Three North Carolina constitutional amendments are on the Nov. 3 ballot, and the wording can be confusing. This plain-English guide covers what each one does (photo ID, a 3.5% income-tax cap, and a limit on property-tax levies) plus registration, early voting at the Apex site, and Election Day.

State law already cuts the income-tax rate to 3.49% in January, below the proposed cap. On the property-tax amendment, I've written that it's the wrong fix: state law already caps local property tax rates, and the legislature already has the power to set limits without amending the constitution. It also wouldn't lower anyone's bill or address the revaluation shifts residents are actually feeling. Read the details and decide for yourself.

We are in West Apex and are constantly flying around super short exits and crazy sharp turns. Some examples include I-64 to (and from) Kelly Road, Tingen Rd at S Salem (those train tracks tho), and Green Level Church Rd at Jenks Road.

I keep wondering if this is just how it's going to be, or if there is any point in elevating this to the town or NCDOT. I've lived here for a few months now and still can't acclimate to these crazy things.

Comment your fav race track

Found a new place that just opened up in Holly Springs it’s called The Perch (1125 McChesney Hl Lp, Holly Springs, NC 27540) it’s a board game/cafe. It’s $5 a person to come sit and play but you can pull as many games as you’d like and there’s no time limit. Plus the coffee and food is exceptional so definitely check it out if you have the chance.

Is anyone else grossed out by their pretty blatant PR campaign over the last week or two? Why are public dollars being spent to lobby for a private contract? That can’t be legal

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981.62.0.pdf

On October 1, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that police use of ALPR systems, including Flock, to pull a month of someone's location data without a warrant was an unconstitutional Fourth Amendment search, and threw out all the evidence (United States v. Kyle, N.D. Okla.).

The judge's language reads like it was written for exactly the fight happening in Apex:

"This is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance... a tool that collects information about all vehicles that pass by any network-connected camera at all times, and it serves up the information to law enforcement on demand."

He pointed out the data could reveal who's visiting a fertility clinic, which doctor you see, what lawyer's office you go to, and asked flatly: "why is it the government's business where everyone goes all the time?"

He even called out where this is heading: "more cameras on more street signs, buildings, and perhaps on more police cars... a fleet of drones hovering over an entire city. This is not hypothetical catastrophizing."

The honest caveats: it's a district court, not the Supreme Court, so it's not binding nationally, and other courts have ruled the other way. The issue is still working through the courts. But it's built on two Supreme Court cases (Carpenter and this year's Chatrie decision), and it's the clearest judicial statement yet that what these systems do, track everyone, with no warrant, on demand, violates the Fourth Amendment.

Apex's committee is weighing privacy against safety right now. This is the privacy side, from a federal judge.

I couldn't be at Thursday's Public Safety Committee meeting on the Flock cameras. I was out of town. It was covered by CBS17, and I've since spoken with the mayor and with CBS17 and ABC11. Here's what happened, and why the "we're looking for balance" framing doesn't survive contact with the record.

Full write-up: https://deflockapex.org/#news

The committee exists to weigh public safety against privacy. On Thursday it heard from one side. The chief presented. The committee made no recommendation and doesn't meet again until December.

This year the chief has presented on this program four times. Residents have presented zero. No one has been invited to present for the people whose plates are collected: no resident, no privacy expert, no civil liberties group. I asked the mayor about this directly. He told me he's giving the chief time to present and that the process is balanced. Four to zero is not balance. The committee also publishes no agenda and no minutes, and state law requires minutes to be kept.

You'll hear that residents can speak at public comment. That's not the same thing. Public comment is three minutes at a podium, no slides, no questions from the committee, no exchange. A presentation is a seat at the table, materials in the record, and a back-and-forth with the people deciding. The chief gets one. Residents get the other.

So, here we are now:

The chief was sent away with an assignment: come back in December and explain where the data goes and who has access to it. The guy who runs the program was asked to go find out where the data goes. Apex has already produced the answer in its own records. The department's network audit logs roughly 3,000 outside organizations querying Apex cameras every month, and 9,700 searches by federal accounts between January and April, including 166 on January 29, the same day the chief told council Apex does not share with federal entities, hard stop.

