Generally, my work does not call on me to file many open records requests. I’m a writer and editor, in some order, depending on the month, and then after that a reporter, and normally here I would list a bunch of other things I am, as a joke. Maybe I would make a few of them rhyme. But I am trying to be serious here, so I won’t.
This next part will sound like throat clearing, but it is germane. The last several months of 2022, four in total, I believe, I was without a vehicle. Though I am notably fond of walking and did walk home from the office at least once, it’s over 9 miles in one direction. Since he lives near me, Tim Rogers graciously offered to ferry me to and from work for the duration of my carlessness.
While I drive, I listen to either movie podcasts (shoutout to Blank Check with Griffin and David and The Big Pic) or extremely loud punk and hardcore. Tim prefers a tight rotation of The Ticket and KERA or KXT, flipping to avoid commercials. Because of this, one day in Novmeber I heard on KERA a story that had initially escaped my attention, regarding the city of Dallas purchasing license plate-reading cameras from an outfit from Atlanta called, at the time, Flock Group. (They have since rebranded as Flock Safety and removed the part of the website where co-founder Matt Fleury talked about his favorite soup. Trust me. It existed. I had it bookmarked.)