The city of Coeur d’Alene will help fund a Special Assistant United States Attorney to combat drug trafficking in North Idaho.
“Taking traffickers out of circulation will logically limit the opioids that reach our streets,” said city attorney Randy Adams.
Gov. Brad Little’s office is contributing $75,000 and the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area is contributing $50,000 toward the annual $140,000 needed to fund the position. The remaining $15,000 would be contributed by local jurisdictions that expressed interest in the program, which includes Coeur d’Alene.
“They want to help us catch the bad guys,” said Mayor Woody McEvers.
The city’s share will be $3,000, which the City Council unanimously agreed could be provided by the Legal Department.
“The $3,000 is such a small amount, I don’t think we should put our finger in the eye of the governor who is trying to assist us with major drug crimes,” said Councilor Christie Wood.
According to a staff report, “the opioid epidemic in general, and the fentanyl epidemic specifically, have affected families, strained law enforcement resources, and left local populations grappling for solutions to combat the pervasive impacts of substance abuse.
“This is especially true in North Idaho, where Interstate 90 and Highway 95 serve as major corridors for drug trafficking from Washington, Montana, and Canada, disseminating large quantities of controlled substances throughout the northern part of the State,” the report said.
Kootenai County is in the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking area.
Adams said the SAUSA works with certain types of cases such as drugs, trafficking, gangs, immigration and white-collar crimes.
He said there are two SAUSA initiatives in Idaho, with one in the Treasure Valley focusing on gangs and one in Pocatello focusing on drug trafficking.
Adams said the Eastern Idaho SAUSA partnership started in 2016. Through 2023, it had prosecuted 200 defendants who received about 750 years of federal prison time.
“The SAUSA positions in Boise and Pocatello have lengthy track records of protecting those communities through local partnership and federal prosecutions that remove dangerous offenders from Idaho and shifts the burden to the federal government for the costs of their prosecution and incarceration,” the report said.
The estimated cost savings to local jurisdictions since they didn’t have to handle the cases was about $2.5 million.
Under the North SAUSA initiative, trafficking offenses would be tried in federal court, where the burden of time and cost would shift from the local level to the federal level.
Adams referred to it as “one part of a united effort to reduce illegal drugs in our community.”
Talks to have a Special Assistant United States Attorney in North Idaho began in 2023.
Shoshone County ultimately agreed to host the SAUSA and its prosecutor, Ben Allen, worked for over a year to identify funding sources for this position which would not burden taxpayers, the staff report said.
The city’s commitment is for one year. After that, it is free to terminate participation in the Memorandum of Understanding “should it be determined that the program is ineffective.”
The North Idaho SAUSA will begin work July 1. Because local jurisdictions must budget for the expense, the state will cover the $15,000 local contribution until Oct. 1, when the new budgets take effect.
Councilor Dan Gookin asked how they would know if the program was successful. He was told quarterly reports with numbers of arrests, prosecutions and amounts of drugs removed from streets will be made available.
Adams said they expect to see a reduction in the amount of drugs in the area, “which will reduce the amount of crime.”
