Gang Strike Force

The local left is making much of Mike Hatch's op-ed in yesterday's Strib, trying to pin cuts in the Gang Strike Force on Governor Pawlenty.

As I'm discovering, you always need to check behind the scenes.

A source at the Capitol notes that during the negotiations for the Omnibus Judiciary Bill, Senator Jane Ranum (DFL - Minneapolis) insisted that any available money be allocated to battered women's shelters and Civil Legal Aid in preference to the Gang Strike Force.

The Strike Force, by the way, isn't a dead issue; cities can pony up part of the tab, in a deal that (according to sources) works like this:

• Cities will have to pay the salaries of the officers involved.
• The state will pay for overtime and vehicles.

In other words, the Strike Force will continue - but the cities will have to pay part of the freight.

Hatch's op-ed closed with the following admonishment:

The very core of government is its responsibility to protect its citizens. There is no question that taxes must be kept in line, but when government leaders convert a "No new tax" pledge into an unyielding policy without regard to the consequences for the citizens they were elected to serve, their actions become irresponsible.

And yet in this case the DFL's own unyielding policy - that "violence against women" is the most important domestic crime issue - is at least partly to blame.

And the other unyielding policy - Mike Hatch is spinning.

Posted by Mitch at June 20, 2003 10:50 AM