01 Flock wrote the city's no-bid justification
The sole-source letter that justified skipping competitive bidding was drafted by the vendor who won the contract.
Public agencies normally must competitively bid large purchases. A “sole source” letter is how an agency justifies skipping that. In this case, the vendor supplied the letter itself — plus other cities’ staff reports to use as templates.
From: John Anderson, Territory Manager, Northern California, Flock Safety — February 22, 2021 (to Chief Michael Greene and Lt. Mark Menesini): “Chief and Lt., here is the Sole Source Letter. I’ve also included a copy of the agreement so we can start on the legal process, and a couple of examples for staff reports.”
Attachments: “Sole Source Letter - Benicia Police Department.pdf,” “Covina Staff Report - 2020.pdf,” “Azusa - Staff Report - 2020-9.pdf”
Two months later he sent an updated one:
From: John Anderson — April 29, 2021: “See attached for an updated agreement along with our most current Sole Source letter for good measure.” Attachment: “Sole Source Letter - Benicia Police Department (3).pdf”
Why it matters: The document used to justify not shopping around was authored by the company that stood to win the contract, using boilerplate recycled across cities.
Source: Flock Safety Sole Source Letter.txt; Updated Flock Agreement.txt (PR-2025-159).
The documents behind this
Read them yourself — that is the point.
| Document | Request |
|---|---|
| Flock Safety Sole Source Letter.pdf | PR-2025-159 |
| Updated Flock Agreement.pdf | PR-2025-159 |
| Sole Source Letter - Benicia Police Department.pdf | PR-2025-159 |
Full write-up source: BENICIA-FLOCK-FINDINGS.md in the records archive. Every
quotation is transcribed from a PDF the City produced under the California Public Records
Act. Redacted and image-only scans were run through OCR, so minor spacing artifacts may
remain; wording is unchanged.