Jones and his four officers scour side roads, back-country areas and winding canyon passages, looking for illegal activity, drug use or something as simple as no insurance. The other five-member traffic team keeps an eye on the county's valley roads while the other 40 or so patrol officers respond to calls and root out crime when they can.

From January to mid-October of this year, county officers had arrested more than 1,300 people for DUI, alcohol offenses and drug possession.

"If any prudent taxpayer knew the amount of alcohol, narcotics, assaults, something as minimal as no insurance, if they knew what was out there, (a tax increase) would become an investment, not an expense," Jones said.

That now-forgone tax increase might have secured jobs for men like Zac Adams, who knows he's low in the ranks, having been in patrol and on Jones' canyon team less than a year.

He comes from a family of officers. His brother Josh works for Orem's Department of Public Safety, and his brother Joseph was an officer with Lehi when he was fatally shot during a traffic stop in August 2001.

"When it first happened, it was deterring," Adams said of his brother's death. "I had already seen what my family had gone through. But then it became quite a motivational experience, to try to carry on where he left off. I knew he would be disappointed if I walked away."

So a year and a half later, 22-year-old Adams joined the police academy. He first worked in Lehi with his brother's colleagues. Now, Adams is a trained sniper with the Utah County Metro SWAT team and on the canyon team.

"Right now this is where my heart is," Adams said. "I can't imagine doing anything else."

The county also provides services like the Sex Crimes Task Force, Major Crimes Task Force, Search and Rescue, Utah County bomb squad, a hazardous materials team, K-9 officers and detectives — resources used by every city in the county at some time.

"People don't (know) what they're going to lose," Jones said. "Officer presence is the first level of force. When we have vehicles parked (at the jail) because we don't have people in them, that's scary."

E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com