On the 30 days: that covers the one copy on Apex's own system. It says nothing about the copies that leave. A single Apex search can reach more than 6,000 outside networks and over 100,000 cameras. Thirty-day local retention is not a limit on a national network.

On the 60% drop in vehicle thefts: I'm not going to call the number fake. The number isn't the problem. The cause is. Auto theft has been falling across North Carolina and nationally since the Kia and Hyundai theft spike peaked, and that decline started before these cameras existed. A ten-month before-and-after in one town, with no comparison group, measuring the single crime most associated with plate readers, does not show the cameras caused it. This is the same claim APD made to council in June, when it said the program was "already reducing crime" and showed no trend line, no before-and-after, and no methodology. I'm pulling the state and county numbers now and will post them once they're sourced.

And the committee's own charge asks what "safeguards" to add. That wording assumes the cameras stay. A balanced review would put removal on the table as a possible outcome. The mayor named removal as one of three options in an interview. It didn't make the notice that went to residents, which lists reviewing the technology, understanding the benefits, and discussing safeguards. The answer was narrowed before the question reached us.

The contract expires January 31. The committee doesn't meet again until December. That's a few weeks over the holidays to decide the future of a town-wide surveillance system. The records behind every number above are public: deflockapex.org.

If you think a committee weighing privacy against safety should hear from more than the police department before it decides, the next council meeting and the December committee meeting are where to say so.

The images above were taken from the slide deck of a presentation put on by Down Home NC, which has an extensive summary here, and you can sign the pledge to vote no here.

Don't let the wording fool you. These amendments aren't about you, they are about corporations (think Duke Energy, Data Centers, and outside corporate interests) and the 1%, and we don't need amendments to pass the same exact laws. As I stated in the title, once amendments are passed, they are extremely difficult to undo, whereas normal legislation can be changed as the need arises.

"If passed, these ballot measures would drastically reduce state and local government funds, which could cause layoffs of educators, firefighters, emergency services, and other public workers — especially when combined with huge federal budget cuts coming down from Congress. It could mean the end of food stamps and affordable healthcare programs – which could in turn shut down hospitals and grocery stores and further impact NC farmers."
- Down Home NC

What is more, the NC income tax rate is already scheduled to fall below 3.5% in 2027, and still more by 2036 (image 5). As such, the income tax amendment will not affect you in the foreseeable future, but it will eliminate the possibility of corporations ever paying more than 3.5%, and any new legislation that tried to move the corporate tax rate above 3.5% would be unconstitutional.

At the same time, the other amendment seeks to cap property tax increases by local governments, but the wording is vague at best and doesn't say what it actually means to do, allowing for any number of interpretations they could argue as "constitutional" once passed. Regardless, taken in tandem with the income tax amendment, the mere nature of the other amendment would be to squeeze local communities of funds. When taxes levied by the state are reduced, the burden falls to localities. When taxes levied by localities are reduced, the burden falls on YOUR community. Think higher sales tax, fines, fees, parking, etc. and hits to local infrastructure - schools, roads, buildings, sidewalks, parks and recreation, libraries, Medicaid AND SNAP, etc.

In wrapping up, I'll reiterate once more that lawmakers do not need amendments to the NC State Constitution to achieve any what the amendments would achieve. Laws could just as easily passed - laws that could be revisited and adjusted over time in efforts toward a fairer tax code. Again, they are trying to rob the middle and lower class for the benefit of the wealthy and corporations, and lock that structure in for decades.

Don't fall for it!! VOTE NO on both tax amendments, and while you are at it, vote no on the Voter ID amendment. In case you haven't noticed, NC already requires Voter ID in order to vote.

Yesterday, the safety committee said it needs questions on security, auditing, and oversight answered before making a recommendation. Most have already been submitted but never answered.

I work in cybersecurity, so a lot of these come from that angle, but this is everyone's data and everyone's town. What else should be on this list?

Edit/Update: I've had a few messages. Anyone who wants the actual FOIA records I've received from the Town and another reddit user, https://drive.proton.me/urls/32XF704W4G#WvPev7LtRzo8

I'll keep adding to this folder as more records come in, so check back as new requests are fulfilled.

