{"id":83846,"date":"2026-06-24T00:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/83846\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T00:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:54:13","slug":"debates-around-artificial-intelligence-continue-as-shasta-board-passes-ai-resolution-shasta-scout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/83846\/","title":{"rendered":"Debates around artificial intelligence continue as Shasta board passes AI resolution \u2013 Shasta Scout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Shasta County Administrative Office. Photo by Moe Shimizu<\/p>\n

Soldiers at the front lines and the biblical beast from the Book of Revelation were two of the metaphors used today in discussions about the use of artificial intelligence held during a Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The board unanimously voted to pass a resolution<\/a> to integrate AI use into county departments for increased efficiency and cost reduction, but not before plenty of mixed input from both supervisors and the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The resolution, sponsored by District 4 Supervisor Matt Plummer, had already been discussed<\/a> in a meeting earlier this month when it was pushed back to incorporate input from Thomas Schreiber, Shasta County\u2019s Chief Information Officer. Schreiber attended the meeting today to provide additional context and answer questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before Schreiber spoke, Plummer reiterated that his intention with the resolution is to encourage the use of AI solutions to support employee shortages and respond to financial challenges in county departments. He emphasized that AI wouldn\u2019t be used to replace employees, and that the county would implement safeguards to make sure human oversight is maintained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schreiber followed by encouraging the board to treat AI as a \u201ctool\u201d the county could use to resolve problems within county departments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom IT, we\u2019re looking at this tool like we look at any other software tool,\u201d Schreiber said. \u201cWhat is the problem we\u2019re trying to solve? Is this one of the tools that could do that for a department?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The supervisors addressed questions to Schreiber about what the implementation of AI might look like. District 2 Supervisor Allen Long asked about security concerns, saying that he was especially worried about sensitive information potentially being leaked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schreiber responded by saying that the type of AI the county would implement would be through a contracted vendor that would provide a specific platform that \u201cbuilds that security into there,\u201d with \u201cparameters and terms within the agreement\u201d to make sure sensitive data would be containerized within the county.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schreiber also denied all rumors of a data center being built in Shasta County. His statement came in response to a question from District 5 Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, who said he had received concerned emails from the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, the county is not building their own AI data center,\u201d Schreiber said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both Plummer and Schreiber also emphasized that the county would be outlining a more in-depth policy following a vote by the board to support the resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother step that we\u2019re currently working on, but is not ready yet, is more of a detailed policy around acceptable uses, prohibited uses, delineating between high-risk-and-low cases of AI, and who gets to review that,\u201d Plummer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schreiber noted that the county was looking to use Placer County\u2019s AI policy<\/a> as a template for Shasta\u2019s policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI stole the policy from Placer County,\u201d Schreiber said, noting that there is collaboration between IT departments across the 58 California counties. \u201cThey have a full blown AI policy we\u2019re vetting and using as our template.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While most of the conversation in the meeting was forward-facing, some comments were a clear reminder that AI use remains a highly controversial and unpredictable point of debate, even for some supervisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s scary, because you don\u2019t want to be the first one to push your soldiers out there on the front line, and then get shot, right?\u201d District 3 Supervisor Corkey Harmon said about the county potentially becoming dependent on AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some members of the public blatantly criticized the resolution, with one commenter making a reference to AI as \u201cthe beast\u201d from the Book of Revelation, a character sometimes interpreted as the Antichrist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While debates around AI continue, the resolution being passed 5-0 today means that the county will move towards further incorporation of the technology into county departments. Supervisors have said that AI is already being used in some county departments, but so far without official rules. Plummer hopes this resolution will be the next step towards changing that. He told Shasta Scout earlier this month that he hopes a more detailed policy will be ready by the end of the summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shasta County Administrative Office. Photo by Moe Shimizu Soldiers at the front lines and the biblical beast from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,221,25,12604,85,8437,45266,45267,45268,45269],"class_list":["post-83846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-ai-policy","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-board","tag-data-center","tag-it","tag-matt-plummer","tag-schreiber","tag-shasta-county","tag-thomas-schreiber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}