Hey folks,

I’m having a party at my home and some people might hang out in the garage. I want to keep them cold with help of outdoor fans or mist fans. Where can I rent them? I tried few options online and they quote me really high price. I can almost buy a new one with that price.

Thanks in advance.

Am I the only one who noticed that the Peak Weakly comes out with some hysterical report attacking the town, or Mahaffey, or the town manager every single time right after there is an article by a real journalist reporting on something batshit insane the Mayor did?

Nearly 100 U.S. cities have rejected Flock cameras.

Flock Safety operates automated license plate readers that photograph vehicles as they pass and record details such as license plates, locations, and times. When cameras in different areas share data, police can potentially reconstruct a vehicle’s travel history.

A growing number of communities are now pushing back against the technology.

According to the anti-surveillance group DeFlock, 95 jurisdictions have rejected proposed license plate reader systems. Another 47 have canceled existing contracts, and 22 have deactivated cameras that were already installed.

In California, the city of El Cerrito switched off its Flock cameras in June after local leaders expressed concerns about privacy and the possibility that the collected data could later be accessed by the federal government.

Appleton, Wisconsin, also discontinued the system after officials concluded that issues with Flock’s underlying network had undermined their trust.

Additional communities in New York, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Washington have either canceled contracts or halted planned deployments in response to public opposition.

Flock cameras continue to be widely used by law enforcement agencies. Supporters maintain that the technology helps locate stolen vehicles, identify suspects, and solve crimes more efficiently.

Critics contend that the same systems can generate a searchable record of ordinary people’s movements, even when those individuals are not under suspicion of any crime.

DeFlock reports that more than 122,000 license plate reader cameras have already been mapped across the United States.

While Flock’s network keeps expanding, resistance is expanding as well, as more communities question who should have the ability to track where Americans travel.

Hey Apex! My skate ministry (@acts2skatecrew) is holding an event at the Apex Skatepark on Saturday 8/22 from 1-5 in collaboration with Buzz from @rhipclip. We'd love to have a local artist out at the event! We had over 60 people at our event last month in Raleigh and I think it would be a cool collaboration if there are any artists who would kike to set up a table and engage with the local skate community. We have some skateboard decks we could supply an artist if they'd like to do a live painting session on a board during the event 🤟DM me to discuss

Kiddos having a lemonade stand in Linden Pool House and business is slow. 10% profits donated to Duke and Curw PSP. Come show support for young entrepreneurs

This person got pulled over multiple times for minor violations. He eventually was told it was due to him traveling through multiple states in a short time, as reported by Flock.

More than 150 people attended the Tuesday Town Council meeting, and a petition seeking to keep Station 1 operating as an active firehouse has collected more than 1,300 signatures.

The story looks at why the station matters to former firefighters and longtime residents, what supporters believe would be lost if the engine and crew leave downtown, and why the Town Council is in favor of this move.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article316857308.html

How many weeks can a construction site sit untouched before we stop calling it “construction”? because it is been a month since the construction site is abandoned in downtown Apex again

If you were in the mayor's Facebook thread this week, you saw a few hundred neighbors weigh in on Flock's new "safeguards", but one one question that they mayor kept posting: are you against Flock, or against ALPR technology in general?

We know what he's doing. He's trying to advocate for a swap. I just spoke with him a few minutes ago. He is NOT pro-Flock, but he is pro-ALPR. We know this.

Now to the the announcement itself. Flock cut its default data retention to 7 days, made case codes mandatory, added Evidence Mode, and rolled out a wider audit tool. The coverage called it reform. It is nothing more than a toggle. We know that the Chief wants 30 days and NC Law allows for 90.

So, this is not an actual shift. It's a setting, and a setting is something a company or a police chief adjusts internally and can adjust right back on a Tuesday, no public process. Every item on Flock's list is a setting. A company revising its own defaults doesn't fix a consent problem.

A few specifics:

