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Mahoning OVI task force to receive $225K in 2019
Funding is maximum amount from NHTSA
By JUSTIN DENNIS
CANFIELD
Scott Weamer, the city police department’s assistant chief, said he hopes Mahoning County police departments lose their operating-a-vehicle-impaired enforcement funding next year – that would mean they’re doing a good job.
Weamer announced Thursday the Mahoning County OVI Task Force will receive $225,000 in federal grant money for enforcement measures in 2019, including drunken-driving checkpoints and increased patrols.
That’s the most a task force can receive each year from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but the award amounts are linked to the number of alcohol-related crashes in the task force’s area – more crashes means more federal money to prevent them.
The task force received half the maximum funding in 2017, which Weamer said was the last year of a three-year “exit strategy” in which the task force’s federal OVI-enforcement funding was scaled back. Less enforcement funding meant crash rates rose again.
“As in most of these initiatives, when you start dialing back your enforcement activity ... what we saw was the number of alcohol-related crashes increased,” he said. “As soon as you stop doing checkpoints and stop doing [coordinated patrol] blitzes, you lose that deterrent factor. ... As we get less money, we can do less.”
The task force reported 184 total crashes in 2017 – 84 crashes with injury; seven crashes with fatalities. Three fatal alcohol-related crashes have been reported this year, as of September. The task force reported 178 total crashes in 2013, two of which were fatal. Only one fatal crash was reported in 2014.
The OVI funding will be put toward at least 16 sobriety checkpoints and more blitz patrols, which target high-crash areas such as Mahoning Avenue, U.S. Route 224 and state Route 46.
Last year, the task force made 34 OVI arrests and 23 arrests for felony-level offenses as a result of about 1,400 traffic stops and 12 sobriety checkpoints.
Susan Viars, Mahoning County Safe Communities project director, also announced Thursday the organization will receive about $50,000 for safe-driving education efforts next year.
Viars said the group hopes to use the grant to increase the county’s seat-belt goal from 85 percent to 90 percent, increase public awareness of traffic safety messages and conduct quarterly reviews of fatal traffic crashes to identify patterns.