The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG - Deter- mining the best proactive response to the local drug problem received significant attention at last week's City Council Meeting in Waits- burg. Discussion revolved around two main options: instituting a neighborhood watch program and/or re- taining a full-time school resource officer, to be shared between Prescott and Waits- burg.

Council member K.C. Kuykendall requested a slot on the council agenda to address the situation fac- ing Waitsburg. "We have a greater than average drug use and abuse problem in our community," he said. "That's not just a statistic. It's easy to look at numbers like this and be somewhat inoculated by reality, but I've had an opportunity to be in introduced to four families from our community in the last few months, that have been torn apart by very serious drug addiction and similar issues. It's very sad- dening to engage with those families and see the destruc- tion and the pain associated with that."

Kuykendall said that he had spent time over the last four weeks speaking with various community and county officials as well as a number of community members who were either involved in the drug lifestyle or who had recently gotten out of it. Kuykendall said two proactive measures were repeatedly suggested in those conversations.

"A very visible, com- munity neighborhood watch kind of program might be very effective here in Waits- burg. A number of commu- nities, large and small have developed neighborhood watch programs. The sher- iff's office has an officer who is trained and knows how to organize that and the data shows that, if the com- munity will raise awareness and engage in that kind of program, the end result is a net positive impact on the drug problem.

"The other option is to identify creative ways, not funded by city or school entirely, to finance a full- time school resource offi- cer, shared by Prescott and Waitsburg. Again, we're looking at the success of those programs; including small, rural districts like ours, where the officer ends up being on site, getting to know the students, gaining trust, and developing rap- port."

When asked about her "gut reaction" to the idea of a school resource offi- cer, Waitsburg School Dis- trict Superintendent, Carol Clarke said, "I have had experience with school re- source officers through my work in Sunnyside, which is a very gang and drug infested region. It was very comforting for me, at times, as a principal, to know there was someone on staff for me. However, Sunnyside is very different than here."

Clarke cautioned that if a resource officer was re- cruited it would be critical to articulate the intent and expectations surrounding having such an officer within the schools.

"My concern is more with our community members," said Clarke. "There's an accessibility factor that I'm not comfortable with. Our students, apparently, have ready access. And their parents . . . and this is all hearsay, but we have reason to believe our parents are more our concern than the students."

Clarke shared that the school did recently bring in the City of Walla Walla drug dog, and there was no drug evidence found, at either the middle or high school, at that time. Clarke expressed in- tent to have the dog in again.

Walla Walla Sheriff, John Turner, commented posi- tively on the role school resource officers can play, stating that Wa-Hi's resource officer, Scott Brashear is "almost irreplaceable." "I truly believe that if we get an officer in Waitsburg, sharing him back and forth, sharing the costs, I think you'd re- ally realize that benefit," said Turner.

Turner also relayed in- formation on instituting a neighborhood watch pro- gram, including the fact that the sheriff's office has a deputy available, specially trained to help communities set up such programs. Turner explained that the traditional watch program works well, but with people being so busy in the evenings, there is an online option available for consideration as well.

"Nextdoor.com is an online, community block watch program," said Turner. It's set up by administrators, with defined boundaries, and they decide who they let in and who they don't. It's an online social network/ block watch where you can post information, safety tips, prevention tips and such. Right now there are six or seven communities in Walla Walla County using both the traditional and online community. It helps us be- cause we're receiving qual- ity information. The better information we receive from our partners the citizens, the better work we can do. "

"We need a community committed to creating a highly publicized, information network with the goal of providing the sheriff's de- partment with information to aid their investigations," said Kuykendall. "This needs to be adopted by the broader community, or it will be doomed to fail. It can't be seen as K.C.'s program or the city council's program or John Turner's program. It needs to be about the people of Waitsburg taking a stand to make their city less desir- able for illegal drug activity."

Concerned community members who would like to participate in a discussion of options and next steps should contact K.C. Kuyk- endall at 509-396-1460 in the next week or two. This initial discussion will be followed by a meeting involv- ing the larger community, sometime in May.