Preserving Our Future... PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF LORISSA SWEET Vol. 39, No. 6
PO Box 603, Wabash, IN 46992 (260) 563-8326
of Wabash County Inc. April 27, 2016
www.thepaperofwabash.com Proudly Serving Wabash County Since 1977
Bias act can help in drug fight By Emma Rausch emma@thepaperofwabash.com The Wabash County Drug Task Force is down in manpower, but drug related arrests have remained consistent, according to Sheriff Bob Land. “Everybody knows our drug task force is down two people,” he told The Paper of Wabash County in an interview, “but the way (the Sheriff ’s Department) is working, the way (Wabash City Police) is working, we can take up the slack and assist our drug task force until (those positions are filled).” Despite low numbers across all local law enforcement agencies, officers are still actively investigating drug related incidents and building cases against drug offenders, including those tied to drug overdose deaths, the Sheriff continued. “Road officers, traffic stops are taking up the slack,” Land said. “So far in three months, we’ve made 15 drug arrests just off of traffic stops, and I know this month’s going to be just as good as last month.” Local law enforcement have a number of tools to investigate drug-related situations, including the Len Bias Act, a federal law that can hold drug distributors responsible for a drug user’s death or any serious bodily injury that occurred, according to Sgt. Cory Roberts, Portland,
Ore., Police Bureau Cold Case Homicide Unit who previously worked in that department’s Drugs and Vice Division. The act was drafted and passed in 1988 following the death of Leonard “Len” Bias two years prior. In 1986, Bias was a first-team AllAmerican college basketball forward at the University of Maryland. On June 17, the defending NBA champions, the Boston Celtics, selected Bias as the second-overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft.
Two days later, Bias died from a cardiac arrhythmia induced by a cocaine overdose. In response to his death, Congress passed the Anti Drug Abuse Act, or the Len Bias law, which created mandatory minimum sentences of 20 years or more for persons convicted of distributing drugs that caused a death or serious bodily injury, which resulted from the use of those drugs. Over a decade ago, the State of Oregon
began implementing the act and has since led the nation in prosecuting drug traffickers for overdose deaths or serious bodily injuries. The inertia to use the act came from the state’s local police force, according to Tom Edmonds, Chief Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Drug Unit Assistant United States Attorney. “When overdoses started happening with more frequency,” he explained, “and officers were responding to those situations they thought to themselves, ‘What can we do with these situations? These are aggravated cases.’” The officers then turned to the state’s federal prosecutor’s office to investigate the cases under the Len Bias act. Today in Portland, Drugs and Vice Division investigators use the tool to get low-level drug dealers to cooperate with law enforcement and give up their distribution sources, according to Roberts. The purpose of the act is not to federally prosecute the first dealer in the chain of drug distribution, but to work up the chain and prosecute the higher-level dealers, he said. “During the course of that investigation, … in the chain of where this heroin came from, you’re not necessarily looking for the person who actually sold it to (the user),” Roberts explained, “but ... (continued on page 17)
Wastewater changes designed to better serve residents: Mayor By Joseph Slacian jslacian@thepaperofwabash.com
Canoeists make their way along the Eel River. File photo
Mayors urge Eel River designation By Joseph Slacian jslacian@thepaperofwabash.com
Mayors from three counties along a northern Indiana river are calling for it to become just the fourth waterway recognized as an Indiana Scenic River. The Eel River, a 110-mile tributary to the Wabash that stretches east from Logansport to Allen County through Miami, Wabash, Whitley and Allen
counties, already has four canoe routes recommended on the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Web site. Ironically, the IDNR refers to the Eel as a “scenic river.” The mayors – Wabash Mayor Scott Long, Logansport Mayor Dave Kitchell and Peru Mayor Gabriel Greer – who made the announcement Friday at a Northern Indiana Mayors (continued on page 23)
Changes will soon take place in the City of Wabash’s Wastewater Treatment Department to better serve local residents. However, Wabash Mayor Scott Long is drawing criticism on social media for the changes. The criticism, he said, is based on inaccurate information circulating on Facebook and other outlets. “Right now we have two people in wastewater billing,” Long told The Paper of Wabash County in an exclusive interview on Saturday, April 25. “If we have one person going on vacation, at some point during
the day I have to require the other person taking bills to have a lunch hour, which requires us to close the office.” To alleviate the problem, Long devised a plan to move the billing department from Wabash City Hall to the wastewater plant office. “We have an office manager at the wastewater plant, Tracy Peterson-Bollan,” Long said. “She can be trained to be a back up to collect payments, do billing, whatever. So we’re going to try to cross-train her and, likewise, we’ll cross-train (the billing office personnel) to perform her functions when in that building.” As part of the move, the mayor said he asked
Wastewater Superintendent Bob Gray to look into finding a solution to help those residents who would like to pay their bills via a drive-up window. “He contacted some people,” Long continued. “He called around and got quotes, and the decision was made to use an ATM type system like a bank uses, with a container and a pneumatic tube” that will transfer items between the drive-up and the office. Both ends will have a video screen so those paying bills and office personnel can communicate with one another. Gray contacted a variety of firms, coming up with a low quote of $23,918 for the kiosk (continued on page 21)