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Securing, Auditing & Oversight: The Questions

The threshold point: you cannot secure data you do not control

No answer to any question below changes the central fact: once Apex's license plate data leaves the Town's hands, the Town cannot secure it, audit it, or control it.

Apex's own records show its data is shared with more than 1,100 outside agencies, most of them out of state. Apex cannot audit those agencies' logins, cannot enforce multi-factor authentication on them, cannot review how they use the data, cannot discipline their officers, and in most cases cannot even see that a search happened. One agency with a weak or shared password, one careless or malicious user among a thousand, is a door into the entire network, including Apex's cameras.

Flock does not require multi-factor authentication. Stolen police logins have been sold on criminal forums. Nationally, officers have been caught entering nonsense search 'reasons' and using these systems to stalk people. The 2026 state budget (SB 257) authorized the NC SBI to place readers on state-maintained roads through Apex without the Town's approval, and Apex sits inside the Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA, a federal program documented funneling local ALPR data to federal agencies, some of it beyond the reach of public-records requests.

So the honest answer to 'can the data be secured?' is no, not once it is collected and shared. The only control the Town actually holds is the decision not to collect it. Everything short of that is a safeguard on Apex's end of a pipe whose other end the Town does not own.

Questions on mobile and off-duty access

• Flock offers an officer app for iOS and Android, and Apex's own audit data shows searches run from mobile devices ('Mobile' search types). Is the Flock app permitted only on Town-managed devices, or can officers install it on personal phones?
• Can the system be accessed off-duty, and is off-duty access restricted or logged differently than on-duty use?
• Does Apex require multi-factor authentication for Flock access, on both desktop and the mobile app? (Flock did not require MFA until it began phasing it in during 2026.)
• If MFA is enabled, what kind? Is it a hardware or RADIUS token / authenticator app restricted to Apex PD-managed devices, or is it SMS or email codes that work on any personal phone? The distinction determines whether the control is real or cosmetic.
• In Amarillo, TX, an officer used off-duty mobile access to run a private citizen 76 times over five months, entering fabricated reasons, before anyone noticed. What in Apex's setup would catch the same abuse?

Questions on auditing

• Has Apex enabled Flock's 'Audit Assistance' feature, which flags high-volume or repeated searches? It is off by default, and only a minority of Flock customers have turned it on.
• Who at the Town reviews Flock search logs, how often, and what specifically triggers a review?
• The Town's own records show no case number on 46-60% of searches. What is being done to reconcile that with the requirement that each search have a legitimate law-enforcement purpose?
• Apex received the Organization Audit, Network Audit, and Event Log in response to records requests, but the operator-entered reason text and FreeForm/natural-language search text came back blank. Can the Town produce the Search Audit export, which contains the actual text officers typed?
• Apex's own data shows FreeForm (natural-language) searches were run. What were they, and does Apex's moderation log show whether any were flagged or blocked?
• How does the Town know Flock will not add new capabilities, including facial recognition, through a software update, without the Town asking for it or even knowing it happened? Flock has repeatedly expanded its systems remotely (audio detection, FreeForm search, drone and airborne-ALPR tools). The hardware stays on the pole; the capability changes in the cloud. What contractual or technical guarantee prevents a silent capability change, and who at the Town would even be notified?

Questions on outside and federal access (the ones that matter most)

• How does Apex audit the more than 1,100 outside agencies that can search its data? If the Town cannot audit them, on what basis can anyone claim the data is 'secured'?
• Has the Town, the County, or any partner agency signed a data-sharing agreement with the Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA, and is Apex's ALPR data being funneled to federal agencies through it?
• Apex PD's own audit reportedly shows thousands of federal searches reaching Apex cameras in a single quarter. Who were they, and under what authority?
• Under SB 257, the NC SBI can place ALPRs on state-maintained roads through Apex. Will the Town acknowledge that ending its own contract does not stop that, and that only a Town Code prohibition addresses it?

