NewsNight Minnesota; 3198; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 08/14/1996; SD-Base

Tonight on NEWSNIGHT will a jury of their peers keep first time juvenile offenders out of the criminal justice system. We'll look at so-called teen courts. Also visit Beltrami County where officials have their own solution to the rising wave of juvenile crime. Also tonight St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman fights crime with fewer dollars. That's all tonight on NEWSNIGHT. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is presented in part by Norwest banks contributing to the growth of the Twin Cities through support and community service. Thanks for tuning in cafe workers off this week filling in again tonight with some of the day's top stories. Michael Kay he is again. There were some sharp words today on the white earth reservation about the tribe's shooting star casino. Yesterday the head of the management company that was ousted by the new tribal council said his company would eventually be back running the casino. Today a tribal official said the casino management company is finished on the reservation and if they set foot back on the premises they'll be arrested. A legal adviser to the new tribal government also says that the FBI the IRS and the

Interior Department will soon investigate allegations that the casino company had an illegal sweetheart deal with former tribal chair chip why DNA an arm of the Interior Department has expressed interest in the matter. But so far no federal agency is commenting publicly on whether it plans an investigation. More deformed frogs have turned up this time north of Hutchinson near Lake Washington like Washington is the 24th place in Minnesota that the frogs have reared their machine legs since they were first spotted by schoolkids near Henderson about a year ago. A survey of the pond near Hutchinson found that two thirds of the leopard frogs had deformities and that's the highest percentage of any of the Minnesota sites. Officials still aren't sure what's causing the deformities. Twin Cities based General Mills corner of the cereal market has just gotten bigger. Today the local food giant announced it is agreed to buy the cereal and snack mix. Businesses of Railcorp Holdings Inc. For you and me that means cereals like checks and Cookie Crisp will now support the Big G. It also means

that General Mills share of the breakfast cereal market will grow to about 27 percent. That's still about six points behind Kellogg's of Battle Creek Michigan. Those of you were caught last night's discussion on utility rights of way will be especially interested in this. Today the state announced plans for a public private partnership to build a fiber optic network along the state's freeway and highway system. The state would turn over access to the rights of way to a private company which would build a fiber optic network and use the state allow the state to use it at no cost. But the vast majority of the network would be available for things like high speed phone service cable TV distribution tele medicine all kinds of transmissions. Part of the deal would require the private company to develop the network in less populated areas as well as in the metro area. Hard on the heels of a proposed Ramsey County property tax increase of four and a quarter percent. Come St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman's proposed 1997 budget and the mayor called today for a tax increase of zero for the fourth year in a row it looks as if St. Paul will hold the

line on property taxes and that does not include of course valuation increases and the county and school board portions of the tax bill. Here to explain how the city can be so frugal is Mayor Norm Coleman. Mayor thanks for coming by to be here Mike. You are calling for eliminating some jobs in the city. Will this mean. Cuts in city services to the citizens. We're looking at an overall reduction of about 40 jobs hopefully through attrition and I don't believe we'll see cuts in services. We try to make cuts in management we try to make cuts where they don't hurt but you can reach certain point time where there's going to be impact. I hope we're not there yet. We have I firmly believe that higher taxes drive wage jobs and residents and I listed the taxpayers told me they are here's our money use it wisely don't expect any more in my department heads understand that we've set a course of action which is now for the fourth year in a row for the city of St. Paul's on the line of taxes. Now one place where you will be adding employees is the police department. We're adding 14 additional cops when I

ran for office I said that we've had 30 police sources with these 14 we will actually they had 35 since I took office. We are using some of the so-called Clinton cop dollars federal funds. There's good news and bad news about that. The good news is that we don't pay much today the bad news is that we pay more later. But I believe that's command we have to make. And 1998 will cost us around $200000 for the 24 of my 35 new cars that come from federal dollars by the year 2000 will cost us eight hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. But I really believe that if if you don't have a safe city then all the other good things are trying to do with economic development and livability go down the drain. I think a lot of the people in the neighborhoods would say that it's great to have more police on the streets but you know it's not the police alone that are going to solve this juvenile crime problem. What kinds of other things are you talking about to go after some of the I hope I hope the neighbors and everybody says that because it's reality. Yes we put more cops on the street yes we've opened up. The neighborhood substations offices on Grand Avenue and Selby Avenue in the west

