Lytle backs Monongalia County's Flock use with commission oversight
Republican nominee for Monongalia County Commission, Eastern District
“My hour and fifteen-minute meeting with the sheriff made me comfortable that the way he is using them is not to surveil the people, I’m skeptical of the company because I don't know enough about the company. That was the commission's job to review that and be comfortable with that. I don't know Flock well enough to have the ability to make a call on that right now and say I need to see all the information about how Flock's using this information. Somebody needs to be able to do that, and I believe the county commission did that and understands that. I can say that if I was on the commission and I didn't have that access, that would be the end of Flock.”
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
The Dominion Post interviewed both Monongalia County Commission candidates on the November 2026 ballot about the county's Flock camera program.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The Monongalia County Commission approved up to $180,000 in opioid settlement funds in November 2025 for 20 Flock cameras, and The Dominion Post asked both commission candidates about the system. Lytle said the sheriff's current use does not violate citizens' rights, that he wants a volunteer committee to review every use of the system and each outside request for county data, and that he would not immediately vote to turn off the cameras.
After the quotation
In the same article, his Democratic opponent, Julie Knight, said she opposes the cameras because no local contract or guardrails can keep others who hold the data from sharing or accessing it.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Should Flock-style license-plate surveillance networks exist?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The reference point is whether Flock-style license-plate camera networks should exist and be used. Lytle says the sheriff's current use does not violate residents' rights and he would not immediately turn the cameras off, but he wants county oversight and says the system would end if the commission lacked access to how Flock uses the data. Support that depends on oversight is Mixed or conditional.
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- People and groups discussed
- Flock Safety
Should Flock-style license-plate surveillance networks exist?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
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