Republicans in the Arizona House of Representatives have invoked their legal right on Monday to request an investigation by Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) over their concerns regarding how federal COVID-19 money was spent by Yuma County officials.
In a letter, lawmakers asked Mayes to launch an investigation to determine if the appointment of Nebraska-based Allo Communications by Yuma County to build rural Internet infrastructure violated both “state law and the Gift Clause of the Arizona Constitution,” in addition to “favoritism and abuse through a fundamentally flawed and potentially illegal procurement process.”
State Representatives Laurin Hendrix (R-Gilbert) (pictured above) led a letter including signatures from Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale), Justin Heap (R-Mesa), Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), David Marshall (R-Snowflake) and Barbara Parker (R-Mesa) requesting Mayes launch an SB 1487 investigation.
“We cannot ignore Yuma County’s apparent disregard of Arizona law and the lack of oversight and accountability surrounding this critical project,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.
The lawmakers note that Yuma County received money from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 funding programs to provide rural Internet access to its residents, and after a series of meetings of the county’s Board of Supervisors, entered into an agreement with Allo to build the infrastructure.
Minutes of the 2022 meeting of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors reveals there was concern that the agreement with Allo would violate Arizona law due to the company’s lack of a contractor’s license within the state, but the supervisors voted to adopt their agreement with Allo as-is, and did not add provisions about the license dispute.