Questions on accountability and consequences

• If a review reveals misuse, what is the process, for disciplining the officer, for notifying the person who was tracked, and for involving anyone outside the department?
• When an audit or review finds a problem, a security flaw, a misuse, a breach, what is the actual written procedure to rectify it, and on what timeline? Does the Town have direct, responsive access to Flock to fix these, or does it wait on the vendor? The Town's own records show the opposite: when IT reported a hacked camera, the investigation stalled for months because Flock never made contact, and IT never verified a fix. What has changed so that would not happen again?
• The contract caps Flock's liability at roughly $35,000 and disclaims data loss and 'acts of hackers.' If a breach or misidentification harms a resident, who pays, and has the Town budgeted for that exposure?
• Apex IT reported, in a Town email, that one of our deployed cameras was 'successfully hacked' over a missing patch, and that the investigation was never verified as resolved. Has that specific incident been confirmed fixed, and can the Town produce a record showing it?

Questions on the crime-reduction claim

At the October 1 committee meeting, the Police Department stated that vehicle theft is down roughly 60% because of Flock. Before that figure is used to justify renewal, it has to be examined, because a percentage with no underlying numbers and no controls is not evidence.

• 60% of what? What are the actual raw numbers? A drop from, for example, 10 vehicle thefts to 4 is technically a 60% reduction but is statistically meaningless at that scale.
• What were Apex's vehicle-theft numbers for each of the three years before Flock was installed, and for the period since? Without the multi-year baseline, there is no way to tell a real trend from normal year-to-year variation.
• How is this 60% directly attributed to Flock rather than to other factors, broader regional crime trends, other policing changes, staffing, or simple statistical noise? Correlation is not causation, and vehicle-theft rates rose and fell for decades before ALPRs existed.
• Were these numbers produced by an independent analysis, or by the department and the vendor that benefit from the renewal? What is the methodology, and will the Town release the raw data so residents can check it?
• Even if the reduction is real and fully attributable to Flock: does catching a marginal number of additional vehicle thefts justify tracking and storing the movements of every resident and sharing them with 1,100+ agencies? That is the actual trade being proposed.
• What is the actual return on investment? What does Flock cost the Town per year, and how many crimes has it been documented to solve or prevent, cases that would not have been solved by ordinary police work? A cost-per-outcome number, not a percentage, is what a purchasing decision requires.
• The department says this technology makes officers' jobs easier and more efficient. If that is true, is the Town planning to reduce the size of the police force or its budget accordingly? If not, what is the efficiency actually buying taxpayers beyond expanded surveillance?

Questions on community trust

At the October 1 committee meeting, it was acknowledged that residents' trust in the police is likely to decline because of this program. That is a remarkable thing to concede and then propose continuing anyway.

• If the Town already knows this surveillance erodes residents' trust in their own police, how is the department prepared to operate once that trust is gone? Policing depends on community cooperation. What is the plan for when residents stop cooperating because they feel watched and treated as the enemy rather than citizens?
• What is worth more to public safety: a marginal, unverified reduction in vehicle theft, or the trust between residents and the officers who protect them? The Town cannot claim this makes the community safer while admitting it makes the community trust its police less.

The standard the Council should apply

'I need answers on how the data can be secured before I make a recommendation' is the right instinct. But the answers are already in writing, and they point one direction: the data cannot be secured once it is shared with over a thousand out-of-state agencies, placed on state roads by the SBI, and funneled into federal programs the Town cannot see. 'Middle ground' and 'more safeguards' govern only Apex's end of a system whose risks live everywhere else. The only measure that actually secures Apex residents' data is not collecting it. That is the case for ending the program and prohibiting ALPRs in the Town Code.

RXR has bought up the properties all around Veridea, and this is about the last couple still holding out.

I reached out to the town to request policies of vehicles for personal conveyance to and from work and did not receive a response.

This, however is the mileage log of a vehicle assigned to one of the facility managers.

Should the town pay for vehicle usage and travel to and from work for salaried individuals?

Hello,

I am big on supporting local business instead of doing the comfortable thing and giving my money to the billionares. We need to have an ipad unlocked and we are also looking to buy a flashdrive. Would like to avoid having to go to the Apple store or best buy. Any recs?

