 Gallatin County DUI Task Force
MINUTES 2-19-03
Members:
Bob Larsen, Citizen Volunteer
Sherrie Murphy, MHP
Susan Wordal, City Attorney’s Office
Todd Whipple, County Attorney’s Office
Erin Jemison, MSU, Most of Us Campaign
January 29th minutes approved.
Legislative Update:
Jenna was in Helena Tuesday 2/18. No resistance in the House Judiciary to having our funding reinstated. Three testified for the HB618, no one spoke against. We focused on the fact that it is an appropriations issue – some legislators said they were surprised to learn after the last session that Task Force funding was not in place. No final vote taken at this time.
Susan concerned that might mean that House Legislative will table it since the majority of DUI bills have been. Jenna said as far as she knows, this bill has not been tabled. She said it was good to see something good happening for Task Forces.
Jenna reported that Al Goke is back at work at MDOT . She met Brad Newman, who wrote the BAC bill. He’s revising it and will re-submit it. Did not speak with Chris Harris – he seemed to avoid her.
Lobbyist idea: Bob Larsen was talking to his State Farm rep about a claim and mentioned Task Force work. He ended up talking with Fred Strip in Washington about DUI Task Forces and the situation we’re in, what we do, particularly paying for over time patrols and showing Fatal Vision goggles.
Mr. Strip told Bob to get in touch with the State Farm lobbyist. Bob would like to take that a step further and get State Farm and Allstate to go to Dave Galt at MDOT and support Task Force funding. Bob would like to get three big insurers, maybe a 4th, to put pressure on to reinstate our funding.
If we fail, maybe we could write a small grant to keep us going. Maybe the big 4 would each give $5000 to keep us going.
Mr. Strip said he had no power to do anything, but that the average DUI crash costs an insurance company $25 to $50,000.
Susan said it was a good idea to get more lobbyists to put pressure on. We just don’t want to get a lobbying bill. Bob said he wants to do this as a State Farm policy holder and a citizen. Todd and Susan moved to support Bob’s plan, as long as we’re not held to pay a lobbying bill. Bob assured group he would say it’s his project and concern. Jenna suggested he contact Sue Dickenson, who carried HB618, directly.
What we need to focus on is being sure that there is a line item in HB2 that says Task Forces will be funded – if that’s not there, we’re done.
Jenna doesn’t know if we’ll get active support from Dave Galt at MDOT but doesn’t think we’ll get active resistance. She agreed to send out action-email with links to legislators to contact.
Other legislation: Susan says open container always runs in to trouble because of the Montana attitude. Todd and Susan thought it would pass this time because federal money is attached to it.
Finances: May need to allocate more money for mileage/travel in order to cover costs to Helena. The group agreed she could handle this by sending out an email asking for permission to increase this budget line item.
Montana Most of Us Campaign: Erin gave an overview of this year’s campaign. They want to get more involved locally, increase their message. Jenna said they are definitely getting talked about – it that’s what we wanted, we got it. Some members commented they think it’s a great campaign.
Parent Party Patrol: Will be doing another MIP meeting March 1st.
SKSC Grant: Jenna got two articles out this month, in three publications: BAC in Belgrade and Snowmobiling DUI.
DUI Stats: Sherrie said MHP estimates 101 DUI stops last year in Gallatin County (Jenna had asked for the stats).
Next Meeting: Todd suggested waiting until the 3rd Wednesday of the month. The group adopted that plan. Meeting adjourned at 6:20 PM
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