San Ramon
San Ramon has one of the lowest crime rates in the state — and one of the more sweeping camera buildouts in the county. In a single April 2020 vote, the City Council approved a $1.2 million citywide network combining three different vendors’ technology, including 35 Flock Safety license plate readers. This is the documented record of that vote and what a public-records request later found the city hadn’t explained about it.
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Police lay the groundwork: crime stats, staffing, and a camera plan
Ahead of the actual camera proposal, San Ramon PD presented the Council a “Service Delivery Overview and 2020/21 Staffing Analysis” — rising Part One crime totals, staffing levels compared to neighboring Pleasanton, Walnut Creek, and Dublin, and response times. The department’s closing slide framed a Four Pronged Approach to public safety, with “Technology (City Camera Plan)” listed alongside proactive enforcement, community partnerships, and regional police partnerships — setting up the specific ALPR/camera proposal that came to Council two months later.
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Local paper previews the proposal: $1,277,027, and a promise it isn't for tracking people
SRPD Capt. Cary Goldberg told the Council in a staff report that “this camera technology will provide the San Ramon Police Department with video evidence that will be used to solve persons- and property-related crimes that occur within the city,” per Danville San Ramon’s preview of the item, which put the total cost at $1,277,027 — covering purchase, installation, three years of operating costs, and a dedicated lab to monitor live footage. The article also reports Goldberg’s assurance that the cameras “are not designed for tracking vehicle occupants and are not intended to work with facial recognition software.” Because of Contra Costa County’s shelter-in-place order, the meeting itself was conducted entirely by teleconference — no in-person public comment.
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Council approves a three-vendor, citywide camera network
The Council approved the plan: per the department’s own presentation, a network of 40 ALPR-camera locations providing “coverage on every route of ingress/egress,” plus 42 situational-awareness-camera locations offering “184 viewing angles throughout the city.” Per CEHRP’s review of the same presentation and the city’s approved purchase, the equipment itself broke down as 12 stationary Vigilant Solutions ALPRs at five intersections, 35 Flock Safety ALPRs, and 46 four-lens Avigilon situational-awareness cameras (each providing 360° coverage) — for a total project cost of $1,277,027. Two Flock cameras were already up and running at Camino Ramon/Crow Canyon and Crow Canyon Boulevard/Crow Canyon Place by the time of the vote. Data retention was set at two years for Vigilant’s data, and 30 days each for Flock’s and Avigilon’s — a discrepancy with the department’s own written LPR policy that nobody on the dais raised at the time (see the August 2026 entry below). Councilmember Phil O’Loane cast the only real objection, over cost: the project came in near double his expectation of “six or seven hundred thousand dollars.”
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A public-records request surfaces a retention-policy conflict nobody explained
The Center for Human Rights and Privacy (CEHRP) obtained the city’s own presentation materials via a public records request and published an analysis of what they showed. The core finding: the San Ramon Police Department’s own written policy for license plate readers states that data will be retained for a minimum of one year — directly conflicting with the 30-day retention the Council was told would apply to Flock and Avigilon data at the April 28 meeting. The police didn’t explain the difference in retention periods or the conflict with the existing policy and the City Council didn’t ask, per CEHRP. When CEHRP asked Lt. Goldberg directly about the gap afterward, he replied, without explaining it: “we have continuously maintained a 2 year retention period for the images uploaded into the LEARN [Vigilant Solutions] database.” That answer addresses Vigilant’s retention period, not the conflict CEHRP actually asked about (Flock/Avigilon’s 30 days versus the department’s own one-year-minimum policy).
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If you live in or near San Ramon 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.