Loading...
LPR Comments from Hunter to John McDonald and ResponseAimee Brunckhorst From: Ryan Hunter Sent: Friday, July 24, 2026 11:47 AM To: Kalispell City Council Subject: Fw: EXTERNAL Re: LPR Comments Council, Below is McDonnell's response to my email. Ryan Hunter Mayor of Kalispell rhunter@kalispell.com From: John McDonnell <hikerbjohn@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, July 24, 2026 11:43 AM To: Ryan Hunter <rhunter@kalispell.com> Cc: Jarod Nygren <jnygren@kalispell.com>; Aimee Brunckhorst <abrunckhorst@kalispell.com>; Jordan Venezio <jvenezio@ kal ispel I.com> Subject: EXTERNAL Re: LPR Comments [NOTICE: This message includes an attachment -- DO NOT CLICK on links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe.] Dear Mayor Hunter, Thankyou foryour response and for forwarding my comments to the City Clerk. While I appreciate the distinction you draw between limited parking enforcement tools and broader surveillance systems, it remains my strong opinion — shared by multiple other residents and upheld by various courts in both lower and higher rulings — that any use of License Plate Recognition systems still infringes on Fourth Amendment rights by enabling government tracking of citizens' movements, even if short-term. Regardless of stated limitations or policies, this technology hands unchecked power to authorities without sufficient safeguards, and I believe there are better, non -surveillance solutions for parking enforcement. I welcome the opportunity to sit down with you, the City Manager, and Police Chief. However, if you are unable or unwilling to provide detailed written answers to my previous questions first, I do not see how a meeting would be productive for me. My questions deserve direct responses rather than what feels like avoidance or snarky deflection. As someone who sees this as part of a broader pattern of government overreach on privacy rights, I am looking for allies who will actually defend the Constitution by answering concerns transparently and exploring alternatives, not those who dismiss them. If you truly share the Council's commitment to upholding the law and privacy, then addressing my specific questions in writing— and committing to robust, auditable protections or different approaches —should not be difficult. I look forward to your substantive reply. Regards, On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 11:25 AM Ryan Hunter <rhunter(d)kalispell.com> wrote: Hi John, I want to follow up with you about your comments and text regarding the proposed LPR system. First, though, I just want to mention that we don't take public comment via text, so it is always best to submit your comments either at the meetings or via email, that way it is recorded and accepted as official public comment. I did copy your text last night to the city clerk this one time so that she can include it in our public comment records. Second, I want to reiterate that I and I believe the rest of the Council share your concern and opposition to mass surveillance and are committed to upholding the law. The law, however, including the citations you provided in text last night, makes a distinction between comprehensive mass surveillance systems using bulk collection and long-term data storage and tracking vs. much more limited systems with short term data storage governed by an adopted policy that restricts its use to specific enforcement functions. Our proposed LPR system is the latter, not the former, and therefore is legal and is in fact used by other municipalities in Montana without legal challenge. I won't respond to your extensive list of questions because I believe they are premised on a misunderstanding mixing up these two different types of systems. The Police Department will create an LPR policy with tight use restrictions before it is implemented, and data collected for the system, limited only to parking enforcement, isn't expected to be stored for more than a day or two. We will own the data collected and the data will not be shared with the system provider. We also have no intention of using Flock camera systems or fixed location surveillance camera systems. The City Manager, Police Chief and I are happy to sit down with you to answer further questions you may have about the system and its intended use. Finally, as someone who has been on the other side of the lectern as an advocate for issues I cared about for many years in the past, long before I was ever elected to public office, I'd like to offer a recommendation. An aggressive, angry and demanding approach doesn't win you any allies and in fact detracts from your argument. As I said, you have a Council that shares your concern about mass surveillance abuse, so a humbler tone would be much better received and much appreciated. Regards, Ryan Hunter Mayor of Kalispell rhunter@kalispell.com Messages and attachments sent to or from this e-mail account pertaining to City of Kalispell business may be considered public or private records depending on the message content. The City is required by law to protect private, confidential information. Emails that contain confidential information such as information related to individual privacy may therefore be protected from disclosure under law. However, these communications are also subject to the Right to Know provisions of Montana's Constitution (Art. II, Sect. 9) and may be considered a "public record" pursuant to Title 2, Chpt. 6, Montana Code Annotated. As such, this email, its sender and receiver, and the contents may be available for public disclosure and will be retained pursuant to the City's record retention policies. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution of this e-mail or its attachment(s) is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, immediately contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.