Moraga
Moraga’s cameras trace back further than most of this project’s other entries — a 2016 Town Council vote and a residents’ fundraising drive, years before Flock Safety entered the picture. What’s below is what’s documented so far: the original ALPR rollout, the later addition of Flock cameras, and this spring’s vandalism spree that hit Moraga’s own network on Rheem Boulevard. We don’t yet have the actual Flock contract or a dated council vote for it — Moraga only moved its council records off a shared drive and onto a searchable system (Granicus) in March 2025, which may be part of why.
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Town Council approves five ALPR cameras; Police Department adopts its ALPR policy
The Moraga Town Council approved installing five automated license plate reader cameras at strategic locations around town, per later reporting — though funding for the purchase fell through at the time. The Police Department’s own Policy 466 (Automated License Plate Readers), a standard Lexipol template required under Civil Code § 1798.90.5 et seq., was printed/adopted April 6, 2016, setting a minimum one-year data retention period and requiring a written request from another law enforcement agency before data could be shared. We don’t yet have the actual council agenda item or minutes for the camera approval itself — this is sourced to a contemporaneous newspaper account and the department’s own policy document, not the council record directly.
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Funding fell through, so a citizens' group raised $60,000 to buy the cameras
With council-approved funding never materializing, residents Paul Cohun and Kristen Beckwith organized a private fundraising campaign through the Moraga Community Foundation (MCF) to buy the camera system outright and hand it to the police department. By late July 2017 the campaign had raised $36,000 of a $60,000 target; an anonymous local family then offered a $15,000 matching grant, leaving $15,000 to raise by the end of August.
MCF president Tom Schnurr said once complete, Sophie Braccini, “License plate readers in sight for Moraga,” Lamorinda Weekly, Aug 9, 2017 “we will hand the money to the police department, earmarked for purchasing the license plate readers.”
Police Chief Jon King told the paper the recordings would be transmitted on a private (non-internet-accessible) network and that the information collected would only be used in connection with and during an investigation into an actual crime, with recordings stored for only 30 days before being destroyed — a shorter window than the department’s own Policy 466, adopted the year before, which sets a one-year minimum retention; we haven’t reconciled that discrepancy.
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Flock Safety cameras added alongside the original ALPR network
At some point after the original 2016-17 rollout, Moraga PD added Flock Safety cameras “from a number of companies” to its existing ALPR network, per student-newspaper reporting from neighboring Campolindo High School. By fall 2025, the department had spent over $70,000 on its ALPR systems over three years — enough for a year’s retention on every image captured — and in one recent year the network recorded over 4.5 million license plate scans against only 1,500 “hot list” hits.
Chief Jon King said the department does not share data with federal immigration authorities, stating plainly: “We don’t share with Feds. We don’t cooperate. We don’t work with ICE.”
We have not found the actual Flock contract, a council vote authorizing it, or camera count/cost broken out by vendor — flagged here rather than invented.
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A Moraga Flock camera is hit three times as a vandalism spree spreads across the Bay Area
A Flock camera on Rheem Boulevard in Moraga was vandalized three times in March 2026, part of a wider spree — cameras sprayed with pink paint, struck with bats, hit with BB guns, or unscrewed — that also hit San Francisco, Oakland, Orinda, and Concord starting in February.
On April 7, 2026, police arrested an 18-year-old Lafayette man on suspicion of felony vandalism after catching him leaving the scene after vandalizing a Flock camera on Rheem Boulevard in Moraga, which had been hit three prior times in March. The arrest came as Bay Area police investigated the broader spree, amid separate civil-liberties pushback elsewhere — including a lawsuit filed by three San Jose residents challenging Flock’s network as warrantless mass surveillance.
Know something we don't?
If you live in or near Moraga and have an update, a correction, or context worth adding — a FOIA response, council document, email, public statement, or just something you noticed or heard about that isn't reflected here — send it to contact@nosurveillancepledge.com with dates and a link or scan where you can, and we'll add it with a source.