KINGMAN, Ariz – Since at least one person had approached the Mohave County Board of Supervisors (BOS) with concerns about the use of flock cameras, County Attorney Michael Smith was asked to addressed the issue. The Yellow Bus route was back on the agenda and a long discussion took place on public library policies concerning children and what they could check out.
At the March 16 BOS meeting, Library Director Jake Barillaro was directed to return with policies on how to keep inappropriate books from the hands of children. As policy was, Supervisor Gould said an 11-year-old could check out anything they wanted to. They said policies were needed that would give more control to the parents and what they wanted their children to see, i.e., keeping adult books separately so children could not see them or to rate all the books.
Director Barillaro said there were 180,000 items in the library and to go through, read each book even for 15 minutes, to rate them would take 41,000 hours.
This agenda item was continued until the library Advisory Board had discussed this and the Supervisors Board received comments back from them. Barillaro is expected to come back in November with those comments.
Another topic Monday was the flock cameras just approved for the Sheriff’s Department. At least one constituent had contacted a supervisor with concerns. County Attorney Michael Smith was asked to address the issue.
He said there were concerns about the flock camera usage and constitutional rights.
“They are constitutional,” Smith said and added that our cell phones are more of an invasion of privacy than the cameras.
Smith stated that license plate readers do not send facial recognition and they’re not actively watched by deputies.
Supervisor Gould disagreed.
“They’re building a mosaic with our tax dollars so they can survey the people. They’ve been automated to pick up sound,” Gould stated. “Facial recognition is just a matter of software update.”
“It’s a dangerous road,” Gould continued. “It currently may not be unconstitutional. We are a free country, not a surveillance country.”
The Yellow Bus route was back on the agenda to approve and authorize Board Chair to sign the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) between the City of Kingman and Mohave County to provide $30,000 through June 30, 2027 to operate the Yellow Bus line from the utility contingency fund for one year.
Supervisor Gould said they should be looking at $.25 million to expand public transportation in other cities too. For a minute, it sounded like they weren’t going to approve the Yellow Bus line until Supervisor Martin reminded them that people with no transportation need it to go to doctor’s appointments and to go grocery shopping. “We have an obligation to assist these folks. This $30,000 is a good investment,” Martin said. The agenda item was approved.
Chuck De Shazer showed the supervisors an article in The Standard regarding possible corruption and nepotism at Topock Elementary School, also said that the school board there had started a Pilates class, approved by the school board. He said they charged $10 per person to take the class, yet the school was not getting the money, but instead being pocketed by Kaili Lee, principal. He also told the Supervisors that if anyone got hurt taking that class, the county could be sued.
Supervisor Borrelli, former Arizona Senator, said he would have the school audited.
For more information on county business go to https://www.mohave.gov/
