Alcoa ALPR Transparency
Public records, program history, city government oversight, and a July 2026 network audit documenting nearly 1.93 million searches that included the City of Alcoa, Tennessee’s license plate reader network.
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A Documented Start, an Undocumented Present
Alcoa sits directly against Maryville and shares the commuter routes that carry most of Blount County’s daily traffic. A driver moving between the two cities can pass through more than one agency’s camera network in a single trip, and the Blount County Sheriff’s Office operates a third network in the unincorporated areas around both.
Alcoa’s program began in October 2020 with ten stationary Flock Safety license plate readers placed at major entry points into the city. The department’s five year strategic plan records additional cameras added in fiscal year 2021 to 2022 and again in fiscal year 2024 to 2025, without stating a current total.
A July 2026 Flock Safety network audit now provides another view of the system: how frequently outside agency accounts ran searches that included Alcoa’s camera network. During that single month, the audit contains 1,922,959 searches from 3,652 agency accounts.
Primary source: Alcoa Police Department, Five Year Strategic Plan (PDF), revised July 1, 2025 .
Public Record: Alcoa PD Flock LPR Program
- October 2020: ten stationary Flock Safety LPR cameras installed at major Alcoa entry points.
- FY 2021 to 2022: two additional Flock LPR cameras added.
- FY 2024 to 2025: further cameras added. The plan does not state how many.
- Retention policy: data held 30 days unless needed for an active investigation.
- July 2026: a Flock network audit documents 1,922,959 searches from 3,652 agency accounts whose searches included Alcoa’s network.
- Regional context: in August 2020, the Blount County Sheriff’s Office told the county commission it intended to request data from Maryville, Alcoa, Oak Ridge, Lenoir City, and other local agencies in order to build what its project description called “a much larger grid.”
ALCOA PD FLOCK LPR PROGRAM
│
├── OCT 2020
│ └── 10 stationary LPR cameras
│ at major city entry points
│
├── FY 2021-22
│ └── +2 Flock LPR cameras
│
├── FY 2024-25
│ └── additional cameras
│ count not stated
│
├── JULY 2026
│ ├── 1,922,959 network searches
│ └── 3,652 agency accounts
│
├── RETENTION
│ └── 30 days unless tied to
│ an active investigation
│
▼
CURRENT CAMERA TOTAL
│
└── not published by the city
└── no public Flock
transparency portal located
Sources: Alcoa Police Department Five Year Strategic Plan (PDF) ; The Daily Times, “BCSO looking to get stationary license plate readers” (August 2020) .
The Five Officials Who Can Act on Alcoa’s ALPR Program
Alcoa uses a council manager form of government. Five elected commissioners serve four year staggered terms and select a mayor and vice mayor from among themselves. The board adopts the annual budget that funds the police department, and it hires the city manager who oversees every city department, including Alcoa PD.
| Office | Official | Government Role |
|---|---|---|
| Mayor | Tanya Martin | Presides over the board that adopts the city budget |
| Vice Mayor | Tracey Cooper | Voting member of the board of commissioners |
| Commissioner | Steve Biggar | Voting member of the board of commissioners |
| Commissioner | Josh Blair | Voting member of the board of commissioners |
| Commissioner | Eddie Hall | Voting member of the board of commissioners |
Appointed officials in the public record
- Bruce Applegate, Jr., City Manager. Directs day to day operations of city departments and recommends the annual operating and capital budgets.
- Stephanie Coleman, City Attorney. Advises the city manager and department heads on legal questions and attends board meetings.
- Kim Wade, City Recorder. Custodian of the city’s meeting minutes and ordinance records.
Sources: City of Alcoa Board of Commissioners minutes, 2024 and 2025 regular sessions; Alcoa Board of Commissioners ; Alcoa Agenda Center .
1.9 Million Searches Included Alcoa’s Camera Network in One Month
Source: City of Alcoa public records obtained and shared by Freedom from Flock . MaryvillePrivacy.org independently analyzed the audit data presented below.
