 Gallatin County DUI Task ForceMinutes: April 20th 2006
Belgrade PD building
5:30 to 7 PM
Members:
Bob Larson, Chairperson
Matthew Lowy, Deputy County Attorney
Shanda Smith, Gallatin County Health Department
Alex Fuller, GCSO
Cherie Lotton, MHP
E J Clark, Belgrade PD
Force Tolar, MSU PD
Katie Donath, Citizen Volunteer
Visitors:
Saerom Kanecky, ASMSU
Dena Helman, prospective member
Absent:
Bozeman PD Representative
Manhattan PD Representative
West Yellowstone PD Representative
Three Forks PD Representative
Susan Wordal, City Attorney’s Office
New Business:
Dena Helman, a prospective new member introduced herself. She heard about the Task Force in an
ad the county ran looking for citizens to serve on boards.
Report from Belgrade PD on the new video system (purchased by the Task Force) – There's a few kinks to work out but the system is installed.
ASMSU Saerom gave a brief presentation on Cat Cab. Jenna requested that someone attend the
next meeting ready to give a report on current ridership. Board members reminded Saerom what since DUI Task Force provides funding for Cat Cab we want/need quaterly reports and have not gotten those this year.
ACTIVITIES:
Swimming Upstream Awards
Jason Hoppert from MHP will receive an award for having made 77 DUI arrests in 2005. EJ will present this first individual merit law enforcement award.
All awardees have been notified
No one applied for the Media Award so Belgrade News and KTVM were “drafted. KTVM often generates story ideas and calls for interviews. Belgrade News readily runs guest columns and has for years, including as High Country News.
Phlebotomists award
All 911 staff
Stacy Wesen for SKSC and the Responsible beverage server class
Media have been invited
2005 DUI Stats:
The DUI stats as prepared by David Bennett are available on the Task Force website. He reported from research Jenna did at a special Criminal Justice Coordinating Council meeting April 5th.
The conviction rate for Gallatin County has been 96%. Those are calculated by extrapolating from the 2 months of research each year. The state was impressed that the conviction rate is so high
For the 2006 data Jenna will track “failure to appear” and cases that were pled down
Alcohol Awareness Month:
Jenna helped with the DUI editorials submitted by Marc Schure from County Health and with that from Connie Lange of MADD
The Task Force ran a series of radio ads and ads in the Chronicle.
Used special $500 contribution made by a DUI offender
Members unhappy with the quality of the ad in the Chronicle
Jenna said she complained to the Chronicle about the color not matching the PDF of the ad –
Jenna doesn’t think that advertising in the Chronicle is worth the investment – twice now the ads run have not looked good, were hard to find – even this one where the Task Force paid a graphic artist so it would look good
Katie would like to see a catchy campaign, like the ads are for the Montana Meth project
EJ thought it would be effective to run 911 calls of people reporting DUI drivers
Katie thought we might be able to use videos of DUI drivers
Jenna wondered if there might be special money available through the state if we came up with an innovative campaign. She suggested the Task Force create a marketing committee in order to really “hash out” Task Force marketing priorities.
Saerom suggested maybe a MSU student could design an ad campaign.
Discussion of the goals and challenges of social marketing campaigns
BUDGET
The budget discussion was tabled for next month. Jenna gave some preliminary ideas
DUI Task Force income will probably go down 15% due to the lower arrest rates
Jenna would like to get DSL to handle the large files she routinely receives
Jenna proposed an increase in her hours to ½ time, or 80 hours a month
Meeting adjourned at 6:40 PM
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