Lincoln will not use funding for fixed license plate readers after its town council removed it from a list of possible uses for a grant at its Monday meeting.
The town does not currently have fixed license plate readers but were proposing to use grant funds to purchase them, interim Town Manager and Police Chief Lee Miller said Monday. The $565,000 in grant funding will be used for an utility terrain vehicle, a trailer, IT equipment, storage equipment and boy camera upgrades.
The grant was approved in a 4-3 vote.
After a Lincoln resident spoke against the use of license plate readers in the town during public comment, Town Council Chair Stephen Clay said councilors were already planning to remove the readers from the list of uses.
Lincoln’s amendment to the grant fund uses comes at a time when many municipalities across Maine are banning, or proposing bans, on automated license plate readers. The readers, which create a network of people’s locations and movements by capturing passing license plate numbers and other identifying information, have come under scrutiny after multiple reports of misuse across the country.
Some instances of misuse include the technology wrongly identifying a vehicle as stolen or a person being tracked without any legal cause.
Lincoln police would have purchased a version of the cameras that’s only accessible by the department, which would minimize the chance for misuse, Miller said Monday. Miller did not say what company the Lincoln Police Department was proposing to buy the cameras from.
“There’s lots of good uses of it. Now, can there be misuses? Yeah, but that’s all on who’s in control of it,” Miller said.
Not every councilor was against the cameras being funded, and multiple did not voice an opinion.
Councilor Eric Rojo said he’d support Lincoln using automated license plate readers because they could enforce laws in areas where Lincoln police officers aren’t able to be. Rojo then described an instance where someone had passed him on a double yellow line.
Automated license plate readers are more about “solving crimes” rather than issuing tickets, Miller said. It’s illegal in Maine for a department to issue a ticket based on camera footage, Miller said.
Rojo was one of three councilors, with Sheldon Hannington and Lee Rand, to vote against the grant funding. A purchase of an UTV and a trailer with radar technology were holding Hannington back from approving it because it may lead to more costs when the grant funding runs out, he said. Rand did not say why he voted against.
Of those who approved the funding after the license plate readers were amended out, Councilor Gordon Street said he’s not against the future use of the cameras in Lincoln.
“I’m not saying that I’m totally against it. I want us to wait until we have a chance to have a more complete understanding before we go into it,” Street said.