Several public commenters spoke out in Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting regarding an agenda item for a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The grant is part of the state homeland security program for fiscal year 2024, which grants the county $316,482 to be spent on equipment for various emergency services. These include sets of helmet mounted night vision binoculars, unmanned aircraft systems to improve law enforcement surveillance, a methane gas leak detector for the county hazmat response team, plexiglass security barriers for the county elections office, and more. The board received significant correspondence via email, and public comment for this item, raising concerns over ‘strings attached’ regarding immigration enforcement from ICE. “My gut feeling is we should not accept this… I want it to be a message to people that we do not support the federal agency, at least the ICE piece of it, that is operating in our county and removing people.”
The board asked sheriff Ian Parkinson to clarify the role of the sheriff’s office with ICE. “The only thing that has meaning is two things: one if the person has been convicted of a violent felony… or two, there is a federal warrant,” Parkinson said.
The grant was approved unanimously by the board as part of the consent agenda. Supervisors Gibson and Jimmy Paulding spoke directly against the current methods of ICE’s efforts.
