Commissioners approve Title 3 technology bill

The Churchill County Commissioners ratified and adopted Bill 2016-B Ordinance 7 amending the provisions of Title 3 regarding information technology at their bimonthly meeting Thursday morning.

This meeting was the final hearing of this bill, read by Assistant District Attorney Ben Shawcroft, that exists for the purpose of clarifying any public/county data storage on personal devices used for county business, which would qualify as public records.

The main purpose of the final reading was to reiterate that mobile devices are not protected if they are used by county employees for the transfer of county-related business or data under the new bill.

Shawcroft, however, was adamant in addressing the employees’ concerns and said as a reminder, most of the data or text messages stored on cellphones would not qualify as public records because they are transitory in nature and they don’t often satisfy the definition of a public record. Most departments have policy transmitting any date which would qualify to an official file which becomes public record.

“I think we’ve been able to satisfy most of those concerns,” Shawcroft said of questions. “We’re trying to help people understand they can continue doing business as usual for the most part but just to be more cognizant of the types of things they’re using their personal devices for.”

Before the discussion ended, Shawcroft also said, in regards to how this information would be obtained under the Freedom of Information Law, the county would not seize the phone used to transmit public data but rather trusting employees to turn over only pertinent information instead of a data dump. No changes have been made on the bill since it was first brought to the board in the last commission meeting, though, Commissioner Pete Olsen said the board will likely be revisiting the bill as social media and technology advances.

Under old business, the commissioners also ratified County Manager Eleanor Lockwood’s protest on behalf of Churchill County of Application No. 86233 to appropriate water pending at the state engineer’s office. Lockwood said she and County Water Rights Engineer Chris Mahannah had weighed the value of submitting comments as opposed to a formal protest in light of the Pershing County Commissioners also submitting a protest without instruction or submission to Mahannah. He still decided it was the best course of action.

Under new business, commissioners approved the transfer of funds from the regional transportation fund to the road fund as presented by Comptroller Alan Kalt.

The transfer was first discussed at the Regional Transportation Committee meeting in July for $120,260 for the Mission Road gravel upgrade, $103,477 for the Perrazzo Lane gravel upgrade and $80,205 for the Dodge Lane gravel upgrade.

Commissioners also discussed or took action on the following items:

Approved the amendment to the Cooperative Agreement for the creation of Nevadaworks.

Reappointed Jesse Lattin to serve a three-year term on the Churchill County Wildlife Advisory Board ending June 30, 2019.

Approved a renewed license agreement with the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education on behalf of the University of Nevada, Reno for the Agricultural Experiment Station’s Newlands Research Center in Churchill County.

Appointed David Colburn to serve a four-year term on the Churchill County Parks and Recreation Commission ending June 30, 2020.