PARENTS STRUGGLE TO SAVE D.A.R.E.

HEMET - Reading from letters their children had written, a group of parents
pleaded with the city's Public Safety Committee Tuesday to save the Drug
Abuse Resistance Education program.

The drug- and violence-prevention curriculum, which is offered in Hemet
elementary schools, will be discontinued at the end of this school year,
said Hemet Police Chief Pete Hewitt. Authorities will instead focus on
fighting increased drug and gang activity at local middle and high schools,
Hewitt said.

"Our priority has to go where the criminal problems are," he said.

The department spends about $500,000 annually on community programs such as
D.A.R.E., he said, adding, "we're not getting near the revenue we need to
support all these programs."

But parents who attended the meeting said they were dissatisfied with that
answer.

Michelle Devlin, whose son Cory is a third-grader at Harmony Elementary,
said her child was "almost in tears when he heard he couldn't hang out with
Officer Happy (Snodgrass, who teaches the curriculum)," Devlin said.

Carol Slusser, the mother of a first-grader at Harmony, said she had
gathered more than 150 signatures on a petition to save the program, adding
that Snodgrass has meant a lot to the children.

"She's 800 kids' best friend," Slusser said.

Hemet Mayor Roger Meadows advised the parents to take their concerns to the
board of the Hemet Unified School District, while Hemet Councilman Brian
Christie said they should "get out there and beat on other parents' doors."

If the school district cannot help, Meadows said he would try to get the
program into next year's city budget outside the police department funding
as a "last resort."

The city and its police and fire departments have a responsibility to
maintain the D.A.R.E. program, even if it requires a public-safety tax to
pay for it, Meadows said.

"I won't sit still and watch the D.A.R.E. program get canceled," Meadows said.