By the Numbers
| Measure | July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Searches that included Alcoa PD’s network | 1,922,959 |
| Agency accounts running those searches | 3,652 |
| Tennessee agency accounts appearing in the audit | 0 |
| Average searches per day | 62,031 |
| Average searches per minute | 43 |
| Average weekday | about 70,700 |
| Average weekend day | about 37,200 |
| Busiest day | Wednesday, July 8: 80,042 |
| Quietest day | Saturday, July 4: 33,001 |
| Federal accounts | 7 accounts, 24,556 searches |
| FBI account | 20,821 searches |
| Longest observed pause between searches | 8 minutes 40 seconds |
Searches Every Day of the Month
Search activity occurred every day of July. Weekday volume averaged about 70,700 searches per day, compared with about 37,200 per weekend day.
Activity Around the Clock
Average search activity by hour and weekday, converted to Eastern time. Activity continued overnight as well as during normal business hours.
Who Searched
The 20 agency accounts with the most searches that included Alcoa’s network during July 2026.
A National Network
Searches grouped by the home state of the agency account, with federal accounts treated separately.
Federal Accounts
| Federal account | Searches |
|---|---|
| Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) | 20,821 |
| US Postal Inspection Service | 3,302 |
| Natchez Trace Parkway, National Park Service | 190 |
| Indiana HIDTA | 176 |
| Wright Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio) | 38 |
| Midwest HIDTA | 22 |
| US GSA Office of Inspector General | 7 |
| Total | 24,556 |
HIDTA refers to High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area programs. Account names are reported as they appear in the audit data.
What Kinds of Agencies Searched
| Type of account | Accounts | Searches | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| City and town police | 2,472 | 1,064,100 | 55.3% |
| Sheriffs | 870 | 573,140 | 29.8% |
| State police and state agencies | 34 | 151,765 | 7.9% |
| County police | 32 | 58,794 | 3.1% |
| Federal | 7 | 24,556 | 1.3% |
| Task forces and intelligence centers | 28 | 14,692 | 0.8% |
| Constables and marshals | 17 | 11,477 | 0.6% |
| Campus and school police | 78 | 5,060 | 0.3% |
| Corrections and probation | 6 | 4,967 | 0.3% |
| Prosecutors and attorneys general | 28 | 4,811 | 0.3% |
| Local government, non-police or unclear | 6 | 2,359 | 0.1% |
| Transit, airport, and port police | 16 | 2,325 | 0.1% |
| Other specialized agencies | 33 | 1,807 | 0.1% |
| Tribal police | 11 | 1,285 | 0.1% |
| Dispatch and emergency communications | 9 | 819 | <0.1% |
| Railroad police | 3 | 198 | <0.1% |
| Non-government nonprofit | 1 | 104 | <0.1% |
| Not identifiable from account name | 1 | 700 | <0.1% |
| Total | 3,652 | 1,922,959 | 100% |
Stated Search Reasons
Search reasons grouped by the reason category recorded in the audit. Additional agency notes are not reproduced here.
Case Number Field
Whether the case number field contained a value. Where a case number was entered, the production redacted the number itself.
How Searches Were Run
Search types recorded in the audit include plate lookups and vehicle searches. Mobile entries indicate searches run through Flock’s mobile interface.
How Far Back Searches Requested Data
The requested date range of each search. A request for a longer period does not establish that Alcoa retained records for that entire period; Alcoa’s strategic plan states a 30 day retention period unless data is needed for an active investigation.
Download the Data
Complete July 1–31, 2026 audit dataset used for the analysis on this page. The ZIP archive is approximately 85 MB and expands to a 421 MB CSV.
