Meeting agenda, details, and video recordings available on Fort Collin’s Municode website. The next city council meeting is on July 14th and will be a regular meeting, that does not include opportunities for public comment, though the public is welcome to attend and watch.
All seven members were present: Mayor Emily Francis, Mayor Pro Tem Julie Pignataro (District 2), and Council Members Chris Conway (District 1), Josh Fudge (District 3), Melanie Potyondy (District 4), Amy Hoeven (District 5), and Anne Nelsen (District 6).
Proclamations
The Council recognized Park and Recreation Month (July 2026), accepted by the chair of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and Juneteenth Independence Day (June 19), accepted by a community member who called the day both a celebration and “a call to action.” Mayor Francis also noted that a World Refugee Day proclamation, requested by Church World Service Fort Collins, would be read June 26 at the Lincoln Center.
Public Comment
Of the 35 people signed up for general public comment, the clear majority came to talk about one subject – mass surveillance – and nearly all asked the Council to remove the Flock cameras. (Following standard practice, residents are described here by their stated role or affiliation rather than by name.)
Mass surveillance and the Flock cameras. Flock Safety is a private company that sells networks of license plate reader cameras to police on a subscription basis; the cameras log plate numbers, times, and locations, creating a searchable record of vehicle movements. Fort Collins had used roughly 15 city cameras for about 18 months. Speakers raised constitutional, technical, financial, and ethical concerns. A member of the Northern Colorado Privacy Coalition, identifying himself as a software engineer, said the group had found a Flock vulnerability in which search records – including plate numbers and stated reasons for searches – were exposed on the open internet, as reported by 404 Media. Others cited a Boulder class-action lawsuit alleging the cameras amount to warrantless mass surveillance under the Colorado Constitution, listed other cities where Flock allegedly accessed or reinstalled cameras improperly, and argued the money would be better spent on housing and mental health. Several urged the Council to “choose option four” and eliminate the technology entirely. Not everyone agreed: one frequent commenter said “hooray for Flock,” calling it a useful tool comparable to the doorbell cameras already common around town.
Dial-A-Ride and transit accessibility. Two speakers from the disability community – a District 2 advocate and a District 5 Dial-A-Ride rider and Disability Advisory Board member – asked the Council to reconsider planned reductions to the city’s door-to-door paratransit service, describing them as a barrier to independence. They also questioned whether a future passenger rail station and trains would be genuinely accessible without advance phone calls or attendant help.
Paid parking in Old Town. The longtime owner of an Old Town gift shop opposed paid on-street parking, citing a business-owner petition he said had nearly 11,000 signatures and pointing to San Diego, where he said a similar program was recently repealed after visitation dropped. A second resident raised earlier losses tied to removing gates from city parking garages.
Passenger rail. Several residents previewed the rail item, most supporting the proposed Drake/College (Midtown) station for its central location and transit connections, with one urging the city to think bigger about an eventual downtown station.
Housing and taxation. The executive director of Family Housing Network thanked the city for funding she said would let the organization double its overnight family-shelter capacity from four families to eight. Another resident raised what he described as improper property taxation by the Poudre School District and its link to tax increment financing for the city’s urban renewal and downtown development authorities.
In follow-up, City Manager Kelly DiMartino said revised transit routes take effect in August and a parking work session is planned for July 14. Council Member Melanie Potyondy, the liaison to the Disability Advisory Board, and Council Member Amy Hoeven, the liaison to the Transportation Board, both thanked the Dial-A-Ride speakers and said the conversation would continue; Council Member Fudge asked to see the specific fiscal impact of the Dial-A-Ride change.
Consent Calendar
The consent calendar bundles routine items into a single vote; any member can pull one for discussion, and many items are the latest step in multi-year projects rather than new decisions. The City Manager pulled Item 24 (Downtown Development Authority Board appointments) so Council Member Nelsen could recuse herself, because her employer is among the appointees. The remaining 24 items passed 7–0.
They included financing and appropriations for the Southeast Community Center (about $72.5 million, a partnership among the city, school district, and library district), a $3.8 million state IMPACT Accelerator grant for transportation safety and building performance, $500,000 in earnest money to negotiate acquisition of a Midtown commercial property for economic development, planning for the former Hughes Stadium site, battery-electric bus chargers, EV fleet charging, the city’s Private Activity Bond allocation for affordable housing, and the reappointment of seven assistant municipal judges.
In follow-up, Council Member Conway said he wants future discussion of how the city weighs preservation against new affordable-housing supply, and Council Member Nelsen noted that the $4,348,350 in the spring housing-funding resolution represents only about 1 percent of the community’s demonstrated housing need – a reminder of the funding gap amid a budget shortfall. Members also marked recent milestones in council reports, including the Southeast Community Center groundbreaking and completion of the last mile of the 45-mile Poudre River Trail between Bellvue and Greeley.
Discussion Items
DOLA grants (Items 26 and 27). Mayor Francis recused herself because of her role with the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA), and Mayor Pro Tem Pignataro presided. The Council approved, each 6–0, a transfer of grant funds to develop a new Fort Collins Housing Action Plan and a $792,434 appropriation and intergovernmental agreement for infrastructure supporting the Switchgrass Crossing affordable housing development.
