SCINT WORRIES ABOUT ITS FUTURE

Top law enforcement officials with the South Coast Interagency
Narcotics Team said the organization has enough funds to operate at
most for one more year, but beyond that the 12-year-old agency's
future is doubtful.

Measure 3, which limits how law enforcement agencies can use
forfeiture-generated funds, is casting a shadow on the organization's
future. For SCINT, whose budget is heavily dependent upon funds
generated by selling seized property, the measure could be a killer.

"With Measure 3, in about 12 months we'll be gone," said Sgt. Dan
Looney, one of SCINT's leaders.

For police officials, that means a fight to keep the agency afloat is
just beginning.

"Let's say this is a 10-step process. We're at step two right now,"
said North Bend Police Chief Gil Zaccaro, who also is the chairman of
SCINT's executive board. "Step one was getting the bad news. Step two
was getting together and trying to figure out where we should go."

On Nov. 7, Oregon voters overwhelmingly passed Measure 3 by a vote of
952,792 to 465,081. The measure amended the Oregon Constitution and
requires law enforcement agencies to win a conviction before
forfeited property can be sold or used. It also requires forfeiture
penalties be proportional to the severity of the crime and sets up
stricter reporting guidelines that agencies must follow.

None of that bothers SCINT, said Special Prosecutor R. Paul Frasier.
For his narcotics agency, the problem with Measure 3 is the
requirement that changes how proceeds from forfeitures can be used.
Under the measure, most of the forfeiture funds must go to drug
rehabilitation programs and law enforcement is limited to using only
25 percent of the value of seized goods. That money is intended to
reimburse agencies of their out-of-pocket costs for seizing and
holding property.

"Conviction first, we can live with that. Burden of proof, we can
live with that. Taking our money, it's going to kill us," Frasier
said.

Frasier said he isn't making an argument against drug rehabilitation
programs. It's just that rehab is only one portion of a three-pronged
attack on the area's drug problems that includes law enforcement and
educational programs. Cutting one end will hinder how effective the
rest of the programs are, he said.

"It's like any three-legged stool," Frasier said. "If you cut a leg
off of it, it's going to collapse."

Meanwhile, Frasier said the agency is busy trying to keep its budget
from collapsing.

SCINT has four staffers on its payroll and additional officers are
funded by area police departments. Frasier is one of the four whose
salary is entirely paid out of SCINT's budget. Although much of the
work he does is specifically for the Coos County District Attorney's
Office, SCINT isn't reimbursed.

For legal reasons, the organization's budget is listed at close to
$900,000 on Coos County's books, yet Frasier said SCINT needs a
minimum of $300,000 to operate.

To get to that magical number, a federal grant typically makes up
$175,000 of the agency's budget each year. SCINT must match the
contribution with its own funds to qualify for the grant, but Frasier
said the agency wouldn't be able to do that now.

Policy changes intended to save money, therefore, are taking place.

Frasier said the agency has been directed by its steering committee,
which comprises all the police chiefs in SCINT's coverage area, to
stop seizing assets in cases in which holding property would exceed
the 25 percent limit the agency could recover.

SCINT, for example, would typically seize a car found carrying large
quantities of drugs and immediately begin procedures to either sell
it or use it.

Now, that has changed.

"We may detain it, but then we would release it," Frasier said.

Seizing and holding the property may cost too much and the agency
won't see enough money to make it worthwhile, Frasier said.

Zaccaro agreed.

"We are not going to be in asset forfeiture, obviously, if it's going
to cost us more than it gets back," he said.

Zaccaro is one of those who helped establish SCINT 12 years ago.
County law enforcement officials started the organization to handle
multi-jurisdictional drug cases that were too complex and required
too much investigative time for local police departments to handle.

"The problem was bigger than each individual agency trying to combat
it," he said.

Enter SCINT, an organization that could handle multiple
investigations crossing jurisdictional lines. Drug dealers smuggling
contraband into or out of the South Coast finally could be
investigated by a single agency.

"These people are very mobile and very sophisticated and we needed an
agency that could match their mobility and sophistication," Zaccaro
said.

That's the face of SCINT that most people know, but the organization
handles more than drug investigations. Officials tout its merits in
drug-education campaigns. This week, for instance, agency members set
up a mock drunk-driving class for Millicoma Middle School
eighth-graders.

Kids veered carts through a maze of cones and cardboard pedestrians,
staged a simulated accident, reconstructed the scene and finally held
a mock trial for the accused.

Other police agencies also host educational events, but those types
of programs will diminish without SCINT's participation, officials
said.

To keep that from happening, efforts are afoot to seek additional
funding from the legislature, although Frasier isn't hopeful. Another
savior may be a Lincoln County lawsuit that hopes to overturn Measure
3 by claiming it is unconstitutional because it amends more than one
part of the Constitution.

Commissioner Nikki Whitty said Coos County won't be joining that
lawsuit, although Frasier has written a friend of the court brief in
its support. Whitty said the county backs the voters' decision and
agrees with most of Measure 3's changes.

"We said we think it's right," she said. "We think you shouldn't sell
somebody's property until (they've) been convicted."

But that's where the county's support of the measure stops.

Whitty said she is scheduling a meeting with all the city managers,
state police, mayors, judges and district attorneys from Coos, Curry
and western Douglas counties to ask local communities to come up with
the funding for SCINT.

"I think the communities will come to the table," Whitty said. "We're
all having budget deficits. We have to talk about how important it
is."

Zaccaro said he knows it will be a challenge to raise the necessary
$125,000 to $150,000 from the local communities.

"I wouldn't want to make any predictions, but I know the position
we're in on the South Coast is unlike any other area in the state,"
he said. "To ask any agency to come up with any more money will be
hard to do."

Zaccaro said he isn't ready to quit yet, but keeping the organization
working is going to have to be a public effort.

"If people feel it's worth it for us to have a narcotics enforcement
agency, then we're just going to have to come up with the money," he
said.