SENATOR COMPLAINS OF FUNDING SOURCE FOR DRUG SUMMIT

Money to hold a Safe and Drug Free School summit in Oklahoma City last year
came from a federal grant originally earmarked for local drug prevention
and school safety programs, a Poteau senator said Thursday.

Sen. Larry Dickerson said $450,000 of the grant went to Public Strategies
Inc., headed by consultant Mary Myrick, to organize the one-day summit.

Money from the summit originally was designated for Area Prevention
Resource Centers and Drug Abuse Resistance Education programs in more than
a dozen communities in the state, Dickerson, a Democrat, said.

Late in 1999, Gov. Frank Keating ordered money from the grant redirected to
the Office Of Juvenile Affairs to hold a Safe and Drug Free School Summit,
Dickerson said.

The program was overseen by Jerry Regier, Cabinet secretary for health and
human services and then the director of the Office of Juvenile Affairs,
Dickerson said.

Regier signed an affidavit, saying Myrick's firm was the only vendor
capable of organizing the seminar in the available time frame, Dickerson said.

Regier said last year's summit was a successful conference attended by
7,000 people, including parents and students. He said the summit was
organized after the school shooting deaths at Columbine High School in
Colorado.

He explained that he had two and one-half months to develop the program.
Myrick's firm was selected because her firm was the only one able to do it
in the time available, Regier said.

Dickerson said, "I don't understand why we're taking money away from people
who are on the front lines of the drug war and giving it to a political
consultant to plan a one-day seminar.

"Community-based prevention programs are some of the best tools we have to
protect our young people from the dangers of drugs. We shouldn't be
draining their already limited resources."

Expenses of the summit included $175,000 to bring entertainer Bill Cosby to
Oklahoma City, Dickerson reported.

"I like Bill Cosby just as much as the next guy, but I think that the
$175,000 would have been put to better use in the drug prevention programs
on the community level," Dickerson said. "Basically, money was taken from
the people in the trenches and used to bankroll a glitzy, four-star command
performance at the Myriad."

A second summit began Thursday in Tulsa.

The Oklahoman reported that $600,000 was allocated to the Tulsa conference,
half of which is designated for Public Strategies, Dickerson said.