Front Range passenger rail (Item 28). The Front Range Passenger Rail District is working toward train service along the I-25 corridor. A funded first phase – Denver to Fort Collins, three round trips a day – already has a station identified at Drake and College; a larger build-out south to Pueblo would depend on a future ballot measure. Director of Planning, Development and Transportation Caryn Champine (in her final week leading the department) and Senior Transportation Planner Seth Lorson presented a resolution supporting the rail district and endorsing the Drake/College (Midtown) station. Staff stressed the resolution does not refer a measure to the ballot; the district is modeling a tax of about one-third of a penny on a dollar purchase, though the rate is not set.
The Council backed rail enthusiastically but was candid about the location. Council Member Potyondy strongly supported the central site; Council Member Fudge noted the location had already been negotiated north from the south end of town and that delay would be costly; Council Member Nelsen said feedback from her District 6 constituents was genuinely mixed on location, though not on rail itself. Council Member Conway was the most reserved, saying he would “reluctantly support this” even though he finds the location “somewhat suboptimal,” and asked that his support be recorded with reservations. Champine confirmed the stations would meet universal-design and ADA standards. The resolution passed 7–0.
Flock retention, data sharing, and the decision to cancel (Item 29). This was the central decision of the night. Police Chief Jeff Swoboda, with Assistant Chief Adam McCambridge, opened by thanking residents and emphasizing the department does not want technology that erodes trust, calling Flock useful but not essential: “We solved crime before Flock. We will continue to solve crime if Flock goes away.” He brought two questions – how long to keep data, and which agencies to share with.
On retention, the contract holds data 30 days before permanent deletion. A staff look-back over April 20–May 20, 2026, found 51 percent of searches occurred in the first 7 days of an investigation and 38.7 percent in days 22–30, the late share reflecting detective work on older crimes. On sharing, the city already limits access to Colorado agencies, all bound by state law barring use of the data for immigration enforcement or to monitor reproductive health care. Of three residents who spoke on the item, two urged the Council to govern surveillance by ordinance (law that can’t be quietly changed) rather than internal policy; one supported keeping the cameras.
The deliberation was deliberate and, for several members, difficult – and the members were careful to separate two questions: whether they trust Fort Collins Police Services (they said they do) and whether the city should run this kind of surveillance network at all.
- Mayor Pro Tem Pignataro moved to end the technology and to pause any replacement until a surveillance policy exists.
- Council Member Fudge said his thinking had shifted from keeping the technology in February to seeing it as a “philosophical” question about how much surveillance the community wants. He stressed this was “not an indictment” of the police and favored cancelling while staying open to a future vendor search, though he was skeptical one could resolve the concerns.
- Council Member Nelsen said her concern “isn’t about Fort Collins Police Department,” whom she trusts, but about the policy framework. She spoke for residents who fear being logged but won’t say so publicly – immigrants, mixed-status families, people seeking reproductive care – arguing a legal prohibition “doesn’t make fear disappear,” and noted the benefit of Flock hasn’t been documented with hard data. She was not prepared to continue the technology.
- Council Member Hoeven said “the means don’t justify the ends,” citing distrust of federal agencies and the priority of preserving community trust.
- Council Member Potyondy described the choice as “building the plane while it’s already in flight.” She trusts the police and worries about the rare, high-stakes crimes the system helps solve, but supported a pause to get the guardrails right, possibly with a separate oversight body that has cybersecurity expertise.
- Mayor Francis clarified that not all city contracts require a Council vote and the police had not acted “under the radar,” and that the city’s contract covers about 15 of roughly 50 cameras in the area. She supported cancelling now and building a policy.
- Council Member Conway called it “a 51–49 issue,” saying he had concluded there were public-safety benefits and ways to “ameliorate the privacy concerns.”
Before the vote, the City Attorney’s Office cautioned that terminating a contract is a process and a firm July 1 date couldn’t be promised, while Assistant Chief McCambridge said data access could be shut off immediately. Pignataro’s final motion directed staff to stop collecting Flock data immediately, initiate contract cancellation, remove the cameras as soon as possible, and issue no new request for proposals for similar technology until the surveillance policy is complete. It passed 6–1, with Council Member Conway the lone no vote – consistent with his view that the benefits could be balanced against the privacy risks. The surveillance-policy work continues, with a related work session referenced for late July.
Work Session: Connecting With the Community
After a short break, the Council took up a priority on communicating its decisions and the reasoning behind them. Assistant City Manager Denzel Maxwell introduced the item, and Chief Communications and Engagement Officer Amanda King presented an approach built around explaining the “why” behind policy and bringing residents in earlier, using tools like the “City in 60” video series and the project-based “Our City” platform. She cited ranked-voting explainer videos that reached roughly 200,000 people on a modest budget.
Council feedback was practical. Several members said the redesigned city website’s search function isn’t working well – listening-session results appear out of order – and King said a chatbot-style search is being piloted later this year. Mayor Pro Tem Pignataro noted that outside groups are already summarizing city meetings with AI on Substack, Reddit, and newsletters, suggesting the city is leaving a gap others are filling. Mayor Francis encouraged less polished, more in-the-moment content, including a possible “Council in 60” series to humanize members. King also noted her department’s renaming to the Communications and Engagement Department. The work session adjourned with no formal direction beyond endorsing the approach.
Regular Council meetings resume after a three-week summer break.
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