Knox County's mayor says he never signed the Flock contract, and commissioners found the cameras were bought in batches ten dollars under his review threshold
An hours-long commission workshop on 24 August turned into an examination of how Knox County came to have 140 Flock cameras at all. Commissioner Larsen Jay produced a purchasing pattern: repeated payments to Flock of $24,990, ten dollars below the $25,000 figure that triggers mayoral review, alongside paired purchases of $12,500 that would have crossed the line if combined. "If you hit the exact price, minus ten bucks, it’s a red flag to me," Jay said. A sheriff’s office representative answered: "I see what you’re saying as far as appearances. I can see your point completely, sir." The following day Mayor Glenn Jacobs disputed that a valid contract exists at all, saying the 2020 agreement should have expired in 2024 and that the sheriff’s office is relying on a newer one he never signed. Commissioners may vote as soon as 31 August on an emergency ordinance that could require the cameras to come down. This desk has recorded a lot of arguments about what plate readers do. This is a different question, and a harder one for a department to answer: who authorised this, under what agreement, and why was it never sent upstairs.
From the reporting
- Commissioner Larsen Jay identified repeated payments of $24,990 against a $25,000 threshold requiring mayoral review, plus paired $12,500 purchases that could have been combined to exceed it.
- Jay: "Which to me shows a pattern of buying things right under the threshold again and again and again. That concerns me."
- A KCSO representative at the workshop: "I see what you’re saying as far as appearances. I can see your point completely, sir."
- WVLT reports the sub-threshold purchases total nearly $300,000.
- Mayor Glenn Jacobs says the original 2020 contract should have expired in 2024 and that he never signed the agreement the sheriff’s office now relies on.
- WVLT reports the contract was initiated by former Captain Aaron Yarnell, since indicted in a separate theft conspiracy case. An indictment is an allegation and not a finding of guilt, and it is recorded here because it bears on who authorised the agreement, not as evidence about the cameras.
- Hugh Holt of the sheriff’s office said he had not yet seen the mayor’s letter. Sheriff-elect Brent Gibson and Flock declined to comment.
- The workshop took no votes and held no public comment period. Commissioners may vote as early as 31 August on an emergency ordinance, which would require only one reading.
- At stake: 140 cameras already in place and a proposed 270 more.
- Protesters attended with signs reading "Get the Flock out" and "Surveillance does not equal safety".
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