PERRY, WISE COUNTY JUST SAY NO TO DENTON TASK FORCE

"Dope dealers" are going to run rampant in Denton County soon, the
sheriff is saying.

Some folks in Wise County hint that if you believe that, you're the
real dope.

A Denton-based drug enforcement agency got busted this week. The
governor's office rejected $700,000 in grant requests from the
misnamed North Central Texas Narcotics Task Force, primarily because
the agency mostly protects only Denton County.

If Denton County Sheriff Weldon Lucas wants to run his very own drug
agency, he should persuade that county's taxpayers to finance it.

Next door in Wise County, law enforcement officials are saying good
riddance. That county pulled its support from the agency June 1, and
Republican District Attorney Jana Jones told a newspaper the conflict
was "just a big mess."

Here's what we know: The Denton agency is one of five "task forces" in
Texas that were rejected for federal drug enforcement money doled out
from Austin.

Essentially, Gov. Rick Perry's office yanked three-fourths of the
budget for five of the state's regional drug enforcement agencies.

After the review of 46 drug cases in Tulia, one Republican lawmaker --
a former sheriff and prosecutor -- tried and failed to reorganize the
regional agencies in the recent Legislature.

According to a governor's spokesman quoted in the Denton
Record-Chronicle, though, the Denton agency didn't lose the money over
bad police work.

It lost the money because it was down to serving one
county.

To hear Lucas tell it, cocaine and methamphetamine dealers will run
wild in the Denton County streets.

"Every dope dealer in the world will know we don't have that task
force anymore," he was quoted as saying.

Yet former Wise County District Attorney Barry Green said he can
understand why Wise County withdrew.

"These are little pseudo-police forces," Green said by phone Friday
from his Decatur law office. "There doesn't seem to be real strict
supervision like you see with a local law enforcement agency.

"I'm not saying they're bad guys. But they always seemed to be having
too much fun. They enjoy busting down doors and going on raids. Doing
the paperwork never seemed to be much of a priority."

Jones told the Wise County Messenger that officials there were "very
frustrated" and "never saw" the agency's officers in that county.
Once, she was quoted as saying, the agency refused to come help with
an investigation on a weekend -- but "when it all came down, they were
here in their SWAT team outfits to take credit for the bust."

That's the problem with too many of the regional drug agencies:
They're more about publicity, politics and power than about good
police work.

Barbara Markham is a police officer in Oak Point, a tiny town on
Lewisville Lake. She is also one of Texas' most outspoken voices for
reforming the regional drug task forces.

Markham used to work for the North Central Texas agency, and she still
works in a Denton County city. So she understandably defended the
local agency, but said the regional task forces across Texas need changes.

"With most of them, there's just no local control," she said.
"Nobody's in charge. Nobody's accountable. There is no discipline. .
Then whoever is pulling the strings wants to help somebody right
before an election. So they call in the task force for a big drug roundup."

The Denton agency -- dominated by Lucas' office and District Attorney
Bruce Isaacks -- is "a good task force," Markham said.

"Maybe Wise County just didn't get their needs met," she said, adding
that she is disappointed to see the Denton agency rejected for serving
too small a region.

"The big mistake is when these agencies are spread too far," she said.
"I wish there could be a way to enforce more local oversight and still
not lose the federal funding."

The money isn't gone. Denton County can apply for other grants or team
up with another county for a new regional drug agency. Ellis and
Tarrant counties teamed up the same way last year.

The whole idea that "dope dealers" will run amok without a regional
agency on their trail is just "propaganda," Markham said.

"The citizens of each county need to take on more of the
responsibility for oversight," she said.

Now's the time to do that in Denton County.