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Small drug dealers to get top focus of sheriff, state |
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Tuesday, 27 March 2007 |
By JIM GENARO
The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department may soon be working with municipalities and the state to shift its focus from combating large-scale drug manufacturers to pursuing street-level dealers, Sheriff Van Duncan told the county Board of Commissioners on March 20.
Pitching what he termed “a vision for success,” Duncan outlined the program for the commissioners, starting with its roots in the Metropolitan Enforcement Group.
The MEG, Duncan noted, is “one of the longest-running task forces in the state — and it’s also been one of the most successful.”
The task force
brought together the sheriff’s department, the Asheville Police
Department and the State Bureau of Investigation, he said. For about 20
years, the group has been highly successful at combating drug dealers
and manufacturers, he noted, and has been particularly good at
generating revenue through seizure and forfeiture funds from
confiscated property.
“MEG was
tremendously effective,” Duncan told the commissioners, “but after 20
years, its effectiveness has begun to lag a little bit.”
This, in part,
prompted the APD recently to withdraw from the program to begin
focusing on “street-level and intermediate-level distribution of drugs
in the city,” he said.
In the aftermath
of that move, the county and the state are teaming up to form a new
drug-suppression coalition, the Buncombe County Anti-Crime Task force.
Building on the
existing framework of the MEG, BCAT will bring together the SBI, the
sheriff’s department and any municipalities that are interested in
participating, Duncan said.
The new group was formed partly in response to an overwhelming number of complaints about street-level dealers, he noted.
“We’re really not designed to deal with those complaints in an adequate and efficient way,” he told the board.
“The main focus
of this task force is to really look at all levels of drug distribution
in Buncombe County ... and deal with one side of it that we’re really
not set up to deal with right now.”
The task force
would hire and train a number of officers, who would be Buncombe County
employees, Duncan said. Each participating municipal agency would have
to donate one-half of an officer’s salary and money from the MEG would
be used to equip the new BCAT officers.
Membership in
BCAT would also “require a two-year commitment from the municipalities,
to see what, I think, are going to be some very good benefits,” Duncan
told the commissioners.
He admitted that
it sounds like a “hard sell” to get municipalities to participate.
However, he said, “it’s the right thing to do for the right reasons —
drugs are one of the worst problems that we face from a law-enforcement
standpoint.”
Furthermore, he noted, drugs affect every aspect of life in the region.
However, moral
reasons aside, towns that participate will enjoy additional benefits,
he said. For instance, each police chief whose department participates
will get a vote on BCAT’s board, even though the county and the SBI
will be providing the bulk of the resources.
Furthermore,
municipalities will be able to benefit from seizure and forfeiture
funds. Theoretically, Duncan said, each municipality could get all the
money it invested back in this way.
He noted that by
pooling resources, BCAT could afford to carry out undercover operations
that individual municipalities could never afford.
“The feedback we’ve received so far is extremely positive,” he told the commissioners.
In other action, the board:
• Heard a presentation from Tom Tveidt of the Asheville Chamber of Commerce about the area’s growth in 2006.
Unemployment, he noted, was down to 3.6 percent last year and has been declining since 2002.
“We have very healthy rates,” he told the board. “Every month in 2006 was a new record for total employment.”
One notable
change in 2006 was that professional and business services surged past
the medical industry as the top employer in the county, Tveidt said.
In the area of
manufacturing, the county suffered a net loss of 100 jobs, he said, but
this was because of the closing of a plant in March, which resulted in
900 jobs lost. Other than that, the area has actually seen a steady
growth of manufacturing jobs — the longest stretch of growth since
1993, March notwithstanding.
In the housing
market, the region paralleled national trends with a declining number
of home sales. However, this was offset by a steady increase in home
appreciation.
“The last
three-quarters of the year marked the first time the Asheville
metropolitan area has had home-appreciation rates that were higher than
the nation,” Tveidt added.
Chairman Nathan
Ramsey then asked Tveidt about the makeup of the professional and
business-service class that has become the area’s main employer.
This sector
includes a wide range of jobs, including graphic designers, engineers
and legal services among others, Tveidt answered.
“Many of them have their clientele outside the area and they’re just here for the quality of life,” he added.
However, Ramsey
said that, despite the rosy picture these statistics paint, a number of
people have expressed concern at public hearings about pay rates in the
area. “A lot of our families are struggling,” he said. “They don’t feel
like the opportunities are there that they’d hoped for.”
Tveidt conceded
that while housing prices have continued to grow, pay rates in the area
have not kept up. However, he noted, studies of people moving to the
area have shown that on average they take a 20- to 30-percent pay cut
when they come to Asheville. Quality of life, he said, drives many
people here, regardless of pay rates.
• Unanimously voted to make changes to an existing ordinance to prohibit adult businesses from operating private video booths.
The move came
after Duncan and the county attorney’s office reported that many
patrons of such establishments were engaging in sex acts in the booths.
The new rules
modify a 1995 ordinance, which prohibited patrons from participating in
sexual activities on the premises of adult businesses.
While viewing
booths will still be allowed, customers must be constantly visible at
all times from a central location at the establishment.
Furthermore, all patrons must keep their genitals covered at all times, under the new rules.
While state law prohibits municipalities from outright banning adult businesses, they are allowed to regulate them.
• Were presented with a handmade quilt from the Asheville Quilt Guild.
During the
presentation, Ellen Levine, the guild’s president, said, “Part of our
mission is to continue our mountain heritage of quilting.”
After displaying
the quilt, she joked that “this one’s a little more toned-down. At City
Hall, we have one that’s a little wilder.”
Ramsey then quipped, “On a cold winter evening, I’m sure some of us would like to take it home — save some fossil fuels.”
The joke was an
apparent reference to remarks during the public comment portion of the
meeting by Heather Rayburn of Mountain Voices Alliance that the board
was contributing to global warming by granting Progress Energy a
one-dollar-per-year lease to build a new diesel-burning power plant.
• Authorized the
Planning Department to apply for a three-year Community Development
Block Grant that would help as many as 19 residents earning less than
half the area’s median income to have their homes repaired or
rehabilitated.
• Unanimously approved a resolution declaring March 18-24 “Land Surveyors Week.”
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