DRUG SUMMIT COULD MEAN SAFER STREETS

Conference Is Introduction To New Initiative Aimed At Anti-Drug Efforts

Ideas gleaned from and contacts made at a two-day drug summit in Mobile
this week could mean improvements in blighted and drug-ridden neighborhoods
in Mobile and Prichard, possibly as soon as mid-February, organizers of the
conference said.

Those who attended the Drug Enforcement Administration-sponsored conference
- -- the first major step in a new initiative dubbed Integrated Drug
Enforcement Assistance or IDEA -- should create a more tightly organized
anti-drug effort in the area.

By the end of January, summit participants will have ranked the area's most
pressing needs, including more enforcement, more treatment facilities or
more street lights.

The idea behind IDEA is to bring the police and the treatment providers and
the street-lamp makers together with residents and start cleaning up
drug-plagued communities.

The wonderful thing about this program is that there've been isolated
projects in this county for years -- some, extremely successful, said Penny
Dendy, executive director of Volunteer Mobile. But through this program,
we're putting them all together, to network and connect with each other and
to bring law enforcement from both local and national levels together to
connect and to look at how to reduce demand and how to make our
neighborhoods safer.

The Mobile-Prichard area is the fifth site nationwide selected for the
program. About 200 people attended the conference at the Arthur R. Outlaw
Mobile Convention Center, more than have attended any of the previous
summits in four cities, according to DEA Agent Micah Miller, the program
coordinator in Mobile. The DEA spent about $150,000 to put on the
conference, including transportation for out-of-town organizers, he said.
The city of Mobile donated the space, Miller said.

Our cities, they're just like husband and wife -- they connect, Prichard
Mayor Charles Harden said at the conference. And when drug dealers leave
from the city of Prichard and cross the street and they're in the city of
Mobile, we have to have Mobile there to support us.

The reverse also is true, Harden said.

Residents in targeted areas voiced their concerns at the conference and at
a series of earlier community meetings.

They want abandoned houses down. They want empty lots cleaned up. They want
street lights installed. And they don't want it to take two or three years.
That's going to require changing governmental process, Dendy said. They
want more visibility of police in some areas. They want to be able to get
quicker response. That's going to take the efforts of the police
departments. It's also going to take the efforts of the taxpayers to
support law enforcement in our communities.

They also want to have more programming in their neighborhoods for kids.
They want more after-school programs. They want more safe places for
children to play and to grow and to learn. That's going to take the
nonprofit community, and that is going to take the faith-based community.

Venisha Bonham-Taylor, aunt of Kearis Bonham, a 6-year-old boy killed a
year ago by gunfire apparently meant for police, said the community must go
beyond talking at the summit to work the area's drug problem.

If we can stick to those problems and try to come up with strategies to
eradicate those problems, the summit will be a hit and worthwhile, Taylor said.

Prichard Police Chief Sammie Brown said treatment programs will be key. We
have to get those people off drugs. We have to make those people whole. We
have to give those people a sense of hope, he said. You can't kill the
market unless you have treatment.

More patrols would help the neighborhoods in north Mobile near Prichard,
Taylor said. When she sees drug dealers and prostitutes on street corners
there, she said, she worries other children will meet a fate similar to her
nephew's.

By the end of January, organizers with the National Crime Prevention
Council, which is working with the DEA on the project, will compile a list
of ideas generated at the conference, Miller said. They will prioritize the
list according to the urgency of the particular need and the feasibility of
the proposed solution.

The IDEA steering committee -- comprised of about two dozen area
government, business, health care, law enforcement and neighborhood leaders
- -- will meet in early February to review the list, then decide what action
to take.

The goal, Brown said, is to increase the quality of life for all our
citizens by addressing the drug problem in our community from a
multi-faceted approach. I'm so excited about that, my heart is just jumping
for joy.

Brown was one of the highest-ranking officials to attend the summit all day
both days, and he labeled it a success.

All those ideas that came up from the various groups are workable, he said.
For so long the drug problem per se has been put on the shoulders and the
backs of law enforcement, and we can't do it all. It takes more than law
enforcement to rid our community of this problem.

Brown said small community action groups and businesses in the private
sector will be useful in showing a united front. All have a stake in the
total future of the community regardless of the size, Brown said. Everybody
has something to gain and to lose.

Other IDEA cities have seen prolonged periods of stepped-up enforcement
efforts in conjunction with the program. Authorities declined, however, to
comment on any such plans in Mobile or Prichard.

Miller stressed the DEA will act not as a problem solver but as a broker
between existing entities with the aim of helping them work more
efficiently. Miller's sole job through October will be to get IDEA up and
running smoothly enough to survive when the DEA withdraws. The steering
committee will continue to meet indefinitely, he said, monitoring the
program's progress and moving on to tackle other ideas generated at last
week's conference.

A year from now, they can still use this drug summit in preparing a
strategic plan to go in and ask for state and federal grants, Miller said.
That's the whole plan.