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Happy birthday to Chase Michael Maciejczak!

Letter to the Editor: Community leaders should use social media to keep people constantly informed

Blame it on bureaucracy.Or maybe the email system in the Pennsylvania Attorney General&#8217;s Office is on the fritz.For an as-yet undisclosed reason, Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis continues to wait, and wait, for a phone call, an email, any word at all from Harrisburg regarding the expected transfer of control of an area drug task force &#8211; considered an effective crime-fighting tool that could do more to help, if only the foot-dragging would end.All but a few counties in Pennsylvania already were granted ownership of their respective task forces, Salavantis told the Times Leader&#8217;s Opinion Board on Thursday. Consequently, those counties can keep 100 percent of forfeitures from drug-related seizures rather than splitting the funds with the state.Under Luzerne County&#8217;s current 50-50 arrangement, its police programs receive $40,000 to $80,000 each year, Salavantis estimated. Doubling that amount obviously would be a boon for local law enforcement efforts; all the money recouped from criminals&#8217; ill-gotten gains must, by law, be rolled back into drug-enforcement and prevention programs. The funds are audited yearly, Salavantis said.So, what&#8217;s the holdup with Luzerne County? Why hasn&#8217;t the Attorney General&#8217;s Office yet green-lighted the task force transfer?At the very least, an explanation is owed. Better yet, Attorney General Kathleen Kane could quickly OK the switch and notify Salavantis.Heroin cases continue to rise throughout the region. Meanwhile, the county&#8217;s drug-treatment court for non-violent offenders cannot take on more participants because, Salavantis said, there&#8217;s no available money to hire more probation officers. And in communities such as Hazleton, city police strain to keep up with the workload, much of it resulting from illegal drug-spawned activity.In part, local control of the drug task force might supply resources to help rectify those situations. It presumably won&#8217;t make them any worse.Area residents no doubt benefit when Luzerne County maintains a good working relationship with the multifaceted Attorney General&#8217;s Office; we hope this particular communication breakdown is a fluke, nothing more.If there is a perfectly good explanation for the state to move slowly on this decision, Salavantis, if not the public, should be privy to it. As of this writing, that&#8217;s apparently not the case. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going on,&#8221; Salavantis told us. &#8220;I hope this will be resolved sometime soon.&#8221;Until then, the district attorney&#8217;s seven-word summation of the situation will stick with us.&#8220;Our county,&#8221; she said, &#8220;is being hurt by this.&#8221;

Our Opinion: Transfer drug task force to Luzerne County’s control or explain holdup