Committee OKs forwarding prosecutor’s gun-storage public-education grant to full board

The Jackson County Public Safety and Transportation Committee voted to forward acceptance of a grant to the full county board that would fund a digital public-education campaign on Michigan’s new gun-storage law.

Prosecutor’s office representative Kelsey told the committee the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan awarded the county a reimbursement grant intended to teach firearm storage rules to adults with children in their lives and to reach teens through targeted digital ads. Kelsey said the funds “allow us to use that information on the other side of helping target the teens, and helping the teens understand what some of those issues are.”

The request mattered to the committee because the campaign uses file-matching and app-derived audience data to target messages. Commissioners asked whether the money is state or federal and how the targeting works. Kelsey clarified the grant is being administered through the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan and said the awards were funded federally and are being distributed through the state-level association. She described two targeting methods: matching email addresses and cell numbers to lists, and identifying likely households with children through app data shared by contractors.

Committee members pressed for specifics about vendors. Kelsey identified a PR firm she called “PPD” as the group that will handle voter-list and app-derived targeting, said the ad push will be handled by an agency labeled BCS LLC, and said a vendor called bcode.io will manage file uploads and ad-targeting setup. Kelsey said campaign audiences will include teenagers and adults with small children and that the campaign plans to work with local high school principals to involve teens in creating content.

Commissioner questions also touched on partners listed in the narrative. When a commissioner asked about references to organizations such as Brady, Kelsey said those names were examples of groups that have run similar campaigns in the past and are not local partners for the Jackson County effort. She said local partners will include law enforcement and the county Department of Health and Human Services.

The committee considered and voted on a motion to forward the grant acceptance to the full board. The motion was made by Commissioner Duckham and supported by Commissioner Williams. In a roll call, Commissioners Bair, Walls, Dockum, Williams and Chairman Kennedy voted yes; the motion passed.

What happens next: Kelsey told the committee the county has not yet signed grant documents and that reimbursement timelines require that all funds be used by March of the following year. The committee vote forwarded the grant acceptance to the full board for final approval.