What does the national fight over sanctuary cities have to do with keeping drugs off Tri-City streets?

Not long after Kennewick began managing the Tri-City Metro Drug Task Force, Police Chief Ken Hohenberg joined officers on a raid.

He remembers neighbors spilling out to thank them for tackling the local nuisance.

That is why the Mid-Columbia needs a collaborative team to fight illegal drugs and related crime, said Hohenberg. It helps protect neighborhoods and citizens from the ravages of the illicit drug trade.

Metro normally operates outside the spotlight, but it flared into public view in recent weeks when a small budget shortfall inspired a big fight over Benton County’s public safety sales tax.

A new deal between Benton and Franklin counties and local cities has settled the dispute — one rooted in a federal crackdown on sanctuary cities.

How sanctuary cities are involved

Trouble arose when the federal Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne-JAG), administered by the Department of Justice, worth $105,000 to Metro was approved but never released.

The Department of Justice decided not to distribute $174 million in a crackdown on “sanctuary” cities and counties that shelter undocumented immigrants.

No Tri-City jurisdiction is a sanctuary, but the Mid-Columbia is caught in a nationwide standoff. Justice froze payments when the city of Chicago sued the federal government over the sanctuary city crackdown.

Washington state is short about $5 million in Byrne-JAG funds, according to the office of Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

“The Administration should not be using law enforcement as a political bargaining chip,” Cantwell said in a statement. The omnibus bill passed this week includes nearly $340 million for Byrne-JAG, 1.3 percent more than the previous year. President Donald Trump signed the $1.3 trillion spending bill Friday.

U.S. Rep. David Reichert, R-Bellevue, is another advocate for Byrne-JAG and releasing the 2017 awards.

He accused the justice department of punishing local communities for policies they don’t control in a letter to the justice department last fall. This week, he and Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., wrote a letter supporting the Byrne-JAG and COPS programs in the 2019 appropriations bill. It was signed by 175 members of Congress.

Locally, Benton County ended its $105,000 feud with the cities this week when all agreed to a new memorandum of understanding to cover the shortfall. Benton County and its cities will cover 75 percent, while Franklin County and the city of Pasco will cover 25 percent.

The split reflects the difference in populations and is consistent with the way Benton and Franklin counties split the cost of other bicounty operations.

Is Metro necessary?

Metro’s 2017 report card includes: 190 incidents investigated, 23 search warrants executed, 48 people arrested, 16 convictions in Benton County, eight convictions in Franklin. Sixteen cases and four arrests were gang related.

It assisted with 47 additional cases. It partnered with Spokane law enforcement on a case connected to sex trafficking in Arizona, and with the Pasco Police Department on a murder case that resulted in a Richland arrest.

It also seized significant amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, prescription medication, fentanyl, LSD and marijuana. The net result: $2.1 million in illegal substances were taken off the streets.

In one case, Metro officers bought 223 grams of meth from a known Tri-City gang member with a long criminal history. The suspect was arrested, charged and pleaded guilty. He is serving a 15-year sentence, removed for now from his old stomping grounds.

Hohenberg said that four years ago, Metro’s executive and governing boards asked themselves if Metro was needed when the federal grant program was in decline. If funding dried up, officials considered, should the Tri-Cities press ahead? He said the answer was a resounding yes.

“Metro is more important today than it ever has been,” he said, echoing the consensus of the task force’s leadership.

It was so important that Metro was a named priority in the criminal justice sales tax Benton County voters approved in August 2014. The 10-year tax raised the sales tax on most purchases in the county by three-tenths of a percent, or 3 cents on a $10 purchase.

Benton County and its cities split the money 60 percent to 40 percent, per state law.

When the agency didn’t get its federal money for 2017, Kennewick, which manages Metro, asked Benton County to cover the $105,000 from the massive balance that had accumulated in its public sales tax reserve account, which totaled more than $14 million in February.

To Hohenberg and Kennewick officials, it was a reasonable request. Benton County spends far less than the $200,000 a year voters expected to send to Metro through the sales tax.

The county budgeted $312,000 for its share of Metro for 2017-18. At the halfway mark, it had spent only $29,500, less than 9 percent. Benton County commissioners didn’t see it that way. They said the interagency agreement for Metro didn’t cover that situation. Chair Jerome Delvin blamed Kennewick for poor planning.

Metro is an unsung asset

The drug task force formed in 1988 with a mission to combat drugs and related, often violent, crimes. The cities and counties assign, and pay for, detectives assigned to the effort. Management has switched between jurisdictions. Kennewick took the lead about a decade ago.

The team consists of detectives assigned from the Kennewick, Pasco, Richland and West Richland Police departments as well as the sheriffs’ departments of both Benton and Franklin counties. It shares space with the federal Drug Enforcement agency and will soon move into the federal building in Richland.

Hohenberg said the relationship with DEA is good for Tri-City taxpayers. The feds foot the bill for the space, furnishings, computers and alarms, among other costs.

“We have minimized our cost to the cities and counties,” he said.

Hohenberg said Metro’s mission has evolved over its 30-year life along with the community and the public’s understanding of the menace of illegal drug use.

Heroin and cocaine were the drugs of choice in the early days. Then methamphetamine took hold, and then the opioid epidemic, which triggered a return to heroin.

At first, Metro was the only anti-drug agency in town and tackled drugs at the street level.

Today, it is part of a multi-layered strategy that ranges from the street crimes units operated by most local law enforcement agencies to a constellation of federal agencies. In addition to the DEA, the Tri-Cities is staffed by the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security Investigations.

The strategy lets law enforcement match the reach of the illegal drug industry and allows the various agencies to share intelligence.

Metro’s occupies the space between local and federal law enforcement. It investigates regional operators and supports local law enforcement with intelligence, equipment and training. When arrests turn into charges, it’s common to see a laundry list of agencies involved in the investigation.

Hohenberg said Metro matters because drug crimes and related gang violence can happen anywhere, threatening public safety and the public’s perception of its community.

“That violence can spill over anywhere,” he said.

This story was originally published March 25, 2018 at 1:54 PM with the headline "What does the national fight over sanctuary cities have to do with keeping drugs off Tri-City streets?."