Security cameras, paid for by the insurer
White Pine County's largest camera purchase came from its own insurance pool, to reduce vandalism claims. It is the only camera system this county has on record, and it is not a policing system at all.
At a glance
- What was approved
- Grant award 0226-RM-2022 from POOL/PACT Risk Management Grants for security cameras to prevent vandalism in the county [1]
- The money
- $87,346.10 total, of which $65,509.57 (75%) from POOL/PACT and a county match of $21,836.53 from SB74 funds [1]
- Who is paying
- POOL/PACT, the insurance pool Nevada local governments run between themselves. The county's insurer funds three quarters of it [1]
- Stated purpose
- to prevent vandalism [1]
- Where the cameras went
- not stated in the grant item. "in the county" is as specific as the record gets [1]
- Retention, access, or any written policy
- none found. These are county facility cameras rather than a law enforcement system, and no Nevada statute governs either [2]
How it happened
- Decision
The county accepts its insurer's camera grant
The Board of Commissioners approved acceptance of POOL/PACT Risk Management grant 0226-RM-2022 for security cameras to prevent vandalism, $87,346.10 in total with a county match of $21,836.53. The item was presented by the Finance Director and the county's grant writer, in a block of grant business rather than as a policing item. [1]
The insurer bought the cameras
Most camera systems on this site were bought by a police agency, for policing, out of a public safety budget. This one was not.
White Pine County’s commissioners approved a grant award “from POOL/PACT Risk Management Grants for security cameras to prevent vandalism in the county in the total amount of $87,346.10 with 75% ($65,509.57) from POOL/PACT and a County required match of $21,836.53 from SB74 Funds.”
POOL/PACT is the insurance pool Nevada’s local governments run between themselves. So the county’s insurer paid three quarters of the cost, the stated purpose was reducing vandalism, and the item reached the board as grant business presented by the Finance Director and a grant writer.
It is the largest camera purchase in this county’s record, and the only one of any size.
Why this belongs on the site anyway
There is nothing sinister here, and this page is not suggesting there is. Buildings get broken into, insurers would rather pay for a camera than a claim, and a small county taking the money is behaving sensibly.
It is here because it is how most public cameras in most small places actually arrive. Not through a debate about surveillance, and not through a police budget, but through a risk-management grant on a consent-style agenda, with the purpose stated as property protection.
That route has no policy attached to it. Nothing in the record says where the cameras are, how long footage is kept, who can look at it, or what happens when a law enforcement agency asks. County facility cameras are not covered by Nevada’s body camera statute, and Nevada has no statute covering cameras generally, so there is no default rule to fall back on either.
A camera bought to deter vandalism is still a camera pointed at a public place. The question of who can watch it later is a separate question from why it was bought, and in this county nobody has been asked it.
The rest of what this county has
Very little. An airport gate camera and a bubble camera on the FBO building, discussed after a break-in, at about $11,594. Ten thousand dollars moved inside the airport capital budget from signage to cameras. And a camera system for the McGill ball park that a town council has been carrying forward from meeting to meeting.
No plate readers, no drones, no gunshot detection, no facial recognition and no camera registry appear anywhere in two million characters of this county’s board papers.
What we do not know
- Where these cameras were installed, which the grant item does not say.
- Whether anything governs who may review the footage, how long it is kept, or what happens if a law enforcement agency asks for it.
- Whether the City of Ely's separately awarded cameras are part of the same arrangement. An emergency planning minute records that the city "was awarded to add cameras", and the city's record is not in this corpus.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in White Pine County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in White Pine County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1.
- 2. Orwell Index corpus scan of the White Pine County Agenda Center, Board of Commissioners, Local Emergency Planning Committee and Telephone Emergency Reporting 911 Advisory Committee categories since January 2023: 308 documents fetched, 286 readable, 1,996,331 characters · Primary document · · accessed
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