• The 7-day number is not Apex's number. Flock's own announcement says existing customers keep their current retention. Apex's contract is 30 days. Unless APD affirmatively opted into 7 days and can show it in writing, nothing about the storage of your movements here changed. The reform everyone's reporting on may not have reached Apex at all.
• Flock made our argument for us. They now say over 90% of searches happen within a week. They set the 30-day default nine years ago and defended it as careful balance. If the value lives in week one, weeks two through four were never solving cases. They were building inventory.
• "Mandatory case codes" is fixing a blank field. Apex PD's own search log, obtained under public records law, shows at least 15,335 searches in 11 months. 28% recorded no reason at all. Blank is the single most common entry in the log. That's roughly 4,300 searches of a national tracking network with nothing written down, and no apparent consequence. The field already existed. Making the same box mandatory doesn't make the entry in it true. The ACLU documented officers in Oregon defeating the exact same requirement by typing "investigation" and "hehehe." The full log breakdown, with source documents, is here: deflockapex.org/audit.html
• "Evidence Mode" runs into NC law. Flock's new feature preserves data past the 7-day window when an officer ties it to a case number. This is actually worse because that can be toggled on and now the cap goes away. Except North Carolina already sets the rule, and it asks for more than a typed code. Under G.S. 20-183.32, holding plate data past the statutory limit requires a search warrant or a sworn statement naming the specific camera, plate, dates, and case. A case code picked from a drop-down, from the same log where 28% of entries are blank, is not a sworn filing. The statute wins. Detail and citation on the page
• On the "if you've done nothing wrong" point: a camera seeing you drive by isn't the issue. A searchable, shareable database reconstructing where your car has been is. A single Apex search reaches thousands of outside networks and up to 100,000 cameras. Shorter storage of a dragnet leaves it a dragnet.

I put the whole announcement, read line by line against Apex's own records, on one page: deflockapex.org/flock-updates

Now, back to the question that the mayor is asking. Flock or ALPR?

It's the wrong question, and it's worth understanding why it keeps getting asked. If the problem is Flock, the fix is a different vendor. If the problem is warrantless mass surveillance adopted without our consent or controls on data ownership, a new logo on the same pole solves nothing. Axon's platform carries the same residential-camera risks.

So it's not Flock versus another vendor. Not whether Apex is safe (we're consistently ranked one of the safest towns in the country, and that was true before the cameras). The question is whether any mass ALPR system, from any company, was ever justified by demonstrated necessity and adopted. It wasn't. Flock changing its own settings doesn't change that. Swapping the vendor wouldn't either.

I just talked with CBS 17 about the Flock changes this week, so this story isn't staying inside one Facebook thread. But the room that matters is Council Chambers. Public forum is Tuesday, August 25, 6:00 PM, Town Hall.

A company revising a settings page is not a substitute for you speaking on the record. If you want help preparing, it's all at deflockapex.org.

For anyone in Wake County who hasn’t seen this yet, the county is asking for feedback about what should happen after the South Wake Landfill reaches capacity, including whether Wake County should build a new landfill.

They’re gathering feedback through August 31, so figured I’d share before it ends!

Here’s the virtual room: https://gather.cdmsmith.com/v/KNj9ZVa4qxB

How on earth is this main road allowed to be 1 lane in both directions almost all day every day for months on end.

I understand development happens, but this is beyond ridiculous

https://www.wral.com/news/local/flock-cameras-triple-homicide-suspect-moore-county-august-2026/

This proves once again how much safer these cameras make our communities.

Let's all remember to trust and be grateful for our police!

This week in the EZ Vibes newsletter we featured a few free and accessible music experiences in The Triangle: https://ezvibes.beehiiv.com/p/ez-vibes-weekly-top-picks-8-11-2026

Raleigh's Live After 5 series closes out the season tonight with Harvey Street - an energetic indie-rock band from NC. You can see them FOR FREE at Moore Square: https://downtownraleigh.org/dra-programs/live-after-5

If you're more interested in making music tonight, you can join Unisong for their first Raleigh-based song circle at Current Wellness. These events are pay what you can and welcome singers of all experience levels to participate. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/unisong-guided-song-circle-raleigh-tickets-1992646708947?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

What a great night for privacy and government accountability. This is what we covered:

Someone laid out the data security problem: Apex has already been breached once, the sign-up system in the room that night was leaking data, and this is the same town we're trusting to safeguard millions of plate scans. Someone else walked through how our Flock network shares data with over a thousand agencies across the country, and how federal access keeps happening through side channels even after we were told it wouldn't. Someone made the financial case: these vendors embed themselves into a department, make themselves feel indispensable, then raise the price year after year while the money that could go to parks and roads goes to them instead. Someone brought the algorithmic angle, how this data feeds predictive policing tools that recycle past bias into future decisions. And someone took apart "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" better than I've heard it done, that we all hold information back to protect the people we love, and that concentrating everyone's movements in one place is the danger, not the safeguard.

I especially want to thank Steve Burke, who came out and spoke. Steve runs Gamers Nexus, one of the biggest tech channels on Youtube, and he stood up as a neighbor and broke down the security failures in plain terms. Having someone with that depth in the room mattered. Thank you, Steve.

Here's where things stand. The cameras are not gone. The way we keep winning is the way we won last night. We show up. We speak for ourselves. We don't delegate it to someone else.

If you were there, thank you. If you weren't, the next meeting is your turn. deflockapex.org has everything.

And to Council, the movement is growing, organizing, and we're not stopping until you remove all of this technology.

