The second half of Yavapai County District 2 Supervisor James Gregory’s town hall on Tuesday, Jan. 14, at Oak Creek Elementary School dealt primarily with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.

“You guys are a pretty well-behaved community. There’s not a lot of violent crime and a lot of wildness going on,” Lt. Dan Pritchard said.

Bill Grey Road

“The camping issues in Willow Point, Oak Creek Valley, Bill Grey Road, those are all major issues, points of concern for everybody in this room,” Forest Patrol Sgt. Blake Lanoue said. “I’m in charge of our Forest Patrol Division now, so a part of my task is these rural enforcement type areas. So Crown King, Bill Grey Road. A lot of the recreation in the Sedona area … One of the big focal points that we’ve been focused on the last couple months has been Bill Grey Road and Willow Point.”

Lanoue said that campers have been concentrating along Bill Grey Road, which runs through an area of State Trust land outside Cottonwood, due to the U.S. Forest Service closing large areas of public land to camping.

In late 2024, YCSO completed seven camping enforcement details along Bill Grey Road and contacted over 60 people in that area of State Trust land.

“When we say ‘contacts,’ that’s people that we actually spoke to, ran a driver’s license, figured

out where they live or where they don’t live, or who they are,” Lanoue said.  “We’re doing orange checks, things like that, to kind of weed out some of that riff-raff. We’ve issued 16 trespass warnings, and we’ve issued another 10 actual trespass citations.”

Lanoue added that most campers they encounter are following the rules, hold valid State Trust land permits and are staying within the 14-day limit. Deputies remind campers of the 14-day rule, which is counted from the day they are contacted, when it can be documented by YCSO. Deputies conduct followup checks every few weeks.

Among the people that have been camping along Bill Grey Road are the Aker family, who have been living in a donated camper and relocated to the Verde Valley after a house fire in Globe on May 22.

The family of five are looking for supplies or construction jobs for husband Dylan and can be reached at (928) 324-9555.

“We are working on cleaning that up as much as we can, we understand that some of the people that are out there, they just don’t have anywhere else to go,” Lanoue said. “Not everybody that’s out there is living and destroying their area [with] garbage … the majority of the people that are out there are not doing that.”

“Every time we do one of these details, we take stacks of pamphlets for outreach, community resources and stuff that we can give them,” Lanoue said. “Look, we know you don’t have any place to go, but this is not the solution. We try to give them as much of that resource as possible. However, it’s up to them if they want to take it.” Lanoue said that YCSO plans to do “at least monthly” Bill Grey Road details.

Traffic

Pritchard reported a decrease in traffic accidents in the Cornville area, which dropped from 165 in 2023 to 140 in 2024. He attributed the decrease to increased YCSO enforcement, as YCSO did 540 more traffic stops in the area in 2024 than it did in 2023, and a reduction in the speed limits along Cornville Road.

“We are seeing improvement. However, I understand that it may not feel that way and it may not look that way immediately. The speeds that we’re seeing are coming down,” Pritchard said.

One resident said that he saw two or three instances per week of what he described as drivers passing other vehicles at high speeds on the Cornville Road switchbacks.

“We’ll try to get some additional details out here,” Pritchard said. “We have two cars that have what they call ‘ghost graphics,’ where they’re just not as obvious.”

Pritchard announced that five of the nine new YCSO deputies who graduated from the Northern Arizona Regional Training Academy on Dec. 12 will likely be assigned to the Verde Valley and the Village of Oak Creek. Those new hires are currently going through additional training and will receive their assignments in April.

Pritchard also announced that YCSO has office space in Verde Valley Fire District Station 32, with the help of Verde Valley Fire District Chief Danny Johnson.

“I want to broaden our footprint within your communities,” Pritchard said. “We finally have a space in the fire station for the deputies to be able to park and write reports. It is not going to be an open office where you can knock on the door unfortunately. It’s a 12-by-five closet with computer that the guys can accomplish their administrative work. But it allows us to stay in your community and not make the 20-minute drive back to Camp Verde just to do administrative [tasks].