Petition directed to Sheriff Christopher Thomas and the Onslow County Board of Commissioners

The people of Onslow County should never have to fight their own government to learn how their money was spent.

For weeks, I have asked the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office to provide a complete and verifiable accounting of its PlateRanger automated license-plate reader system. Instead of straightforward records and consistent answers, the public has received silence, delays, blanket denials, and conflicting explanations about where the money came from.

The available records document at least $52,099 in public expenditures connected to this system.

The funding was initially described as a grant.

Sheriff Christopher Thomas later said the money came from detention-contract revenue.

County Finance described it as coming through the pooled General Fund.

Those explanations may ultimately be reconcilable—but the government has not produced the accounting trail needed to reconcile them.

That is unacceptable.

PlateRanger does more than take ordinary photographs. It records license plates and associates them with images, dates, times, locations, and other vehicle information in a searchable system.

This technology may have legitimate investigative uses. That does not place it above public scrutiny.

Powerful surveillance technology requires powerful oversight. The greater the government’s ability to observe the public, the greater its obligation to demonstrate that the system is properly funded, narrowly controlled, independently audited, and operated according to law.

The public-records requests did not demand active investigative information, precise camera locations, or the captured plate data of individual motorists. They sought the basic records of government accountability: contracts, invoices, funding records, policies, audits, evaluations, training materials, maintenance records, data-sharing rules, and proof of oversight.

The confidentiality of captured plate data must not become a blanket excuse for concealing ordinary financial and administrative records.

When an elected office spends public money on technology capable of creating searchable records showing where and when vehicles were observed, “trust us” is not enough.

We therefore call upon Sheriff Christopher Thomas and the Onslow County Board of Commissioners to take the following actions:

1. Immediately suspend the PlateRanger system pending full public disclosure and an independent review.

2. Release the complete source-to-expenditure accounting trail, including records reconciling the grant, detention-contract revenue, and General Fund explanations.

3. Release every nonconfidential contract, amendment, invoice, payment record, subscription agreement, authorization, audit, evaluation, maintenance record, training record, effectiveness report, and data-sharing document.

4. Provide a written explanation for every withheld record, identifying the particular record and the specific legal authority supporting its withholding.

5. Commission an independent audit of the system’s funding, procurement, access controls, searches, sharing arrangements, retention practices, deletion procedures, and compliance with North Carolina law.

6. Terminate the program and remove the cameras unless the Sheriff’s Office can establish—through independently reviewable evidence—that the system was properly funded, lawfully procured, effectively supervised, and subjected to meaningful safeguards.

7. Ensure that termination and removal costs are paid through the vendor or existing Sheriff’s Office appropriations, without another allocation of taxpayer money.

This petition is not an attack on the deputies who serve Onslow County. It requests no operationally sensitive information, threatens no person or property, and seeks no unlawful action.

It is a lawful demand for accountability from an elected office.

Sheriff Thomas was elected by the people. He works for the people. The equipment was purchased with public money, and the nonconfidential records documenting that purchase belong to the people.

An elected official does not get to substitute silence for accountability.

An elected official does not get to provide changing explanations without producing the records that establish the truth.

An elected official does not get to deploy powerful technology and then treat reasonable public questions as an inconvenience.

The next election for Onslow County Sheriff is November 3, 2026. The public should consider the standard of transparency it expects from whoever holds that office next.

We are asking every Onslow County resident who believes in accountable government—regardless of political party—to sign this petition, share the documented investigation, and demand a public response.

Read the investigation and examine the records yourself:

https://hubertunitednc.org/plateranger-alpr-investigation/

The questions are legitimate.

The money is public.

The authority belongs to the people.

Release the records. Suspend the system. Remove the cameras. No more excuses.