068e4e06521d7e99c327fea714eae42123bf5ce71f6367f5247e3267ebffd194
Extracted CSV SHA-256
8ffda5700740bb1c5c119bda089e9d40e0ddeba98d085697cf8941e1e6b49a1b
Verification: SHA-256 fingerprints are published for both the downloadable ZIP archive and the extracted CSV. The ZIP fingerprint was recalculated after upload to MaryvillePrivacy.org and matched the local source archive.
Method: The audit files were analyzed offline using open source tools including DuckDB and Python. Times were converted from UTC to Eastern time. Agency categories and home states were assigned from account names and may contain classification errors. Searches are counted as individual audit records, not multiplied by the number of networks included in each search. Source: Flock Safety network audit for Alcoa TN PD, July 2026, obtained through a Tennessee Public Records Act production. Data provided to MaryvillePrivacy.org by Freedom from Flock.
National Access, Limited Local Transparency
Flock Safety offers law enforcement customers an optional public transparency portal listing information such as camera counts, retention settings, search volume, and sharing relationships. Maryville Police Department publishes one. The Blount County Sheriff’s Office publishes one. No Alcoa Police Department portal was located in the review for this page.
ALCOA TN PD IN OTHER AGENCIES' PORTALS
│
├── OUTBOUND EXAMPLE
│ └── listed among agencies
│ sharing data INTO
│ Tempe AZ PD
│
├── INBOUND EXAMPLES
│ ├── Reno NV PD
│ ├── Sevierville TN PD
│ ├── Huntersville NC PD
│ ├── Piperton TN PD
│ └── Coldwater MI PD
│
├── JULY 2026 AUDIT
│ ├── 1,922,959 searches
│ └── 3,652 agency accounts
│
▼
PUBLISHED BY ALCOA ITSELF
│
└── no transparency portal located
├── no published current camera count
├── no published local search volume
└── no published complete sharing list
Sources: Flock Safety, Tempe AZ PD Transparency Portal ; Reno NV PD Transparency Portal ; Sevierville TN PD Transparency Portal ; Huntersville NC PD Transparency Portal ; Piperton TN PD Transparency Portal ; Coldwater MI PD Transparency Portal . Portals reviewed September 2026.
What the Public Record Does Not Yet Show
The strategic plan and July 2026 network audit answer important questions, but neither provides a complete inventory of Alcoa’s current ALPR program.
Records still worth requesting from the City of Alcoa include:
- Current count and locations of all Alcoa PD Flock cameras
- Current and prior Flock Safety contracts, renewals, amendments, and invoices
- Budget lines and funding sources for each expansion
- Board agendas, minutes, resolutions, and recorded votes connected to the program
- The written ALPR use and retention policy
- Current retention configuration as set in the Flock system
- Agency and individual user access lists
- Current sharing partners and sharing configuration in both directions
- Network audit logs for months other than July 2026
- Future audit exports in native CSV format
- Alcoa PD’s own search history across other agencies’ networks
- Hot list sources and alert configuration
- Misuse investigations, complaints, and disciplinary records
- Records concerning Flock Nova, drone, or real time crime center products
Where records are not yet available, this page does not attribute a specific approval, vote, or dollar figure to an individual official.
Flock Pitched a Regional Drone Program Including Alcoa
- Tennessee public records show Flock Safety pitched a regional drone as first responder program involving Maryville, Alcoa, Blount County, and the Blount County 911 Center.
- The estimated regional program cost was $300,000 to $600,000 per year.
- The proposal would connect existing public safety technology with additional real time camera, intelligence, and drone capabilities.
Full investigation: Inside Maryville’s Flock AI Drone Program →
Documented Camera Locations
This page is grounded in public records, Tennessee Public Records Act productions, city meeting materials, vendor materials, and independent reporting. It documents structural facts and the public record; it does not allege criminal wrongdoing by any named party. Where a specific vote is not yet in the record, this page says so.
July 2026 network audit data provided by Freedom from Flock from a Tennessee Public Records Act production. Additional downloadable data and file verification information will be added as the dataset is finalized.