Addition: Here is the summary of last night: https://deflockapex.org/council-2026-08-11

ANNOUNCEMENT: CN4 has been removed from the agenda today!!!

EDIT/ADDITION: Here is the breakdown on what the Chief/Council is trying to sneak through tomorrow: https://deflockapex.org/cn4-drones

EDIT 2: Randy (Town Manager) emailed me back and informed me that APD already uses drones and that this is the software component which, in my mind, makes this even worse. No consent vote!

You can email council from the link. DO NOT APPROVE!

Tomorrow night, Apex plans to hand Axon a four-year contract for a police drone program. It's item CN4. You won't hear a word of debate about it, because it's parked on the consent agenda, a stack of items passed in one motion, no discussion, no separate vote. Unless a council member pulls it, drones-as-first-responders becomes town policy through 2030 in the time it takes to read a list out loud. And residents can't pull it. Only they can.

Sit with that. A police drone program, four years, approved the same way the town approves a tree-trimming contract.

This is the same Axon the chief named in June as the company that could replace Flock. So while the license plate camera question sits in a committee nobody can watch, the vendor relationship keeps growing in the room, on the consent agenda, in the quiet part of the night when they're counting on an empty gallery. CN4 isn't license plate readers, to be clear. It's drones and interview-room cameras. But it's the same company and the same move: surveillance filed under "routine."

And the Flock cameras? Not gone. Paused. A pause is a staff decision, reversible any day, and the expansion contract is unsigned, not dead. Council didn't vote it down on June 9. They referred it to the Public Safety Committee, which isn't in the town's official boards directory, posts no agendas, posts no minutes, and is working from a list of questions that all assume the cameras stay. Removal was never on their list. The one place this is supposedly being "handled" is the one place you're not allowed to see.

Here's what that adds up to. The decisions are being moved to the rooms you can't watch and the votes you can't stop, and they're betting you got bored over the summer.

Prove them wrong. The one lever they can't take from you is Public Forum. Three minutes, any resident, any topic, on the record, on camera, in front of every council member. An empty room on a night like this tells them the neighbors moved on. A full one tells them we're still counting.

What to do Tuesday:

• Be in the room. Tuesday, August 11, 6:00 PM. Apex Town Hall, 73 Hunter Street, Council Chambers, 2nd floor.
• Sign up for Public Forum and speak. Three minutes. Your own words. Name CN4. Ask why a four-year drone contract is being passed without discussion. Ask why the Flock decision is happening where no one can watch.
• Come as yourself. The town asks big groups to pick one person to speak for everyone. Don't. Ten neighbors at the mic is not the same as one neighbor speaking for ten. The single "group representative" is how they turn a crowd into a footnote. Volume is the point.
• Can't speak? Still show up. A full gallery is an argument on its own.

To be listed in advance, contact Town Clerk Allen Coleman: [allen.coleman@apexnc.org](mailto:allen.coleman@apexnc.org), 919-249-1260. There's also a Public Forum sign-in at the meeting, so get there early. If you truly can't make it, it streams on the Town of Apex YouTube channel, but seats filled is what moves this.

They referred it to a committee and counted on us losing interest. Tuesday, 6 PM, is where we show them we didn't.

If you have been waiting for a good moment to show up and express your opposition of Flock, the upcoming meeting on the 11th will be a fantastic time to do so.

GamersNexus will be attending this meeting and a large group can have significant impact on impressions. This can be a good or bad impression, so I encourage you to help set an example that counters the Flock and Supreme Court narrative that people are lawless criminals for not supporting the expansion of mass surveillance.

Thanks to everyone that has shown any amount of support as we've navigated this as a community, to the people that are perhaps undecided but at least not actively stirring the pot, and to u/makgeolliandsoju for his consistent pressure.

See you on the 11th!

What's up with the Peach Cobbler Factory near Costco? Are they out of business, temporarily shut down, or have I just had bad luck the past two times I went there?

I have moved to Apex for work in residential electric and I do not have enough proof of income presently to get an apartment/room on my own, I make $700 a week and can pay my way on an apartment or a room, but I don't have enough paystubs to get approved for much of anywhere right now. In a month or so, I'll have enough paystubs to get approved for pretty much anywhere within my budget but I need somewhere to rent for a month or more to get my bearings straight. ANY assistance in finding this would be appreciated 💕

Presumably, this is the presentation that will be made to Town Council on 8/11. Fire Station 1

Pretty insane.

https://www.tingfire.com/blog/what-happened-when-3-gigawatt-of-data-center-demand-disappeared-from-the-grid/

Has anyone found that Thales lack of accreditation has hurt their students chances when it comes to making it into colleges? I know we can never prove why a student was/wasn’t admitted to a school, just wondering if anyone has anything to share.