Gary Klien
Posted: 06/12/2009 06:17:52 PM PDT
Updated: 06/12/2009 10:37:27 PM PDT
A new report by the Marin County Civil Grand Jury says the county's narcotics task force is well worth preserving and faults San Rafael for withholding its financial support.
"The Grand Jury believes that the City of San Rafael, by not participating in the Task Force joint powers agreement, is not fulfilling responsibility in the overall major crime-fighting effort in the county," the report says. "As it stands now, San Rafael benefits from the efforts of the Task Force without contributing its share."
The report, titled "Saving Marin's Major Crimes Task Force," is the grand jury's first in-depth assessment of the drug squad since the mid-1990s. Since then, the unit's existence has been threatened by funding problems and politics.
The task force, launched in 1977 as a cooperative between Marin's 11 cities and the county, was created to target mid- to upper-level drug dealers. In earlier years, its ranks were filled by various local agencies, the FBI, the state Department of Justice and the California Highway Patrol, but state and federal agencies redirected their resources after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Two years later, San Rafael pulled out of the squad and withdrew its $131,000 share of the task force budget. In January of this year, Novato also announced it would withdraw for the 2009-10 fiscal year, when it was slated to contribute $247,000 to the task force.
Novato recently reversed course, however, agreeing to contribute a full-time investigator and $39,000 in cash for the fiscal year beginning July 1, said Novato police Chief Joseph Kreins. The California Highway Patrol will contribute an investigator, Sheriff Robert Doyle said.
But San Rafael has continued to hold out, forcing Doyle to trim three positions from the unit for 2009-10 and cut the budget to about $1 million, down about a third from the current year.
The task force consists of a sheriff's lieutenant and four sheriff's investigators, with assistance from a three-person team of probation enforcement agents. One of the probation agents is a San Rafael officer, two are sheriff's deputies.
Even hobbled by the funding and staffing problems, the task force has achieved "impressive" results in recent years, the grand jury said.
In 2007 and 2008, the unit made 119 arrests and seized drugs with an estimated value of $8.5 million, the grand jury reported. The seized drugs included 3,670 marijuana plants, 67 pounds of processed marijuana, 5.25 pounds of methamphetamine, 5,655 tablets of ecstasy, 12.6 pounds of cocaine, 4,499 doses of LSD and 265 tablets of OxyContin.
Although most crime in Marin is nonviolent property crime such as burglary and theft, law enforcement officials estimate that half the property crimes are drug-related, the grand jury said. And since much of the county's drug activity occurs in its two biggest cities, San Rafael and Novato, San Rafael is getting a huge benefit from the task force at no cost, the jury said.
"If it did contribute, the Task Force would require less funding by the other municipalities and the county," the report said.
San Rafael officials just received the grand jury report Friday and will review it in the coming months, said Deputy City Manager Nancy Mackle. The city must respond to the grand jury by September, Mackle said.
On June 2, the city approved a package of job cuts, service reductions and work furloughs to close a $3.2 million budget deficit for 2009-10. Mackle said that if money were available, the city might consider the task force, but there is no money to be had.
"We just don't have the personnel, the cash, the dollars, to participate in this," she said.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_12580834?nclick_check=1
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