Shuster gets Our Town $300K grant

Operation Our Town, the three-year-old community organization that collects business contributions to fight drug crime, doesn't have "much of a track record" for grants, according to treasurer Joe Sheetz.

But it's got a pretty good track record for one particular kind of grant: earmarks from U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-9th District.

On Monday, Shuster announced his third Operation Our Town earmark in as many years - for $300,000, about the same amount the organization manages to raise each year from local sources.

It brings the three-year total from Shuster to $850,000.

It's a big deal, Sheetz said.

The money will go mainly for law enforcement, which was the initial emphasis of the organization, founded by business leaders after one read about drug task force officers conducting busts without body armor.

The money will go for training, equipment, wages for drug task force overtime, salary and administrative costs connected with the designated drug prosecutor in the Blair County district attorney's office.

That will free funds for prevention and treatment - the other sides of the three-sided fight against drug crime, which the organization has more recently paid attention to, said Donna Gority, Blair County commissioner and Our Town steering committee member.

In 2008, the organization awarded $200,000 in grants for enforcement, dedicated to special operations for warrants, interdictions, saturation patrols, the drug hot line, stakeouts, raids and investigations.

It also awarded $200,000 for prevention and treatment, aiding programs for school-based mentoring and youth leadership, behavior identification and modification, gang intelligence gathering, gateway enhancement, delinquency prevention, parenting, early intervention and homework help.

The efforts seems to be helping.

Offenses in the most serious category that includes homicide, robbery and assault decreased 14 percent in 2007 and 3 percent further in 2008, according to the group's Web site.

"We're at least treading water," Blair County District Attorney Rich Consiglio said. "Without it, we would be inundated."

The organization actually asked Shuster for $750,000, and Shuster passed on the request.

But even getting less than half that was "difficult," he said.

It required sign-offs from several committee and sub-committee leaders.

The money came through in an omnibus appropriations bill just before Christmas.

Part of the political difficulty for him was his opposition to the bill as a whole, which led to criticism for hypocrisy - a charge his office countered by explaining that the bill was massive, and overall careless and wasteful.

But his particular earmarks were for worthwhile projects, he said.

It's taxpayer money coming back, he said.

"If they put a pool of money out there, you've got to go after it," State Rep. Rick Geist said. "Bill Shuster delivers."

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.