RESIDENTS WANT MORE DEALERS BUSTED

People At The Mount Zion Baptist Church Orange City Council Neighborhood
Meeting Wanted To Talk About Drugs, Drainage And Economic Development, Not
Annexation.

The first three neighborhood meetings were dominated by people opposed to
the possibility of Orange annexing parts of Little Cypress.

At this meeting residents told officials they wanted stepped up drug
enforcement as a follow up to what they said was a successful series of
drug related arrest by Orange police. "Thank you for the drug bust, but
they are back and we need more of them," said neighborhood resident Dorothy
Pollard.

Henry Lowe, a resident of Dewey Street, wanted to know where the drug
dealers operating in the city come from.

"Ninety nine percent of the drug dealers are from the Orange area, while 80
percent of the customers are from out of town," said Police Chief and City
Manager Chief Sam Kittrell.

Kittrell said that Orange police has used officers from outside the area,
officers the dealers do not know, to make arrests. More undercover
investigations are planned for the future.

Councilman Charles Guillory told the residents they could come to him to
report drug activity if they feared going directly to the police. Kittrell
said people reporting drug deals could remain anonymous.

Freddy Champine wanted to know what the city was doing to bring back the
industries that once dominated the economy and kept the city prosperous.

Mayor Brown Claybar said in the current global economy it is difficult to
control the factors that attract or repel industries to the area.

He said the city had created the Economic Development Corporation has
gotten Webco to come to Orange and has plans to attract more. Annexing
nearby areas, such as Little Cypress, is also another way to grow the
city's tax base. Another is re-negotiating the industrial district
contracts that local industries pay instead of taxes. The contracts account
for 35 percent of the city budget as opposed to 28 percent for property taxes.

Byley Street resident O.D. Simpson said paving roads and improving drainage
should be the main priorities of city officials.

"The west side of Byley needs paving and they also need to do something
about the people stopping in the street there," Simpson said.