MOKELUMNE HILL WORKS TO SNUFF OUT METH

Mokelumne Hill residents and several Calaveras County agencies are
teaming up to clean up drug activity, specifically methamphetamine
use, in the community.

Inspiring the effort is the new and unusual amount of nighttime
traffic in and out of the town's two cemeteries, traffic which has
disturbed neighbors on nearby Center Street. Cars have been seen
sitting with headlights and music on, waiting to meet other parties,
then driving behind the cemeteries to conduct illicit business. Other
residents have been the victims of burglaries, trespassing or threats
of violence.

"A lot of people can see into the cemetery, especially at night, or
hear what's going on ... the signs are easy enough to recognize,"
said Jane Canty, chairwoman of the Mokelumne Hill Cemetery Board,
which brought the drug activity concerns to the county Board of
Supervisors' attention.

Part owner of the Hotel Leger in the center of the normally quiet
mountain town, Canty said some of the shady activity had also reached
the hotel in the form of vandalism, bar fights and the theft of a
valuable World War I-era flag from the men's room.

"I think everyone was having their own individual experiences and it
got to the point where it was getting so bad we had to bring it to
everyone's attention and attack it," she said.

More than 100 Mokelumne Hill residents attended a public meeting
Tuesday to address the issue with representatives from the Calaveras
County Sheriff's Office, and the code compliance and behavioral and
public health services departments, among others, said Supervisor
Steve Wilensky, who represents District 2, including Mokelumne Hill,
Glencoe and West Point.

"I think people were pretty jazzed," he said. "It's amazing when you
give people around here the opportunity to step up, how many of them do."

Sheriff Dennis Downum said deputies have responded to numerous
drug-related calls in the past year at the town's cemeteries, which
neighbor each other, or in close proximity to them.

"Cemeteries have been historically places for kids to go and party,
but meth has added a new dimension," he said Tuesday.

The Sheriff's Office will soon re-open the satellite office it once
had in Mokelumne Hill, either at the volunteer fire company or in a
retail space across from the park that a store owner donated
Wednesday, Wilensky said.

In small, close-knit communities like Murphys and Mokelumne Hill,
having a police presence can "knock off 80 percent of the nonsense,"
Downum said.

It's just a matter of having the resources to keep that presence
there. Law enforcement is stretched thinner every year as the number
of calls for service continues to increase, he said.

Each deputy already patrols a 250-square-mile territory, and response
times to more remote areas like West Point and Mokelumne Hill are
often slow because of the demand for officers in places like
Copperopolis and Valley Springs.

"Calls for service have increased 250 percent in the last five
years," Downum said. "We're pulling people off the mountains on both
sides (of the county) to cover people down south. The growth is getting us."

West Point and Copperopolis have historically been two of the
lowest-crime areas of the county -- each receiving about 800 to 1,000
annually. In the past 14 months, however, there were 1,097 calls from
West Point, 2,442 from Copperopolis and 5,300 from the
rapidly-growing Valley Springs area.

Community participation and action, along with more access to
deputies, will help eliminate much of the problem, Wilensky said at
the Tuesday meeting.

Addiction counselors from county Behavioral Health Services talked to
residents about how to get friends or loved ones help if they need
it. Todd Barr, who oversees building code compliance in the county,
instructed residences on how to report illegally built or dilapidated
structures, squatters or other code violations to the county. Suzanne
Coe, of Golden Hills Estates in San Andreas, a community with a
Neighborhood Watch program, explained how Mokelumne Hill residents
could set up their own Neighborhood Watch program.

Many people stayed after the meeting to discuss solutions, Wilensky said.

"Your strategies have to be realistic with the resources you have,"
he said. "The best defense we have for our sense of safety and
community is just that -- our community pride, interaction and
involvement ... what is threatened is actually our best defense tactic."

The escalating crime has been an unpleasant wake-up call to longtime
residents of the area like Scott Greer, who has lived in Mokelumne
Hill for 12 years. While 12 years does not make one an old-timer, it
has been long enough for him to see change, he said.

"They're saying we're catching ours early, that (drug use and sales)
is not nearly as bad as in other areas," Greer said. "But this has
always been a place where you don't lock your doors ... and we don't
want our little environment to change."