CREATIVE CHANGES: DISTRICT ATTORNEY DEVISES NEW BUDGET STRATEGY

Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner encountered plenty of skeptics
when he conducted a public opinion survey last month to help decide which
crimes his budget-strapped office should prosecute - and which it shouldn't
- - for the time being.

Some critics, including this newspaper, questioned the use of an informal,
unscientific survey to help craft a complex prosecutorial strategy that has
broad ramifications. They also questioned the wisdom of making substantive
policy changes when Doug Harcleroad, who recently left office six months
before the end of his term to take a break, already had put a budget plan
into effect and intends to return to begin his sixth term in January.

Gardner announced a new plan Wednesday that calls for prosecutors to pursue
more petty thefts, let slide more low-level drug possessions and exercise
broad discretion to downgrade misdemeanors to lesser violations.

While it remains to be seen if all of Gardner's changes are practical and
can be accomplished in light of staffing limitations, the district attorney
deserves credit for coming up with a creative, in-depth plan for
accommodating a $425,000 budget reduction in an office that already is
overextended.

In response to the survey results, Gardner plans to ease up on minor drug
possessions, treating marijuana cases more leniently than those involving
methamphetamine - a common-sense adjustment that reflects the very
different risks the substances pose to public safety.

Gardner also plans to add back the roughly 2,000 criminal cases that
Harcleroad had stopped prosecuting. The district attorney intends to
prosecute "petty crimes" such as check forgery, credit card fraud, theft of
less than $750, car break-ins and other crimes that both survey respondents
and local law enforcement officials ranked as high priorities.

Recognizing that these moves will increase workloads throughout the
county's criminal justice system, Gardner, after consulting with
probationary and corrections officials, made several innovative adjustments.

One change involves probation, an area that siphons off an inordinate
amount of prosecutors' time. Under Gardner's plan, prosecutors will no
longer seek extensions for probation violators but instead will rely on
probation officers to penalize violators and then, if necessary, seek
probation revocation. The aim, Gardner says, is to give violators a
reasonable opportunity to change and then, if they don't, send them packing
back to jail instead of wasting precious time and resources on working with
habitual probation offenders.

In another key change, Gardner plans to downgrade a broad array of petty
crimes from misdemeanors to lesser violations. The move is intended to save
substantial time and money for the DA's office, as well as police, courts
and corrections, since violations are punished by fines instead of jail
sentences and probation.

Gardner also plans to have prosecutors seek fewer probationary sentences
for minor felony offenders and instead to negotiate for jail sentences,
community services or fines - a move intended to reduce the amount of work
that probation violations require.

The district attorney candidly admits that the impacts of his changes on
his office, as well as on probation, corrections and law enforcement, have
yet to be determined. It's clear that he took pains to work closely with
his own staff, as well those of other affected agencies, to craft a plan
that attempts to anticipate - and adjust for - the many ripple effects
caused by prosecutorial changes. He also recognized the importance of
leaving broad discretion with individual prosecutors and their need for
flexibility in dealing with individual cases.

"The message I want to send to the criminal population is: We're flexible,
we're dedicated, and we still have the resources to put the hurt on
dedicated criminals," Gardner says.

After years of budgetary doom and gloom, those are heartening words for
Lane County residents. Gardner's plan is an ambitious, detailed strategy
that will require some patience and adjustments in the months to come. But
it's a thoughtful, well-reasoned plan, one that deserves a chance to succeed.