The debate over Flock cameras in Avondale Estates is about surveillance, privacy and public safety. But it has also raised a more fundamental question: What does it mean to be a self-governing community?

Surveillance technology is not new, nor is the difficult balance between public safety and personal privacy. Governments around the world have drawn that line in very different places. There are reasonable arguments about whether tools like Flock cameras help law enforcement, whether their benefits outweigh their risks, and what safeguards a government should require before using them.

I have my own serious concerns about Flock cameras and the enormous amount of information they collect. But an issue precedes even that debate.

We govern ourselves.

In a representative democracy, we do not personally vote on every contract, ordinance or policy decision. We elect neighbors to do that work for us. Most of the time, residents do not attend meetings, circulate petitions or contact elected officials about every decision before them. Nor should we have to. We elect representatives precisely because governing requires thousands of decisions, and we entrust them to exercise good judgment in our interest.

But that arrangement does not transfer ownership of our government from the people to the people we elect.

It delegates authority. And there is an important difference.

When the public is largely silent on an issue, elected officials must use their judgment. But when residents do show up, when they speak at meetings, contact their representatives and organize around a specific issue, that deserves more than acknowledgment before officials proceed with what they had already decided was best.

On Flock cameras, I attended the Avondale Estates Board of Mayor and Commissioners meeting and listened to residents speak. There is now a petition (change.org/p/cancel-the-flock-contract-in-avondale-estates-ga) asking the city to remove the cameras. I have heard considerable opposition. What I have not seen is a corresponding groundswell of residents asking the city to keep them and that should matter.

Our elected officials are members of this community, just as we are.

We chose them to represent us, not to stand above us.

Election to public office gives someone a responsibility to exercise judgment; it does not give that person’s judgment greater ownership of the community than the people who live here.

There will inevitably be issues where public opinion is divided. There will be competing petitions, packed meetings on both sides and difficult decisions where someone will leave disappointed and that is democracy too. But when a community is actively telling its government, “We do not want this,” elected officials should need an extraordinary reason to answer, “We know, but we are doing it anyway.”