DEMS BLAST GOP'S CAMPAIGN PROMISE

Porter County Politics:
Drug Enforcement Pledge Just A Distraction, They Say

VALPARAISO - It's not the drugs -- it's the developers, county
Democrats say.

It's also election season, and voters and Porter County politicians
already are sparring to set the agenda for November's contests.

County Republicans are off-message and uninformed about who pulls the
Porter County purse springs, Democratic commission President Bob
Harper said in response to a Republican pledge to make funding drug
treatment and enforcement a priority.

"Should the commissioners be concerned about the drug problem? The
mailman should be concerned about the drug problem," Harper told The
Times in an interview Friday. "But the real issue is green space."

At a news conference Thursday, Republican candidates listed funding
drug treatment and enforcement as one of four election pledges to be
announced over the coming few weeks. County commission candidate Mark
Sulski, a Portage banker on the Porter Plan Commission and Park
Board, and Mike Herzog, a Valparaiso firefighter running for the
county commission, lambasted the current commission and council for
underfunding drug enforcement and treatment efforts to battle the
county's heroin problem.

Democrat Dan Whitten, County Council president, said the prosecutor's
office, which coordinates the county drug task force, has not asked
the council to boost financing for drug enforcement. All police and
sheriff's officers work on drug cases, not just the three designated
to the task force, he said. Whitten, a former police officer who is
not running for re-election, favors putting money into drug treatment.

"You can put 500 policemen on the street and, if a person has an
addiction, it isn't going to help them. That person and that family
needs treatment," he said.

But Democrats aren't soft on drugs, Harper and Whitten
said.

In the early 1970s, Harper created the first-ever undercover unit
when serving as prosecutor, he said, and received a number of awards
for his work in enforcing drug laws.

The County Council, which controls the county's budget, and the
prosecutor's office have been controlled by Republicans for years,
they said. Harper said County Republican Chairman Chuck Williams
could use his position on the Valparaiso City Council to request
money for more city-funded police officers to deal with the drug problem.

Calling the news conference a "dog and pony show," Harper said the
county Republicans' vow to fund drug treatment and enforcement is an
empty campaign promise framed to distract voters from the real issues
facing the county. Republicans, Harper said, "will not be satisfied
until every square inch of Porter county is paved over and there is a
subdivision on every corner."

Harper, who sits on the Plan Commission, was instrumental in passing
the county's requirement that 20 percent of the area in subdivisions
be set aside for open spaces.

"If we do not want every tree torn down and every bit of greenspace
plowed under, we have to make provisions now to set aside these areas
for future generations," he said.