After vocal Green River residents shut down the city’s attempt to secure grant funding for a license plate reader camera project, a police sergeant speaking on his own behalf Tuesday urged the council to reconsider.
Green River Mayor Pete Rust and Councilman Gary Killpack had speculated at a July 7 meeting that the group opposing the cameras drowned out a silent, alternate movement in their favor.
Ultimately the council and mayor voted 6-1 against the $112,000 federal grant for the project, which had been slated for putting Motorola license plate reader (LPR) surveillance cameras at town entrances.
Green River Police Sgt. Brad Dodson, who said he was speaking for himself and not the department, brought that alternate view to the council’s regular Tuesday meeting.
“While I recognize that decision, I was a little disappointed you didn’t listen to the chief a little bit more and maybe take more time to reevaluate that decision,” Dodson said during the public comment section.
Green River Police Chief Shawn Sturlaugson had noted the grant was characterized as an anti-terrorism effort, but he said the cameras would also be a tool in helping find missing and vulnerable people, as well as answering other real-time investigations.
Dodson told the council the department recently responded to a stolen vehicle incident, and was able to use LPRs from other areas.
In another stolen- vehicle attempt last week, “a license plate reader would have been great to have” to track down the vehicle, he said.
“This is something people ask, something people maybe even expect us to have,” Dodson said.
He urged the council to consider the camera project if it surfaces again, and said he’s happy to offer any information people seek.
“I’m happy to dispel some fear, some concerns, or maybe just give another side of the story,” Dodson said. “Especially from someone who’s on, essentially, the front line trying to solve these crimes for the citizens of this community essentially every day.”
Killpack delivered comments toward the end of the meeting to rebut what he described as an email from a Laramie resident on the topic, calling him dumb and dishonest.
He said he’d take the dumb critique but the “dishonest” claim is slander and “unacceptable.”
The people who opposed LPRs two weeks ago, said Killpack, “they don’t understand what happened.”
Killpack said if any of those people go to Salt Lake City, “they’ve been picked up” by the camera and their plates logged into the system.
Salt Lake City has LPRs. It also paused a plan to expand its system in December over privacy concerns, Fox 13 reported.
Killpack said the people in the audience two weeks ago also didn’t understand the council’s nay votes killed the grant, though not necessarily some later decision to raise cameras.
Marshall Burt, a former, and first, Libertarian state lawmaker for Wyoming bristled at that in a Wednesday interview with Cowboy State Daily.
He said Killpack was “blaming people for being stupid and confused.”
“Now I’m going to have to wait for the next city council meeting, show up and argue again,” said Burt, who rallied people via social media ahead of the July 7 meeting.
Dennis Laughlin, vice-chair of the Libertarian Party and a business owner in Green River, also protested at the July 7 meeting.
“Yeah I would say Killpack doesn’t understand what the people of Green River obviously want,” Laughlin said.
Laughlin said he had a qualm with the federal funding, and it’s wrong for people to believe that’s free money. But most LPR opponents were against the installation of the cameras alone, and lobbied against the grant as a means to prevent that, he said.
“People are seeing this constant encroachment on their liberties. It’s like being pecked to death by a duck, and one peck doesn’t hurt – but eventually you die,” Laughlin said.
Laughlin said he’s glad Killpack is not running for council again.
