Hood River County

The security cameras went up at Hood River City Hall and the Police Department, at a cost of $11,345. Four months later the City Council adopted a policy governing them.

Both facts come from the same document, and the city put them there itself. The staff report for Policy 6.5, the Security Camera Policy, sets out the cause under BACKGROUND: “Over the past couple of years, there have been incidents of vandalism to the City Hall building. In response to these incidents, there has been a request by the City Employee Safety Committee and other City employees that security cameras be installed on the exterior of City Hall and the Police Department.” Then, under FISCAL IMPACT, the sequence: “The policy has no fiscal impact. Security cameras were recently installed at City Hall and Police Department at a cost of $11,345”.

The council’s own quarterly work plan update, in the same packet, records “Security cameras installed at City Hall and Police Dept” among the progress notes for City Facilities. The April 2026 update repeats it as “New security cameras installed at entrances to City Hall and Police Dept”.

The policy came to the council on 12 January 2026 as item 4 of the consent agenda, next to a policy on staff response to immigration enforcement. Two other items were pulled off the consent agenda that night for separate votes. The camera policy was not. The minutes record the whole of it: “Discussion: None.” The motion passed seven to nothing.

The policy itself is a personnel policy, and it is more specific than most. Department directors request cameras and “Departments shall not install cameras for security purposes on their own.” Final approval sits with the City Manager. “Signs will be posted at the entrances to City buildings or other public facilities informing the public and staff that security cameras are in use.” Footage is kept to the state retention schedule and then erased. The people who may watch are named: the City Manager, the Chief of Police, the Human Resources Manager and other authorized personnel.

It also says two things about staff that sit next to each other. Cameras “are not installed, nor will they be used for the purposes of routinely monitoring staff.” And the City “may utilize routine security camera recordings in support of disciplinary proceedings against employees”.

Read the scope clause and you find what the policy leaves out. It does not apply to “covert operations for the purpose of criminal surveillance; or mobile cameras used in, on, or about law enforcement vehicles; or body-worn or otherwise portable cameras used during the course of investigations or normal law enforcement functions.” The city’s only written camera rule excludes the police recording a resident is most likely to end up in front of.

A lease that asks for the footage

In December 2024 the council took up a ground lease for 1217 May Street, a 1904 house the Urban Renewal Agency had bought to clear the way for a future roundabout. Rather than leave it empty, the agency invited local non-profits to lease it at no cost and maintain it in the meantime.

Article 11.2 of that lease, headed Site Security, requires the tenant to install and maintain, at the tenant’s expense, exterior lighting, locks, an alarm system, and “Security cameras meeting industry standards, providing at minimum coverage of all exterior doorways and parking areas, and retaining recordings for a minimum of 72 hours.” Then one more sentence: “Tenant shall provide Landlord access to and copies of such recordings upon request.”

Nobody decided to build a surveillance program. A city acquired standing access to a private organization’s camera recordings through a property lease, in a clause sitting between the locks and the alarm. This is what these arrangements usually look like.

What the District Attorney said about the rest of the county

The county’s own website is unread, so the Board of Commissioners and the Sheriff’s Office are unread here.

One piece of evidence about them reached us anyway, through the city. In May 2025 District Attorney Matt Ellis brought the council his office’s report, which he describes as an updated version of the county quarterly report he gives the County Commissioners. Making the case for a discovery clerk, he wrote: “Our staff workloads have increased over the years, as Grand Jury is required to be recorded. Further, all law enforcement agencies have body cam or dash cam. These media additions to cases are welcome to transparency, but we now must download these media files and ensure they are delivered to defense.”

And then the part that rarely appears in a purchase decision: “Due to these discovery issues, the court has dismissed cases and DA Rasmussen had to not charge certain level misdemeanors for a period of time in 2024.”

Every agency here records. The office that has to copy the recordings to the defense says the backlog reached the point of dismissed cases and uncharged misdemeanors. That is a cost of body cameras, and it is paid downstream of the vote that buys them.

Two things worth knowing, and not mistaking for more than they are

A speed camera enforcement program appears three times in the record, always in the same place: a list of projects the City Manager keeps of things the Council might wish to add to a future work plan. It is a candidate, not a decision, and it does not appear in the 2025-26 work plan updates we read.

Hood River charges for downtown parking by plate. The parking code requires that “All short-term permits shall have the vehicle license plate number and state clearly marked on the face of the permit.” The tribal parking fee waiver is administered by matching a plate to a tribal DMV registration. A 2025 parking study had surveyors “record hourly license plate data for vehicles parked” on the street within the study area. None of that is an automated plate reader, and we found no automated plate reader in this city’s record. It is worth knowing anyway, because the plate is already the key to who you are here, which is the condition that automated readers get sold into.

What this record does not cover

The Hood River County Sheriff’s Office and the Board of Commissioners, both unread because the county asks us not to read its website. The District Attorney’s sentence is all we have about them.

Sixty-nine council documents that are scanned images with no searchable text, almost all of them the standalone minutes. We read the votes out of the packets instead.

The Hood River Police Department’s own policies. The city publishes exactly one, on use of force, and it is a scan.

Cascade Locks, the county’s other city, has not been swept.

No devices have been mapped in this county by OpenStreetMap contributors, and the EFF Atlas of Surveillance has no entry for any agency here. Neither is evidence that nothing is operating.