Union County

In May 2023 the Union County Commissioners set aside $75,000 of federal pandemic relief money to upgrade the camera system at the county jail. By October the bid had come back at nearly double that.

From the minutes of 4 October 2023, with Lt. Nick Huelter of the Sheriff’s Office presenting:

“After carefully reviewing the proposals, Lt. Heulter and IT Manager, Jason Fouts recommend the Verkada system at a cost of $131,181.52 for equipment and an additional $10,000 to be paid to Alpine Alarm for Cat-5 cable installations. The total installed cost would be $141,181.52, which is $66,181.52 above the allocated ARPA funds.”

The interesting part is where the missing $66,181.52 came from. The minutes call it Option A:

“‘Option A’, mentions moving funds that are currently in the Corrections budget under Medical Services. The reason for utilizing those funds, was due to Lt. Huelter negotiating a contract for medical services in the jail. At that time, there was concern that it was going to be much costlier than it ended up being, so there are funds available that could be applied towards this request.”

Money budgeted for medical care of people held in the jail, left unspent because a contract came in cheaper than feared, paid for the cameras watching them. A further $5,000 came from a risk management grant. The motion carried unanimously.

Nothing about this was hidden or improper. The reallocation was presented openly, minuted, and voted through in public. What the record documents is a budget line, not anyone’s motives. It is also the kind of trade a resident would never learn about from an announcement, which is why it is here.

One commissioner asked an operational question and got a direct answer:

“Commissioner Anderes asked how often video is reviewed. Lt. Huelter indicated that it is reviewed daily, which is why there is a need for a new camera system.”

Daily review of footage inside a correctional facility. No retention period, no access rule and no audit provision appears anywhere in what we read.

Two patterns connect this county to others on this site. Verkada, a cloud camera vendor, turns up again in Curry County, whose Board was asked in August 2026 to approve a $77,000 system for its fairgrounds. Neither purchase appears in any surveillance dataset. And this is the third Oregon county in our coverage where federal pandemic relief funded surveillance equipment, after Malheur’s $137,515.03 payment to Axon from its American Rescue Plan fund. That route is only visible if you read the money rather than the agenda titles.

There are no plate readers in this county’s record. ALPR, automated license plate, Flock and Axon all return nothing across 204 machine readable documents. The seven mentions of drones are a vegetation treatment bid, comparing a helicopter contractor at $27.50 an acre against a drone operator at $75,814.25, with a commissioner asking which gets better coverage on difficult terrain. That is aerial herbicide, not surveillance. The one mention of a license plate is a resident complaining about a derelict vehicle with New York plates.

We read the Board of Commissioners from 2023 through 2026. The county publishes its meeting list back to 2008, and those fifteen years are unread, as is every city record for La Grande, Island City, Cove, Elgin, Imbler, North Powder, Summerville and Union.