Sandusky County seeks funds to start drug task force

FREMONT – In April, Bellevue police nabbed a car with 80 grams of heroin that they believed was intended for local sale.

They said it might have been the biggest heroin bust they had ever made, and it happened during a traffic stop. It was another sign that the heroin epidemic — a local, state and national problem — isn’t going away.

So far this year, authorities also have found four methamphetamine labs in homes and an apartment complex in Clyde.

These cases and many others in Sandusky County are the reason the Sandusky County Prosecutor’s office and local law enforcement agencies are working to start a county drug task force. The task force would focus on finding drug operations and shutting them down.

“I think we’ve got a drug problem here,” Sandusky County Prosecutor Tom Stierwalt said. “We’re seeing (meth labs), especially on the east end in Bellevue and Clyde. I think it’s going to work its way this way.”

Whether they will have enough funding to put the task force together, however, has not been determined, Stierwalt said.

The prosecutor’s office applied for a $100,000 grant from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services. It received $23,000, Stierwalt said.

“We’re trying to see if we can make it work,” he said.

The plan would be to hire an agent who would coordinate the effort, and that agent would work with local law enforcement agencies on investigations, Stierwalt said. The grant funding, however, wouldn’t supply enough to pay even minimum wage for that agent, he said.

Some communities in the county have pledged money to help start a task force; with the grant money, there is an estimated $50,000 available, he said. There also has been talk of a building or office in one of the facilities in the county being donated for a task force to use, he said.

The county has a year to decide whether it will use the grant money to start a task force, Stierwalt said.

There has never been a drug task force in Sandusky County, to Stierwalt’s knowledge. The nearest drug task forces are the Ottawa County Drug Task Force and the METRICH Enforcement Unit.

METRICH covers nine counties north of Columbus, including Sandusky County’s southern neighbor, Seneca County.

mksmith@gannett.com

419-334-1044

Twitter: @kristinasmithNM