Lungren Applauds Anti-Crime Measures

State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren breezed through a wet and windy Ventura County on Monday, praising law enforcement leaders for their creative approaches to combating crime while pledging his support to fight an escalating war on drugs.

Lungren, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 1998, lauded the county’s efforts to establish a solid financial base to support local law enforcement.

He cited Proposition 172, a half-cent sales tax measure passed in 1993 that secured millions in funding for police and prosecutors.

“In many ways, Ventura County has a feel of a county with traditional values and that makes a difference,” he said. “This is not the Ventura County of 40 years ago, but I think it is a county with its own identity.”

It is also a county facing a series of crime-related ills that prosecutors and law enforcement officials told Lungren are of rising concern to the community.

The production of methamphetamine, overcrowding at the county’s juvenile detention facility and the failure of a glitch-ridden computer system in the child support division are all examples of problems in need of attention.

They are similar to concerns echoed by law enforcement officials across the state, said Lungren, who marked Ventura County as the 51st of 58 counties that he has visited during the last nine months.

Lungren said his state tour, which continues today in Santa Barbara, is not a campaign effort but part of his ongoing promise to keep his finger on the pulse of public safety issues facing California’s counties.

“I thought it would be good to visit with them in their office,” he said, “on theirturf.”

For several hours Monday, Lungren met at the County Government Center with Sheriff Larry Carpenter, Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee, several deputy prosecutors and Oxnard and Simi Valley police chiefs.

Lungren said Carpenter cited the need for an expanded juvenile detention facility. The attorney general said the bond measure recently turned down by the state’s voters would have helped solve the problem.

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Lungren and Carpenter also discussed the Sheriff’s Department’s ongoing struggles with the county crime lab, which has come under fire for not complying with state guidelines. It is one of only 12 counties statewide that operates its own lab.

Lungren declined to discuss the specifics of his conversation with Carpenter on the subject but said his office is not conducting an investigation into the lab’s troubles.

The county’s struggle with the State Automated Child Support System was another hot topic of conversation Monday.

The federal law requiring counties to tie into the computer system has created an accounting nightmare, say prosecutors, who have tried to get the system functioning properly.

“The SAC system is a real problem,” Lungren said. “It’s been an ongoing discussion.”

Lungren said he pledged to work with prosecutors to urge federal lawmakers to address the issue: “I think in California we have seen that that system--one size fits all--doesn’t make sense.”

Another issue discussed Monday dealt with the increasing presence of methamphetamine--not just in Ventura County, but across the state.

“I think that’s a message we need to get out to the public at large--that meth is an insidious drug that can have damaging effects to the community,” he said.

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In addressing the issue, Lungren said he is pushing the Legislature to allocate $18.2 million that would allow his office to assist local agencies in cracking down on drug labs. The money would add 60 state narcotics agents, he said.

But he praised counties for efforts to combat the problem and said that by the end of the year, law enforcement officials will have dismantled between 1,800 and 2,000 meth labs.

“That’s an extraordinary number,” he said.

Before meeting with law enforcement officials, Lungren gave a speech to the World Affairs Council in Oxnard.

The visit to Ventura was part of a four-county tour. The attorney general plans to travel to Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties later this week.

Lungren had planned to meet with Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury on Monday. But the county’s top prosecutor had to bow out of the meeting after recently undergoing knee surgery.