Calexico City Council tackles new program of license plate readers

Things got heated during the Calexico city council meeting when the Calexico police department proposed an agreement to install license plate readers.

CALEXICO, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - Disagreement and confusion those are the words that describe the meeting from wednesday night when police chief jesus serrano proposed license plate readers for the city of calexico.

Calexico police department says the readers will help them decrease crime and find criminals who want to flee to Mexicali.

The equipment would cost about 23-thousand dollars.

“The biggest concern is how long the data is stored.. It’s very dangerous if we start just tracking where everyone is going all of the time, you have the right to exit your house and not be tracked by the government 24/7," said Raul Ureña, Vice mayor of Calexico.

Gilberto Manzanares, who was recently elected says there were not enough guidelines for this proposal, who will have residents information? And how long?

"In other cities they have adopted this program such as you know what we scan your data you plate is in our system, if you’re an innocent bystander you have nothing to hide... nothing pin your plate your data gets deleted with in 24 hours and some 48 hours," said Gilberto Manzanares, city council member.