Pubdate: Thu, May 06 1999 Source: Oregonian, The (OR) Copyright: 1999 The Oregonian Contact: 1320 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 Fax: 503-294-4193 Website: http://www.oregonlive.com/ Forum: http://forums.oregonlive.com/ A PUBLIC-SAFETY FIX -- ABOUT TIME County Should Protect Public, Reduce Recidivism By Keeping Jail, Drug-Alcohol Treatment Promises Three years after Multnomah County officials told the public how desperately a new jail and secure drug- and alcohol-treatment beds were needed, the Board of Commissioners and sheriff finally appear ready to act. The agreement reached Tuesday between the commissioners and Sheriff Dan Noelle about site, security and operations is still tentative. It shouldn't be. This deal is just about where the parties were almost two years ago. It should have been reached in 1996, before the county asked the public to vote approval of $79.7 million in general obligation bonds for the facilities. The route to an acceptable site was roundabout and bumpy, but it ended up in the right place: 28 acres owned by the Port of Portland in the Rivergate industrial area. The route through the bureaucratic and political maze was equally difficult and delayed. Yet it, too, ended up in the right place. What the commissioners should approve today addresses a lot of important concerns, particularly legal points about the differences between security for a jail, where stay is involuntary, and for a treatment center, where patients stay by choice -- although their alternative usually is jail. All should have been worked out before the voters were asked to write a check. The agreement is Solomonlike in its simplicity: County Chairwoman Beverly Stein's director of community justice would be responsible for treatment and the patients inside the center. The sheriff would be responsible for security of the entire complex. Operational guidelines were drawn up, and the pair would be charged with working out details with an eye to solutions, not differences. Commissioners Lisa Naito and Serena Cruz deserve credit for stressing solutions instead of differences and for not accepting further delay. With the help of Circuit Judge Julie Frantz, District Attorney Mike Schrunk and public defender Jim Hennings, they finally brought the parties together. Most telling was Frantz's reminder that they shared the same goal -- addressing the county's need for jail and drug- and alcohol-treatment beds. That point shouldn't have taken three years to sink in. - --- MAP posted-by: Patrick Henry