Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Drugs play a role in most serious crimes, the director pointed out.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Because of federal funding cuts, the 3-year-old Trumbull, Ashtabula and Geauga counties' narcotics task force faces perhaps its toughest battle to date.
Tuesday, the task force director, Trumbull County sheriff's Sgt. Jeff Orr, told Trumbull County commissioners his plan to save the agency beyond this year includes additional funding from the county.
The task force uses two deputies from each of the three counties and an office person in an undisclosed location central to the three counties to investigate illegal narcotics activity, Orr said.
Trumbull County has been providing $39,000 per year, but Orr's proposal for keeping the task force running has the county paying about $79,000 in 2006. The other counties would contribute a similar amount.
Commissioner Daniel Polivka said the task force's work is "certainly important to us" but stopped short of saying whether he would be in favor of increasing the county's contribution to that amount.
Big loss of money
Orr said President Bush cut the task force's federal funding to zero for 2007, a loss of about $266,000 per year. Other funding came from state and local governments. U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, is pushing for Congress to fund the agencies again, Orr said.
Orr said that, to make plans for 2006, he is trying to put together a budget that has increased funding from the three counties along with a $150,000 state grant he expects to be still available from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services.
Orr said drug offenses are part of most illegal activity, including buying and selling drugs, stealing for drug money, killing for drugs and killing to take over control of neighborhoods for drug activity. "All of our crime is related to narcotics, no matter how you look at it," he said.
He said the average amount of experience by the six officers working with him is about eight years. Orr said if the task force were to disappear, part-time drug investigators in the police and sheriff's departments would likely be called upon to handle the job.
"You can't work these types of crimes on a part-time basis," he said.
Orr said Ashtabula County has been hit especially hard in the three years with methamphetamine labs. He said the task force raided 29 labs last year with aggressive enforcement. That was the second-highest number in the state, he noted.
Orr provided the following numbers for dollar amounts of drugs seized in the three counties during the three years: Marijuana plants, $4.3 million; marijuana, $2 million; crack cocaine, $42,000; cocaine, $30,000; OxyContin, $4,400; Ecstasy, $3,450; methamphetamines, $3,000; and heroin, $1,480.
Also on the agenda
In other action, commissioners agreed to be the lead agency in the $185,000 federal Economic Development Administration grant for a feasibility study for the proposed Mahoning Valley Motorsports and Exhibition Center. The Western Reserve Port Authority approved a similar agreement earlier in the day. The port authority and commissioners are co-applicants for the grant. Commissioners also:
UAwarded the $531,415 contract to Dave Sugar Excavating of Petersburg, the low bidder, for construction of a waterline along Austintown-Warren Road in Weathersfield Township. The project is being paid for mostly with Community Development Block Grant money, which is available for projects where the participants qualify under income guidelines.
UAgreed to redesignate the county bed tax to go to a new county Trumbull County Tourism Bureau beginning Dec. 1, 2005. The new agency was proposed by a group headed by John B. Taylor of Trumbull 100 at the end of August.
runyan@vindy.com