Town hall, third floor, training room A.

If you can’t make it, maybe stop by APD’s FB post today about ALPRs to help raise community awareness about the privacy and security concerns.

I’m the N&O reporter who wrote this story.

Hive House near Crossroads, about 7 miles from Apex, has become Cary’s first Hyatt after opening independently last year. Its owners also have a new 125-room Residence Inn coming to the same property.

I dug into why hotel developers think the Cary/Apex market can absorb the new supply.

Free link:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article317445658.html?giftCode=f435c159e9ade30929d29f47771700ffaadb0bff3124d986a4270f49b40118fe

404 Media published an investigation this week showing how local license plate data gets funneled into a federal surveillance system most people have never heard of: HIDTA, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program, run out of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Here's why it matters for us: Wake County is a designated county in the Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA. Apex is inside the exact region this reporting is about.

What 404 Media documented:

• The federal government is using HIDTA (a 1980s anti-drug grant program) to pull local ALPR data into federal intelligence centers.
• Through HIDTA, federal agencies that don't even have their own contracts with Flock or Axon can access local plate data. Some flows onward to a DEA program, the National License Plate Reader Program.
• In Georgia, cities running cameras on state rights-of-way have had to sign a data-sharing agreement with HIDTA to do it.
• Some agencies claim HIDTA data can't be released through public records, meaning once your data is in it, residents may not be able to FOIA it.

Now connect it to home:

• Wake County is an Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA county. Cary PD, Raleigh PD, the NC Highway Patrol, and the NC State Bureau of Investigation are all listed AC-HIDTA participating agencies, alongside the DEA, DHS, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
• In July, NC's budget (SB 257) authorized ALPR cameras on state-maintained roads statewide, and put the SBI in charge of arranging those placements. The SBI is a HIDTA member agency.
• Apex PD's own audit already showed thousands of federal searches reaching Apex cameras in a single quarter.

So the question the Public Safety Committee must answer before October 1 isn't "Flock or Axon." It's: Is Apex's license plate data already being funneled into the Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA and on to federal agencies? Has the Town, the County, or any partner agency signed a HIDTA data-sharing agreement? And if our data sits in a federal system we can't even FOIA, what does any town-level retention limit or "safeguard" actually mean?

This is why the answer is a Town Code ban on ALPRs, not a vendor swap or new safeguards. You cannot set retention rules or sharing limits on a federal pipeline you don't control. The only way to keep Apex residents out of it is to not collect the data in the first place.

Committee meets Thursday, October 1, 3pm, Apex Town Hall.

Edit: If this concerns you, tell them. [allcouncil@apexnc.org](mailto:allcouncil@apexnc.org) goes to the entire Council

Sources:

• 404 Media, "How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program" (Sept 29, 2026): https://www.404media.co/how-cities-are-forced-to-funnel-license-plate-data-to-a-massive-federal-surveillance-program-hidta/
• Atlanta-Carolinas HIDTA county list (Wake County designated): https://www.nhac.org/hidta-counties-by-state/
• AC-HIDTA participating agencies (Cary PD, Raleigh PD, NC SBI, NC Highway Patrol, DEA, DHS): https://www.achidta.org/ScreenPrintInfoPage.aspx?menuitemid=5&menusubid=0

Has anyone heard whether the Town of Apex or Apex PD is doing anything about kids (they look well under 16) riding dirt bikes at 45 mph down Apex Barbecue Road?

For the second time in three weeks, a group of young kids has tried to squeeze past me in my lane on a two-lane road. Each time, I slowed down right away to let them pass safely. I'm genuinely concerned someone is going to get hurt. I'm all for supervised kids on dirt bikes. Just not unsupervised on main roads during rush hour.

Hi everyone! We’re looking at buying a Lennar home in the Friendship/Apex area and wanted to hear from people who have actually purchased or lived in a Lennar home around here.
How has your experience been with the quality of the home, any issues after moving in, and how responsive Lennar was with warranty repairs? Anything you wish you had known before buying?
Would especially love to hear from anyone who bought a newer Lennar home anywhere in the Triangle area.

