Chairman Jeff McKay (D-At-Large) told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 that Fairfax County’s Flock cameras are “a clear public safety benefit.” Then, in the same board matter, he paused new ones.
Flock cameras are license plate readers. They snap a photo of a passing car’s plate and check it against lists of stolen cars, wanted people and missing people. That is the whole job.
His board started the program in November 2022, and today it runs 84 Flock cameras plus 712 plate readers on police cars.
In November 2023, his board took a $136,270 federal grant to expand it.
Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) wanted more. In March 2024 he pointed at rising crime at Burke Lake Park and said, “We’ve got an answer available today.”
He was right, and McKay’s own board matter proves it: the cameras helped solve more than 1,600 cases. Police got back 555 stolen cars worth $9.2 million, seized 66 guns and found 57 missing people.
Every search gets a 100 percent audit, and plate data is deleted after 21 days. Police have found no misuse, and McKay said all of that himself.
McKay’s board matter names the reason for the pause: “hundreds of emails.”
Not a bad audit, not a case of misuse, just emails.
He built it, expanded it and praised it. Then he backed off the moment his inbox filled up. In the Committee’s view, that is a flip-flop.
“There are some very real issues with the corporate entity that runs this program.”
Chairman Jeff McKay (D-At-Large), September 15, 2026, at the same meeting where he called the program “a clear public safety benefit”
His own colleague said the quiet part out loud. Supervisor Jimmy Bierman (D-Dranesville) called the pause “the beginning of the end for Flock.”
No new cameras were planned before the review anyway, so the county pays no penalty. The 84 cameras keep running, and so do the 712 readers on police cruisers.
The Committee said so last week: this pause is symbolism, not a safeguard.
McKay also sent Flock’s CEO a letter of questions about who can reach the county’s data. Fair questions, but his board had three years and a federal grant to ask them.
On Thursday, September 24, the Fairfax County School Board voted 12-0 to ban license plate readers on school property.
There are none. Superintendent Michelle Reid told the board there are no Flock cameras on any school property, and none are planned. Nobody had ever proposed one.
Vice Chair Kyle McDaniel (At-Large) wrote the motion and said, “We are not a police department. We are an educational institution.”
Marcia St. John-Cunning (Franconia) said the ban “will give some level of security to our families.” In the same remarks she called it “a preemptive move.”
Read that again: a vote that changes nothing at any school, sold to parents as safety. In the Committee’s view, that is not protecting families. That is patronizing them.
All twelve voted yes:
The School Board runs itself, and McKay does not run it, but the pattern is the same. A Democrat Board of Supervisors and a Democrat-endorsed School Board both got an email campaign. Both put on a show for it, and neither stood up for a tool that works.
McKay’s board built the program, and his board expanded it. He called it a clear public safety benefit, then paused new cameras to answer emails. He is on the record.
The Board’s Safety and Security Committee meets Tuesday, October 20, at 1:30 p.m. at the Government Center. Tell Chairman McKay and the Board to lift the pause and let the police keep doing their job.
Then remember which way Jeff McKay bent when the emails came in, because he is on the ballot in November 2027.