side but in the end we do need the commune in addition we are putting dollars into things like youth athletics. But about 40 something thousand dollars into the mating. Sunday I was in the library waiting Sunday hours during winters in our rec centers. So there are other things that you have to do to make this work but in addition many of the community has not a budget thing I need neighbors to be involved in law clubs. We are not cutting the money we give to our district councils I think citizen participation and active citizen really is part of what we need to have a safe and viable community. So we will do our piece and weve made a commitment to do that but if it's to work we need the community right there with us. Well when the year 2000 rolls around and the bill comes due for these Clinton cops should the taxpayers expect to have to pay more then. No because I think the other side of the coin is that we're also looking at expanding economic opportunity. One of the one of the things that holding the line on taxes does as we have done I think it builds confidence. So people businesses families make decisions about where they invest their dollars. One of the things I discussed today was the fact that in the central business district of

downtown the first six months of 96 we filled more office space than any other place in the metro area in fact almost twice as much office space under 90000 square feet. That's unparalleled I think in recent history. That's all about confidence a big part of it and so we're seeing Mike is an expansion the tax base Midway marketplace bringing in a million dollars a year for some of the range of things that I think was you look down the future will be able to afford the costs that we're bringing on today. Some of the neighborhood folks again would probably say you care too much about downtown. Well one of the really the one you need a strong downtown and strong neighborhoods and you need to have both. I spent time on downtown because that's where the great bleeding has been. Our neighborhoods have been strong and they mean they are strong today Highland a couple years ago in Carson's close and Highland everyone was wringing their hands they can't find space can't find parking as a problem in Highland Selby is being developed these sides where the neighborhoods are strong we will work with them. But Mike we lost over half the value of taxable property in downtown St. Paul for one hundred seventy one thousand ninety four. If we start to reclaim that lost tax base that will enable

us to keep a lid on taxes for all our residents across the city. So all of us will benefit from a strong and vital downtown. All right Mayor Norm Coleman thanks for coming by. Among the anti-crime initiatives given the nod by state lawmakers last year a program to fund experimental teen chords and tomorrow is the deadline for communities to sign up. The theory behind teen courts is to bring juveniles into the court system early on and keep them out of court with potentially more serious crimes. But a teen court is not a court system as we know it. Peers of the accused serve as jury members who pass judgment. The courts are already a fixture in about 30 states and one of the models is a program in Odessa Texas the court system there prepared this videotape which shows how it works.

In the case of a death a teen court. Versus Scott Thomas Moore Scott Thomas Moore in the courtroom. Will you please come and stand by the way the chair that you raise your right hand please. Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God. Yes. Please be seated. Did you know if your parents were in your car. Yes. And had your friend been drinking. Yes. I think the point of intoxication before they had been drinking and after going swimming which had been four hours later I figured they were pretty much sober. Had you been drinking that night you know I passed witness just to clarify. Had you been drinking that night. And the report says that you and your friends or be given a breathalyzer test. First there were the results of that best. Containers in your car and were found in the very best defenses

like best with your. Counsel Are you ready to close yes or no. Please do. Thanks for coming in to court. This is obviously just a case of circumstance. Had the incident with the other car and it even happened he would name got in trouble with the authorities. It's something that. Really wasn't planned to cause any harm or trouble. It's just something that happened he was a victim of it. I just ask you to evaluate everything that happened this case and give a fair sentence. Thank you. Madam Prosecutor you had a close. Yes your honor. Please do. We're here to not hear the case of Scott Moore. And he was evidently a cactus mean and got pulled over for an MRP. He had some beer bottles that were found in his car about the state trooper and if they were him to the lake we did have to go somewhere. I'm not saying that it's him to drink it or

anything but he did have to go somewhere and since he is here for pay we do need to give him a says that use a jury think would be fair and Mark Cuban nation is seventy three. Thank you. Ron. Question is complete the defendant and their parent return to the white area and a retard who did liberate their Senate Warman for that and that. You would be a Pro C with determining the recommendation. That you will make to the court regarding the office of a minor in possession of alcohol. You are instructed that your recommendation must be unanimous. That is must agree to this verdict. Please give this jury report to the bailiff. The next case and jury into the courtroom. Once all cases have been heard and all juries have reached sentences the defendants are brought back into the court room one at a time to hear their sanity. At this time the defendant learns that they have received between 10 to 60 community service hours and to destroy

