Flock boondoggle has reached Greenport
Town of Greenport, NY, September 16 — A purchase order, obtained by DeFlock Columbia County via FOIL request from the Town of Greenport, shows that the Greenport Police Department purchased two Flock cameras in January 2025 in a deal worth $16,000. One of the Flock cameras can be found by the entrance of the Greenport Town Park on Joslen Blvd whereas the second is attached to a mobile SpeedAlert Radar Speed and Message Sign currently located on Hudson St.
Residents became aware of the camera on Joslen Blvd in August but it was initially unclear who operated the device. Town board member James Dolan inquired about it at the August town board meeting but no elected official present, including Supervisor Eldridge and Deputy Supervisor Clark, stated they knew anything about this camera. Water and Wastewater Superintendent James Rutkey at the time said: "I don't know who put that there. It's not ours".
Columbia County Sheriff's Office the initial suspect
It was originally assumed that since the camera did not appear to be owned by Greenport that the Sheriff's Office had put it up without asking the town for permission.
After last week's Columbia County Board of Supervisors meeting, I had asked Sheriff Jackie Salvatore about that camera and she said that she had only learned about it earlier that day. Before yesterday's county safety board meeting however, she waved me over to tell me that it was in fact not a camera operated by her office. Alongside the purchase order Greenport made with Flock that just emerged it is now clear that this camera, as well as the one on Hudson St, is owned and operated by Greenport.
Greenport obtained grant money in 2024
In 2024, the Town of Greenport was awarded a grant of around $70,000 through the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) LETECH Grant Program. The intended use of this grant is to help local law enforcement agencies to cover the costs for technology upgrades: mobile computing devices in patrol vehicles, body-worn cameras, radio equipment as well as fixed traffic safety equipment such as Flock cameras.
Normally, this would have been a reimbursement grant and a municipality intending to purchase law enforcement equipment would have to initially pay for the purchases then ask for reimbursement from the state later. This was however not the case in 2024 when the LETECH Grant Program released the grant funds in one lump payment to agencies that had successfully applied.
The purchase agreement with Flock
Greenport PD's purchase agreement with Flock, signed on January 27, 2025, was for two Flock cameras, including a trailer kit to hitch a camera to a mobile radar speed and message sign. As of now, both are deployed but we don't know exactly when the stationary camera at the town park entrance went up.
The yearly cost to the town is $8,000 and the agreement will auto-renew unless explicitly canceled by either Greenport or Flock.
The role of Supervisor Eldridge
The Flock camera on Joslen Blvd was briefly the topic at the last two town board meetings in August and September. In August, Eldridge and her deputy supervisor Clayton were implying they were unaware.
At the September board meeting, when it still seemed plausible that the Sheriff's Office had installed it in the town park, council member Jim Dolan asked a very direct question: "Was there anybody in the town government that approved that or authorized that?"
The two answers he received should raise some eyebrows. Eldridge responded with "Not that I am aware of" and Deputy Supervisor Clark simply stated "No":
When the DCJS Office of Budget and Finance wire-transferred the LETECH funds to Greenport, those funds went into the town's general fund balance. Greenport PD never had direct access to the money. Any purchase they intended to make, like Flock cameras, would have had to follow NY State municipal procurement policies.
Those prescribe that a municipal department, here the Greenport PD, must fill out a voucher and route it to the supervisor. The supervisor then bears the responsibility for verifying the voucher and turning it into a check payable to the vendor. That should have been the moment when Kathy Eldridge became aware of the police department's intent to purchase two Flock cameras.
Her claim that she was not aware of anyone approving a Flock camera is therefore highly questionable as it was she that approved it by signing the check for Flock. She is either suffering from a bad lapse of memory, maybe brought on by mindlessly processing whatever vouchers is put in front of her, or she is lying.
Lawlessness in Greenport
This incident speaks to a more general problem in the Town of Greenport: Nothing is transparent, and nothing seems to follow proper procedures.
When the Greenport PD was awarded the LETECH grant, there needed to have been a resolution passed by the town board authorizing the supervisor to sign a DCJS LETECH attestation form. Here is such a resolution passed by an adult municipality, the Village of Dobbs Ferry as an example. I cannot find such a Greenport resolution anywhere in 2023 and 2024. Without it, Greenport should not have been able to receive the money. It may seem like nitpicking but it's not. If there was indeed no resolution passed, the supervisor under Town Law § 64 would have had no legal authority to sign the LETECH attestation form.
This is of course on brand for how financial matters in Greenport are handled. Throughout 2026, residents of the town did not once receive an update on the running budget. Greenport is already in the process of drafting the 2027 budget, yet we don't know where we stand and if our general fund balance went up, down or stayed the same. For what it's worth, the town might be headed for bankruptcy yet we wouldn't know. We don't know where our town accountant Mike Torchia is either. He hasn't been seen in months.
This lack of transparency goes beyond the residents and even extends to the town board. Council member Jim Dolan is at this point refusing to vote on budget transfers since he is not told what amounts are being transferred between what accounts, what they are for and how they fit into the overall budget.
At the September board meeting, Jim got into a heated argument with Deputy Supervisor Clark over this topic and Dolan even cited, of all places, the City of Hudson which requires that resolutions be in the hands of council members seven days before the vote. "We are not Hudson!", was Clayton's response:
The future of these two Flock cameras
Over all the administrative chaos, it is easy to forget that the Town of Greenport is the only municipality currently in Columbia County that is operating its own Flock cameras. While Hudson also operates a few automated license plate readers (ALPR), they are using devices made by Axon rather than Flock.
The well-documented privacy concerns that residents, not just in the county but the whole nation, have with modern ALPRs should be enough to convince the administration of Greenport to consider having a wider discussion with its residents if the town should really operate these contraptions.
Two of the ten cameras operated by the Sheriff's Office have at this point been cut down by rogue residents (one in Kinderhook, one in New Lebanon) and my impression is that this type of civil disobedience will continue and law enforcement agencies will have a difficult time keeping their ALPRs operational.
