Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

On Wednesday, the Utah County Commission approved a plan adding four full-time victim advocates to the Utah County Attorney’s Office.

Officially called victim and witness coordinators, the positions entails offering “support to victims of violent and/or felony crimes during the criminal prosecution of the offender,” according to the department website.

Adding the positions was a campaign goal for County Attorney Jeff Gray, who included the request in a speech to public officials during his swearing-in ceremony.

“Those victim are entitled to justice and they’re entitled to the help of the system — ’cause it’s a scary system once you’re in it, for victims,” Gray said in January.

The positions will be funded through 2026 using resources made available in the American Rescue Plan Act. According to the National Association of Counties, the bill allocated $65.1 billion in economic aid directly to county governments to use as they see fit.

Josh Reynolds, Associated Press

Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner called it “unfortunate” to use grant funding for the hiring at first, rather than make the full-time positions permanent.

“We have several years to try to find funding. Doing them with grant funding is better than not at all,” she said.

Also approved without additional discussion was the purchase of a Spot robot from Boston Dynamics for use by the Utah County bomb squad.

The robot will be purchased for $290,400, including a warranty package, from Radeco, a defense contractor and distributor for Boston Dynamics.

In a letter of determination to the commission, Utah County Purchasing Manager Robert Baxter wrote that the county is purchasing the robot directly from the company, rather than going through the state.

The quote under state contact MA3871 was for $312,929 — just over $31,000 more than it would cost to buy directly from the company.

“The prices only go up but the technology has gone way up and the capabilities go way up,” Sgt. Doug Willes, bomb squad commander for UCSO, told the Daily Herald.

The robot is not a new expense for Utah County. Rather, it will replace an existing robot originally purchased in the lead-up to the 2002 Winter Olympics, which is nearing the end of its lifespan. The purchase was made using the county’s equipment replacement fund, which allows for incremental saving to replace high-cost items once they reach the end of their lifespan, Powers Gardner explained.

Spot is described by the company as “a nimble robot that climbs stairs and traverses rough terrain with unprecedented ease, yet is small enough to use indoors.” According to Willes, the quadrupedal machine, often called a robot dog due to its shape and design, can cover more area than other bipedal robots the bomb squad currently uses.

“The Spot is narrow enough to search airplane aisles, train aisles, bus aisles and still tall enough to search and do a good search of the entire area,” Willes said. “It can access stairs and doors and things like that in a home a lot better than our other robots do.”

Robots that are tall enough to search whole areas are generally too wide for aisles and vice versa. Each year, the bomb squad goes on around 50-70 calls in the state. While a part of the UCSO, the group often covers other counties that need assistance.

“We try to use robots on every call we can just to keep our bomb tech safe,” Willes said. “The whole purchase of this thing is to keep people out of harm’s way. If a robot gets beat up or shot or demolished … we can replace those items, we can’t replace people.”

Along with the regularly scheduled commission meeting next Wednesday, the body will hold a public hearing to discuss potential changes to existing salaries of county officers. The hearing will be held at the beginning of the full meeting.

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