him right with any drug or alcohol related case a defendant and a parent or recharge the hand eye three hour drug and parenting workshop. With a teenager your commend the defendant Scott Moore receive the phone constrictive Senates 14 hours of community service and three times the jury duty. A group of communities in Ramsey County are proposing to take part in Minnesota's pilot program CADA for Nardi is on the taskforce. She's a community prevention specialist also with us Dick Dorn by She's chief deputy with the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office thanks for coming. I start with you. The tape was sort of interesting but I'm not convinced that I mean what's the the big value of a teen court versus just a regular court juvenile court. Well the goal of teen court is to help be a strategy and creating chemically healthy communities and safe communities. And right now young people are not getting consistent messages that it's not OK to be doing delinquency behaviors like underage drinking smoking tobacco

even doing even inappropriate behaviors that are disruptive in the school and create a hostile school environment. So those are the kinds of things that would be addressed in teen court that aren't being addressed today. OK. Why are they being addressed in juvenile court as it now stands or somewhere else. Day could be a good person to talk about that but it takes quite a while before a team even gets to juvenile court is that accurate. The other was for a period of time it took up to six seven months to get a juvenile with petition in a juvenile court actually into court. Plus we don't normally petition going to six or seven months after the kids been in trouble after the kid committed the offense. That's correct. Presumably during that six or seven months he or she could get into some more trouble. That's correct. And what we're trying to get at here is even although law enforcement has a has the ability to petition first time or actually refer first time offenders up to one of the many counseling centers without going through juvenile court teen court becomes another viable option for that first time offender. And what we hope to do is reach kids early enough so that.

They won't re-offend. You know I understand that and you said that by the time kids turn 14 sometimes it's too late. Really. That's correct we're finding that kids are committing offenses at younger and younger ages 8 and 9 years old we've had kids commit felony type offenses so the younger that we can reach kids now the more important it is prevention efforts need to be directed at younger kids. This is just one of the things that should be going on in a community health community and we hope to to reach some of those teenagers who are first time offenders and prevent them from re-offending by educating them. What the what the process is like the court system works. What's the dynamic for when. Several teenagers pass judgement on another teenager as opposed to an adult judge doing it. I mean how does that change things. Well it's that it tends to create an environment where young people are sick that can they're not condoning delinquent behavior that they're saying that this is not acceptable in our community. It's positive peer pressure. And parents may be saying the same thing with this is another support system for parents having teens say this is not an appropriate acceptable.

Now you know that the kids are going to take it seriously. There's a lot of teen cards going on in the country that are very effective and kids are really learning a lot from him and growing from them so where. We're going to use a model that tries to really promote assets in the young people that participate. OK. I understand restorative justice is something that's really big in the teen court going to tell me what that's about. I'm not sure if it's a big and every teen car but we want it to be a big component in our team court restart of Justice will mean in our team court is that we're going to try to come up with consequences that restores justice in the community to the person that was harmed. So in this type of offenses that we're going to be identifying first like alcohol and tobacco the community has been the person harmed so we're going to have a task force to work with young people to figure out what would be an appropriate consequence to me. So it's not you know $75 five I mean it has something to do with what was actually committed the crime that was committed. And kids are probably a lot more stupid than we give them credit for as far as recognizing we've been through some of the task force groups that we conducted with the students the students are

telling us that the consequences the quicker the consequences are if they get caught the first time the more likely they are not to use alcohol again not used back again the kids are telling us that so we can find ways to make the consequences. Closer to the actual act than the kids themselves are telling us that may be more effective in stopping them from redoing it again and the kids will want to send that message to each other. It's a lot easier for them to support each other in this type of environment that we're proposing in teen court because now it becomes THE RIGHT THING TO DO NOT to do these things. I read somewhere that Roseville is considered an at risk community as far as when it comes to kids and I think a lot of people would be surprised by that. What's an at risk community and what are you so scared of. That you'll indicators use measurements like Title 1 weapons use. I'm trying to think of some of the other factors but student survey data that measures in at risk community and Rosehill is considered one of those communities. You've been in the sheriff's department for 25 years as a different now than 25 years ago. When it comes to

