STUDENTS AT MEETING SPEAK UP FOR DARE

Current and former students in North Tonawanda's Drug Abuse Resistance
Education program and their parents turned out for Wednesday's Common
Council workshop session to protest cuts that could end the program in the
city's elementary schools.

What was originally scheduled as a 15-minute meeting with Police Chief Carl
Stiles over the Council's cut of $10,000 in funding for the DARE program
turned into a nearly two-hour public discussion on the program's
effectiveness among the city's youth.

James C. Daugherty, a public safety police officer and primary DARE
instructor, and Daniel Mahoney, one of three officers who taught the
program last year while Daugherty was on military leave, sent a letter to
elementary schools Wednesday for students to take home to their parents,
addressing the cuts to DARE and asking them to contact Mayor David Burgio
and attend the meeting.

With Daugherty on leave since Nov. 1, three DARE-certified officers have
taught classes at the city's elementary schools while off-duty, receiving
overtime compensation.

In a letter to Burgio, Stiles said if the three continued to teach DARE
classes, they would accumulate about 600 hours of overtime, amounting to
$14,400 in wages, but added that officers have taken hundreds of hours off
in previous years, and would expect around 300 hours for 2003.

Burgio said the program costs around $65,000 with a full-time officer
dedicated to DARE, and said he would consider making Daugherty a regular
duty officer to add patrols to the 47 officers funded in the 2003 budget.

Prior to the public meeting, a number of fifth-grade students crowded City
Hall steps, bearing a large DARE flag and signs with sentiments such as
"Don't you dare take DARE from North Tonawanda!"

Daugherty said the program benefits the 450 to 500 children in ways that
are not measurable by national studies that say the program is ineffective.

"I think this is a desperate attempt to save money. Sometimes when you do
that, you turn a blind eye to a program that's really working," said Daugherty.

Alderman Brett Sommer, R-3rd Ward, said that while the Council had cut
$10,000 in the 2003 budget for the "ancillary materials," such as pens,
shirts and other goods, the program could still be taught in the schools.

Stiles said he believed the Council was considering forcing Daugherty's
reassignment as a regular beat officer and was misinforming the public of
its intentions.

"This little scam that we're only cutting supplies is not true. You've said
that you want to pull that officer and put him back on the streets," said
Stiles.

Resident Donald Wood said the Council was unnecessarily cutting a program
that affects hundreds of children while ensuring that they themselves had
"every luxury."

"Raise my taxes a nickel, if that's what it takes, because you don't seem
to have a problem raising them 9 percent," said Wood. "(Children) are
always second-best here. It's time to put them first and put you guys in
the background."

With the 2003 budget approved by the Council, Mayor Burgio has until the
end of Thursday to issue his line-item vetoes, which is currently the only
way funds for DARE could be procured until Jan. 1, when Alderman Phillip R.
Rizzo, D-1st Ward, said he would move to release the necessary funds from
the city's general budget for the program.

Burgio said, however, that he had received only 37 calls as of Wednesday
regarding DARE, and that most came after the letter was sent to schools. He
added that little support had been shown for the program before the Council
adopted its budget.

In other matters, the Council appointed former Alderman Thomas D. Jaccarino
to the position of city clerk, independent contractor and Planning
Commission member Cosimo R. Capozzi as building inspector, and Wastewater
Treatment Plant Superintendent Paul Drof as the new head of the newly
combined water and wastewater department.

Jaccarino, a nephew of Alderman Rizzo, previously was nominated for the
position in a motion by Rizzo, but was defeated after a debate over the
position's salary, union designation and proper advertisement of the position.

Sommer moved to raise the city clerk's salary from the $32,000 to $38,000
previously discussed by the Council to $42,000, based on the demands of the
applicants for the position, he said.