By Clarence Cromwell
Down the street, parents were pleading with school officials to test Los Gatos High School football players for drugs. But Town Council members needed convincing Sept. 4 to spend a $66,130 windfall on a countywide drug enforcement and anti-gang-violence team.
In the end, they voted 3-2 to hire an undercover drug officer, buy the officer an unmarked car and assign him or her to the county narcotics squad. Linda Lubeck and Randy Attaway dissented, saying the funds should be spent only in town, rather than on a countywide drug team. They also raised budgetary questions about the program.
The money came from the new state program, called Citizens Option for Public Safety (COPS), which budgeted $100 million for police statewide. Departments have to spend the cash for "front line" law enforcement items for which they haven't already budgeted their own money.
Santa Clara County police departments are using the money to join the Santa Clara County Special Enforcement Unit (SCCSET). According to Los Gatos Police Chief Larry Todd, the undercover team will bust street-level drug dealers and users and will prevent gang violence around the county.
"I wanted the funds to stay in the community," Attaway said, questioning how much time the officer would spend in Los Gatos. He added that he wouldn't want to
have to lay off the new drug enforcement officer if the town's budgetary crisis continues another year. Todd said he expects to get at least another $66,000 from the legislature every year.
"There are a lot of hidden costs to this," Lubeck added, saying that maintenance and replacement of the drug officer's car apparently won't be covered under the program.
Even Patrick O'Laughlin, who eventually voted to hire the drug officer, questioned the need for a countywide drug and violence-fighting team.
Todd cited the recent explosion of a Los Gatos methamphetamine lab and the case of a Monte Sereno teen who hit a police officer with his car.
"Substance abuse in our community is a serious problem. Youth violence and drugs are the biggest problems, crime-wise, facing this county," Todd said.
Ron Brooks, commander of the task force, told the council that SCCSET took apart 35 methamphetamine labs by June 1 this year, as many labs as it dismantled during all of 1995.
Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Sharon Woo said heroin increasingly flows into the county. Police here have seized 60 pounds since mid-May, she estimated.
"Just amazing amounts are coming into the county," Woo said.
SCCSET replaces the Allied Agency Narcotic Enforcement Team (AANET), the countywide drug strike team that fell apart when tough times forced cities to eliminate the undercover cops from their budgets. Los Gatos cut its AANET officer from the 1995-96 budget.
SCCSET will put one undercover officer from each participating city on the street, supervised by an agent of the State Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement.
A federal grant will buy the unmarked car for the Los Gatos officer. And Los Gatos and Monte Sereno will use the state funds to pay his or her salary.
The Monte Sereno City Council decided unanimously, the same night the town council met, to spend its $7,440 share of the state money to help send a Los Gatos officer to the countywide drug team.
And the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District Board decided to let Coach Butch Cattolico test players' urine for traces of drugs. The board even bypassed the vote, saying the coach was within his authority to do the test on his own. Cattolico decided to test players after a group of parents came to his office complaining that players use tobacco, alcohol and drugs, despite signing a pledge to keep clean.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, September 11, 1996.
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