Regional

With nearly $23 million to spend in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money, the Yavapai County Supervisors agreed this week that the main focus should be on infrastructure improvements.

Even though more than $22 million of American Rescue Plan money has now been deposited in Yavapai County’s coffers, the uses for the funding have yet to be determined.

The Arizona Down race track in Prescott Valley opened its summer season this week, the first event since the track was shut down last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the opening of the new Yavapai County Criminal Justice Center in Prescott now about 15 months away, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office is planning ahead for the massive round of hiring that will be needed to staff the new jail.

The Yavapai College District Governing Board will hold a budget hearing, budget adoption at its regular monthly meeting at 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 18 for consideration of the proposed budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

May 10 to 24, public access to portions of the Verde River will be closed to allow for feral cattle removal, according to a news release from the Prescott National Forest.

The statistics of suicide in Yavapai County are sobering.

The International Dark-Sky Association’s website describes such a designation as: “A public or private land possessing an exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights and nocturnal environment that is specifically protected for its scientific, natural, education, cultural, heritage and/or public enjoyment.”

Ponderosa pine trees infested with bark beetles are dying at a dramatically higher rate than usual during the drought conditions of the past year and a half, says the Prescott National Forest.

The 9 a.m. meeting will be broadcast through an online link found on yavapai.us/meetings.

As we come off one of Arizona’s worst fire seasons in over a decade, the National Weather Service in Flagstaff announced that it doesn’t seem 2021 will yield better results as well-below-average precipitation levels in February have allowed severe-to-exceptional drought conditions to continue across Northern Arizona.

Two items that would have helped speed along construction of Yavapai County’s justice center were removed from last week’s Board of Supervisors agenda, with no explanation given.

The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office is still working out vaccination details with its county’s health department.

The supervisors will consider approving utility easements for both the relocation of APS electrical lines along Prescott Lakes Parkway for the justice center, as well as for a temporary transformer on-site.

With the recent completion of much of the mass grading at the new Prescott Justice Center and Jail site, Yavapai County is now about 15% into its $75.6 million project.

Despite dire warnings of what was likely to happen during the early months of the COVID-19 shutdown in spring 2020, Yavapai County’s revenues have continued to grow.

A sidewalk project in Prescott Valley was among three items Yavapai County will submit for community development block grants.

Yavapai County Phil Bourdon confirmed priorities outlined in a news release sent out last week that details a few items the county will be fighting for at the legislature this year.

There is going to be another spike in positive COVID-19 diagnoses about two weeks after Christmas vacations end. The question, according to one Northern Arizona Healthcare administrator, is how much hospitalization and death will accompany that spike.

The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors for 2021-24 were sworn in Tuesday at a ceremony in Prescott.

Yavapai County continues to be one of Arizona’s “substantial risk” areas for COVID-19 transmissions with 603 new cases reported since Friday.

Another major contractual step for the construction of the new jail facility in Prescott is part of the agenda for the Wednesday, Dec. 16, Yavapai County Board of Supervisors meeting.

On Tuesday, Dec. 8, the Prescott Valley Police Department arrested a Prescott Valley teenager for the Dec. 3 early morning shooting into the occupied home of a Yavapai County Sheriff’s deputy.

With approval of an engineering change for the new Yavapai County Criminal Justice Center project in Prescott this week, the Board of Supervisors appears poised to consider the final contract and guaranteed maximum price later this month.

In the early morning hours of Thursday, Dec. 3, an unidentified person fired multiple rounds into an occupied residence in the 8300 block of East Loos Drive, in Prescott Valley, according to the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office.