15 The City published a camera map in 2025, then called the same information a security risk in 2026new

The City’s position on what it can safely say about its cameras has narrowed, and the record shows both ends of the move.

October 2, 2025 — final response to PR-2025-200. The City withheld current precise locations under the §7922.000 public-interest balancing test alone, and expressly released “previously disclosed locations of cameras which were included in the attached PowerPoints presented to the public.” What it actually produced included:

• 3. Map of Camera Placement.pdf — a pin map of Benicia with per-location camera counts, captioned as an attachment to a presentation given to the public
• Flock Camera Locations_Redacted.pdf — the per-device inventory described in finding 13, disclosing operational status and uptime for all 51 cameras

July 21, 2026 — response to PR-2026-180. The City withheld camera-location information under the §7922.000 balancing test and added Government Code §7923.600(a), on the basis that disclosure “would reveal law enforcement security procedures, investigative methods, and operational deployment strategies,” would let people “avoid detection, exploit coverage gaps,” and would create “a substantial risk to public safety.”

Why it matters. Same category of information, same agency, a broader exemption nine months later — with no stated reason for the change. And throughout that period the vendor’s own weekly emails to city staff continued to report the deployment status that the City now treats as sensitive.

Stated fairly: the exemptions are not identical in scope. §7922.000 is a balancing test and §7923.600(a) is a categorical law-enforcement exemption; an agency may invoke both, and the July letter concerns a different request. Nothing here shows the earlier release was improper or the later one unlawful. What it shows is a shift the City has not explained — which is why the follow-up sent on 2026-07-26 asks it to explain, or to produce the same report updated and redacted the same way.

Evidence: _submissions/correspondence/2025-10-02_PR-2025-200_FINAL.md, _submissions/correspondence/2026-07-21_PR-2026-180_partial-release.md, PR-2025-200/pdf/3. Map of Camera Placement.pdf, PR-2025-200/pdf/Flock Camera Locations_Redacted.pdf