The Yabapai County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a $796,570 budget, including a two-year state grant of $557,370, to fund the full-time lieutenant of the Yabapai County Sheriff’s Office OHV Law Enforcement, during its meeting on Wednesday, June 4th.
“[YCSO] YCSO Chief Deputy Jeff Newnum said: [The award] We provide us with one equivalent agent to have a full-time equivalent agent there. [UTV] It is fully equipped for enforcement purposes. ”
The project costs include a county contribution of staff time of $239,200, $108,100 for equipment that includes 12 trail cameras and $10,000, known as educational material.
“People are screaming this, and it’s torn out there,” said District 4 supervisor Chris Kunyo [R] I said. “A lot of people owe these things. I don’t know if there’s a way to hold tenants accountable for some of the actions that the tenants are doing to who they rent. But I know Sedona is struggling with this.”
Kunho also said the north side of District 4, from north of Prescott to Seligman, is “struggling.”
Newnum said the new agent will be assigned to YCSO Forest Patrol Squad to provide support for technical rope presscue, Swift Water Rescue, Helicopter Rescue and Supply 4×4 and Highway vehicles, mountain bike teams, hikers, ground search teams and aircraft, according to the YCSO website.
“We look forward to seeing this move move forward,” said NikkiCheck, District 3 manager, manager of District 3. [D] I said. “It’s all about dealing with the effects of OHV, not endoll, but it’s a great start. [We] We want to be dedicated and find a permanent solution to make sure we can as a county address this issue.
Newnum said YCSO is “looking for a way to add additional resources” to enforce OHV.
The board had previously approved the submission of the grant application on April 16th.
“This is the culmination of about three years of work I completed with my staff in the Arizona Legislature and essentially completed the OHV across the state, and certainly here in Yabapai County, it’s heads close to many residents.”
Rhodes said the Covid-19 pandemic response coincided with the rise in the number of licensed OHVs in Arizona from 100,000 to 250,000, causing “this burgeoning cost of OHV enforcement as they began to return to the county,” but did not provide the costs for enforcement of YCSO or other rural areas.
Rhodes was due to the grant awards being done by the Arizona Offway Vehicle Research Committee, the Legislative Research Committee, where he is a member, and persuaded lawmakers to allocate funds to police from the OHV registration.
“Each county has put together its own programs as a way to address this,” Rhodes said. “The way I set this up is to have a new…certified agent who is your OHV coordinator.”
Rhodes also said that helicopter YCSO “recently purchased” could contribute to the OHV enforcement.
“The Arizona State Parks Commission says they’re going to continue to fund this for the county forever, but they can only approve it at once,” Rhodes said. “We have implemented a law in the Arizona Legislature that specifically funds the county for this enforcement, and we’ll see what that will happen.”
YCSO did not respond to follow-up questions regarding OHV enforcement and jurisdiction at each reporting time.
