County DUI task force being revived
Sindy Filler and other community members have been on a mission to revive the DUI task force in Lincoln County, a program that takes state funds gathered from DUI charges and distributes them to counties for use in drunk-driving prevention.
The program has been dormant until recently due to a lack of board members, said Filler, the task force coordinator, at the June 7 Lincoln County Commission meeting.
Vel Shaver, of Lincoln County Unite for Youth Coalition, a nonprofit aimed at preventing drug and alcohol abuse, ran the program from 2009 until she handed it back to the county last year.
“My work with Unite for Youth was really taking off and I just didn’t have the time to do a good job anymore,” Shaver said in a June 15 interview. “I know Brad Dodson, a deputy with the (Lincoln County) Sheriff’s Department, also wanted to take it on but also didn’t have time. It’s going to be really great having Sindy doing it, I think it’s going to really take off.”
There is a strong need for such a program, Filler said at the meeting, because “the numbers are certainly scary. Lincoln County has really high numbers.”
The program has “about $41,000 accumulated,” Filler said. “We received about $8,000 of that over the 2015-16 (fiscal) year and we expect 2017 to be similar.”
The amount of funding is directly linked to the amount of DUI charges made in the county each year, meaning, Filler pointed out, that the program’s success will result not only in fewer license suspensions but also a decrease in funding.
Shaver and Maggie Anderson are still voting members of the taskforce, and will partner with the task force to reach high school students with educational material and hold competitions and other awareness campaigns. “Beginning in August of 2017, we will be visiting schools and awarding money prizes to students who come up with ideas or write essays about DUI prevention,” Filler said at the meeting.
Funds will also pay for increased police patrols on the roads on high-risk days such as holidays.
“Just having a larger police presence is shown to be a deterrent for people to drink and drive,” Filler told the commission.
The task force is also working with the Montana Tavern Association to plan for providing community transportation services, such as Uber drivers or a bus, which would cater to all community members needing transportation at certain times, not just those who had been drinking.