On July 1, 2026, the Matthews Board of Commissioners held a special meeting to vote on a proposed camera expansion, and this time, they said no. Here’s what happened at that meeting, and what I found digging into the vendor at the center of it.
Note: this is a different vendor and a different proposal than the Flock Safety contract I’ve been covering. Worth keeping separate this one is about Verkada, a different company entirely.
What was actually proposed
Matthews, NC currently has 2 downtown cameras, on East Charles Street and Matthews Station Street. The proposal on the table: add 25 more, covering East Matthews Street to East McDowell Street, including Stumptown Park, a full downtown network.
- Cost: $132,865.38 upfront, plus roughly $10,000/year for pole rental and connectivity
- Term: a proposed 10-year contract
- Vendor: Verkada, recommended by staff after Flock Safety reportedly didn’t respond to the town’s request for a quote, and a third vendor (One Cloud) didn’t fit the town’s needs
- Features: AI-assisted search only triggered when an officer uploads a photo of an active suspect, not passive facial recognition of everyone with 30-day cloud storage
Why the meeting felt rushed
This was a special meeting, called specifically because Verkada told the town a nationwide price increase would take effect July 3. Town Manager Melia James confirmed the vendor wouldn’t hold the quote past that date. Several commissioners pushed back hard on being forced into a decision under a vendor-imposed deadline, Mayor Higdon called it frustrating, and Commissioner Hacker noted the Board had already agreed to table this discussion until August.
What commissioners actually said
- Commissioner Garrity raised the most substantive concern: there was no written policy yet covering scope of use, access controls, auditing, or data protection for this specific technology.
- Commissioner Clayton said the process felt rushed and wanted more time to work with the vendor and the public.
- Mayor Higdon said he found the technology “somewhat intrusive but probably worthwhile,” but wasn’t willing to move forward under a two-week ultimatum from the vendor.
- Commissioner Lamson said any future system should have its policies posted publicly on the town’s transparency portal.
- Town Attorney Daniel Peterson flagged specific language in the contract that concerned him legally.
What residents said
Five residents spoke against the proposal, every single public comment was opposed. Concerns raised included:
- Fourth Amendment implications of expanded surveillance
- The risk of misuse if an officer accessed the system inappropriately
- AI misidentification risk
- A specific reference to Verkada’s 2021 data breach
- Concern that 10 years of downtown surveillance was a disproportionate response to a handful of annual events like Matthews Alive and Summerfest
- A suggestion that more police officers, not more cameras, would better address the town’s actual concerns
The Board voted unanimously (motion by Hacker, seconded by Clayton) to reject the expansion.
Here is the pdf of the meeting notes:
https://www.matthewsnc.gov/files/documents/7A2-BOCdraftminutes2026-07-011315010243081926PM.pdf
Who is Verkada, and were residents’ concerns founded?
I looked into the vendor’s history. The short answer: yes, the concerns raised at the meeting were accurate and, if anything, understated.
The company: Verkada is a cloud-managed security camera company founded in 2016 in San Mateo, California, now with roughly 1,700 employees and $806 million in 2025 revenue. It sells cameras, access control, and AI-powered video analytics to schools, hospitals, retailers, and government agencies nationwide.
The 2021 breach was serious. In March 2021, hackers gained live access to over 150,000 Verkada customer cameras — inside hospitals, psychiatric facilities, women’s health clinics, schools, prisons, and companies including Tesla and Cloudflare. Investigators found the breach was possible in part because a publicly exposed administrator credential gave the attackers broad access.
What’s more concerning: reporting at the time found that Verkada employees themselves nearly the entire company, including executives had “Super Admin” access allowing them to view any customer’s camera feed at any time, without that customer’s knowledge. The breach exposed not just an external security failure, but a company culture with almost no internal access controls on customer video.
The Federal Trade Commission took formal enforcement action against Verkada in August 2024, three years after the breach, over the company’s failure to secure customer video and related data.
The workplace misconduct is a separate, earlier incident. In 2019–2020, reporting from IPVM, Vice, and later Bloomberg found that a Verkada sales director used the company’s own office cameras and facial recognition system to photograph female coworkers, sharing the images in a Slack channel with sexually explicit commentary; nine other employees participated. No one was terminated — the instigator lost stock options, and the CEO called the incident vulgar but declined to classify it as sexual harassment in his internal communication. Bloomberg’s later reporting described a wider pattern of workplace culture issues at the company.
Why this matters, separate from Verkada specifically
This meeting is worth understanding on its own terms, but it’s also a useful comparison point for how Matthews handled its other camera contract, the Flock Safety agreement I’ve been covering separately. On this vendor, this time, the town:
- Heard directly from residents before any vote
- Had commissioners raise specific, substantive concerns about missing policy
- Had a Town Attorney flag contract language before signing anything
- Ultimately said no, rather than signing under pressure
That’s the process I’ve been asking, in my other posts, whether the original 2023 Flock Safety contract ever received. This meeting is a clear example of what that process looks like when it happens.
Sources: Board of Commissioners special meeting minutes, July 1, 2026; FTC enforcement action against Verkada (August 2024); Verkada’s own March 2021 security incident report; IPVM, Vice/Motherboard, and Bloomberg reporting on Verkada workplace conduct (2019–2021).