Kathy Cohen is rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel in Roanoke, Virginia, where she served the community as a rabbi for about thirty years. She has chaired the Roanoke Gun Violence Prevention Commission and served on local boards including United Way and Family Promise. She is an independent candidate for Roanoke City Council in 2026.
Case
Networked automated license-plate cameras can assemble searchable records of vehicle movements. Candidates and officials disagree over whether to ban the systems, keep them with limits, or defend them as investigative tools. This tracker separates outright bans from narrower restrictions.
Role at the time: Independent candidate for Roanoke City Council and chair of the Roanoke Gun Violence Prevention Commission
Statement summary
Kathy Cohen said that after investigating the cameras she concluded no city should have them, and that she would like to see them removed because she does not think they increase public safety.
“I took a lot of time to investigate them and I came to the conclusion that no city should have these cameras. We are simply not ready for them. We do not have laws for them. We are a society that is moving towards surveillance, Ring cameras, Blink cameras, everything else. And we need to figure out as a society how we're going to handle that. But I would like to see these cameras removed. I don't think that they increase public safety.”
The reference point is whether networked license-plate reader systems such as Flock should exist and be used. Cohen said she concluded no city should have these cameras and that she would like to see them removed from Roanoke. That is a call to remove the cameras, so Condemned fits, even though she also described society's wider questions about surveillance.
Statement dates: July 11, 2026
Statement dates: July 11, 2026
Statement dates: July 11, 2026
Statement dates: July 11, 2026
