Today’s newsletter is presented by Port of San Diego Waterfront of Opportunity.
Good morning, San Diego ☀️
Here’s what we have for you today:
- Let’s be transit-oriented today! MTS is encouraging fans to take the Trolley on a busy sports weekend – Friday SDSU hoops (they’re back!) plays an exhibition; SDFC and San Diego Wave have matches Saturday and Sunday.
- But if you’re planning to ride Metrolink in Oceanside next week, you need to pivot. Service will be out for five days starting Monday due to high tides.
- Looking ahead, though, North County Transit – San Diego Railroad will offer free rides on Nov. 3 to make it easier to get to the polls on Election Day.
Jennifer Vigil
News editor
Top story
La Mesa license plate readers scan city intersections every few seconds, generating millions of hits
A force multiplier. That’s what one expert calls the business model for Flock Safety’s automated license plate cameras.
And in La Mesa we have a good example of what happens when ALPR use lacks community guardrails.
La Mesa is a suburb with 60,000 residents. Its police officers use Flock, sure, but sparingly. Yet other law enforcement and government agencies are constantly seeking data generated by La Mesa cameras, to the tune of 14,412 searches per day, as our Dorian Hargrove and Tessa Balc report.
That added up to more than 3 million license plate scans in one recent seven-month period.
Flock has become controversial enough in San Diego that a City Council committee, as we reported Wednesday, voted to end the contract. Yet the city does not allow data from its cameras to be accessed by other agencies.
As a result, San Diego, more than 20 times the size of La Mesa, had far fewer scans in a nine-month period – around 114,000.
There’s no question ALPRs help investigators solve crimes. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office said this week that deputies located a stolen Infiniti in East County thanks to the cameras.
But there is a fear that the technology has outpaced the ability of authorities to regulate it on a number of levels, from overreach by police personnel – even deliberate invasions of privacy in their personal relationships – to questions of access by agencies that are targeting specific populations rather than probing individual crimes.
La Mesa’s experience provides another data point in the ongoing debate over services like Flock. Can they be utilized in a way that will satisfy both law enforcement and privacy advocates? We are in the process of finding out.
Times of San Diego thanks our corporate sponsors. Find out more about sponsorships and advertising opportunities here.
Stories you should know about
🚔 SDPD officer shoots, kills man apparently armed with ax: Authorities said Thursday that the man died after an officer fired multiple shots at him. He was suspected of vandalizing a trolley car with the ax.
👻 San Diego Weekend Guide, Oct. 23-25 – Spookier and spookier: Get ahead of the Halloween game this weekend with parties and fests or try a local amazing race that starts in the U.S. and makes its way over the border.
🥁 WAR’s Lonnie Jordan, a San Diego native, reflects on decades of creating ‘universal street music:’ The founding member, lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist spoke with us about his local roots and the surprising inspiration behind some of the band’s most enduring hits ahead of WAR’s show at the Belly Up.
What else we’re reading
🗳️ Many people expected fireworks in the 48th District congressional race after the state’s redistricting battle. So far it hasn’t turned out that way. CalMatters describes the race as “a time warp to pre-Trump politics.” (CalMatters)
🛌 South County cities, led by Chula Vista, are leaning into treatment models rather than Housing First, to help homeless people. (Voice of San Diego)
Times of San Diego thanks our corporate sponsors. Find out more about sponsorships and advertising opportunities here.
Locals Only
🧘♀️ We asked you: What’s the best yoga studio in San Diego? Here’s what San Diegans had to say:
🪷 Yoga Arts in Point Loma from Smitha A.
☯️ 2beabalancedself in La Mesa from James T.
🤸♀️ Soul of Yoga in Encinitas from Cathy P.