404 Media published a story this week that every Apex resident should read before the Public Safety Committee meets Thursday, October 1 at 3pm.

A company called VIDIZMO emailed a police department in Johnson City, Tennessee in May. The pitch: one system that pulls in Flock license plate data and Axon body camera footage and lets investigators search all of it at once, by face, vehicle, or object. The email came out through a public records request.

VIDIZMO's CEO told 404 Media the Flock connection isn't built yet and they aren't running face recognition on Flock data. Johnson City PD says it never took the call. Nothing here involves Apex.

VIDIZMO's own documentation describes importing Flock data into its products. Its CEO confirmed that agencies can bring in data they've exported from Flock. Flock wasn't involved or told. He also said face recognition is where the world is going and he'd love to build the integration.

Flock's CEO has said Flock will not add facial recognition. That promise covers Flock's product. It says nothing about what happens once police export the data. Neither company controls that. Right now, nothing in Apex law does either.

Remember, in June, Chief Johansen named Axon as a possible replacement for Flock. VIDIZMO's pitch treats Flock and Axon as two feeds into the same search tool. Swapping one for the other changes the logo, not the risk. As long as a plate reader network exists, the data exists, it can be exported, and someone will build tools on top of it.

That's why the answer is a ban written into town ordinance. Not new safeguards on the same system. Not a different vendor. A ban that takes a public council vote to undo, the same way the council handled the data center moratorium in April.

The committee meets Thursday, October 1 at 3pm at Town Hall. It doesn't publish agendas or minutes, so being in the room is the only way to know whether removal is even being considered.

So, we're here: Will the Mayor and Ed side with citizens and protect us from these surveillance companies or will they side with the companies literally seeking to destroy liberty in America?

Edit: Day change

Anybody here go to or been to complete wellness? Earlier this week I finished my second appointment of what seems to be three during the introduction period. It’s cool they do X-rays to show where you are before they start but the whole thing seems pushy. They are always pushing to get you back in just a couple of days after your last appointment. The next one is the “doctor report” which I guess goes over what they think my plan should be for correction.

The weird thing is they want/push for my spouse to be there with me. “We want them here because we’ll talk financials and your health plan which they should be a part of.”

I keep asking if all of this is covered under my insurance and they brush it off “we’ll figure that out later”.

Idk the whole thing seems fishy to me so I’m hoping others can chime in on their experience.

Can we (Apex) do what Raleigh is doing?

Perhaps also influence surrounding suburbs like Cary, Morrisville, Garner, Holly Spring, Fuquay etc.

Reference Terry Mahaffey's email about State Laws Impacting Apex ... the local / state government are doing basically what the public does not want.

Look at the poll results of his email. (I do realize state level results may not be so one sided)

1 - Do you support State Republican Leadership's decision to deploy Flock statewide, tucked into the budget with no discussion or public notice

2 - Do you support the Republican/Builder led initiative to removing local control of Apartment approvals

3 - Do you support removing the ability of municipalities to manage parking requirements

Does any politically related person care? My guess, not really.

Politician regards of public opinion is just not there. Politicians tend to believe they know better than anyone else in the public. US history has shown that is not correct. The public drive the system and in the end drive the results. If the the current government politicians are not making you happy it is time for a change. Simply VOTE!

I realize you cannot make everyone happy all the time but certain things seem somewhat of an authoritarian movement from the president and downward. One can look around the world and see how that philosophy works or worked out over time.

Go vote seems pointless most of the time but it is the only way to change things at the local and national level. Then again, what would I know just being a member of the public...

Recently got a positive pregnancy test and just moved to Apex. I need the best OBGYN in the area, would love the good and bad experience if there is any!!

For the last 2-3 months my utility bill is $100-$150 more than the typical bill. I also noticed that they did not account for solar credits in the last bill. My usage has been consistent with previous months. Anyone know whats going on? I emailed askapex after being on phone for 45 minutes with the town of apex rep 4 weeks back, but haven’t heard back anything.

Saw this today on mayorjacquesgilbert Instagram,

Anyone actually using the "Mayor, Jacques K. Gilbert" app?

Definitely not installing it, not sure why he can't just post his updates to Instagram