kids. Well I think kids are less respectful of law enforcement or at least more questioning than they were one time. You know one when I was a kid growing up if a if a police officer said said for me to go sit in a chair that's I wouldn't set a charge in Argue with a police officer. Now they're more likely to question that authority. One of the statistics that we found in Roseville anyway is 41 percent of the of the male students claim that they they caused injuries to another student that resulted in requiring bandages or something like that in the past year. And. How do you know that this is going to work better than what you've already got. We're willing to give it a shot. The governor was teen courts. It is interesting teen courts in Minnesota and there are some new funding out for doing teen courts and we had already been thinking about this and planning it before we ever knew about these things. And so we feel that this is something that's worth trying and it's a preventive type thing. We don't want to wait for really bad things

happen here clearly we want to be proactive. I understand the city I'm in Kate has also taken a look at those and may have something up and running by January of next year. What's the timeline for what you folks are hoping to do when the winds are going to start. Well we hope to do is get started with a planning process. We're actually planning now but to actually get it started around January 1st planning and then to actually start our first day in court sometime in late summer or the start of school year 97. All right we from the time Conny Deputy thanks for coming this week in the northern Minnesota the Beltrami County sheriff and the police chief said that their community has a major problem with juvenile crime for several months residents have been fighting fears of a growing gang problem. These nights Carolyn will has more on the story. Life is supposed to be good in smaller towns like the Meiji in northern Minnesota where residents can enjoy simple pleasures and venture outside at night. Now this summer headlines like these are spoiling that myth gang

activity increases carjacking and even a gang primmer to educate residents on how to recognize potential trouble. State wide statistics show that juvenile crime has jumped 80 percent in 10 years Beltrami county like other areas outside the metro has seen a 30 percent jump in juvenile crime this past year. Two months ago the tops of these tables were covered with gang related graffiti. Last month two women biking through town were surrounded by a group of teenagers who said they were part of a gang. And last week a woman with pulling out of her driveway and was forced at gunpoint to surrender her car again by a group of teenagers with juvenile crime is escalating at such a race here in a small town in northern Minnesota. People are saying it's time to take a new approach. The solution many people think may be deep within the solitude of Norway pines two miles away from the distractions of town. It's the new

northwestern Minnesota juvenile training center a correctional facility for young criminals. Before the facility opened this month juvenile offenders would be sent to Redwing or soc Center which helped little in their rehabilitation according to Superintendent Joe Vini. They would be co-mingled with the more sophisticated urban offenders at those facilities there to come back. Perhaps more sophisticated in the ways of delinquent behaviors and so on. Then we would like to have them be. More learned. Reinforcing the positive is part of the new programming at this four million dollars center. It can hold of 58 inmates. This is the staff staging area where staff staff have good visibility than they do. Another unique part of the center is that it houses both so-called secure and non secure offenders. Having both requires tight security

in particular of. The. Security system that. Controls the security on a. Cell phone only if your workplace will grow on. The control panel. From his inner room operators can see all areas of the grounds. Less serious offenders may not come into contact with secure offenders. Those who have committed assaults perhaps even murder the violent crimes themselves have gone up to help turn the tide. Vini says they will target parents and parents of the offenders will be brought in to learn parenting skills and to take an active role in their kids rehab. I think that the kids are able to see adults behaving in a responsible caring manner. That if kids are able to see that adults are doing what they say they want to do that's going to have a tremendous a tremendous effect.

On the kids because 45 percent of the offenders in this region are American Indians. Programs will have an emphasis on learning their cultural traditions. All this comes at a price of approximately one hundred dollars a day. It's. Not. Inexpensive but it is an investment that is well worth it. At this juncture when we're talking about kids adolescents who are still malleable. Who has behavioral patterns and. Bends in life can be turned to the positive. I have one more chance. Superintendent Vini hopes giving them a second or third chance will turn these juvenile offenders around. But in town people like amusement park owner Gary Trueblood can't afford to give them another chance. His wooden carousel that delighted families for more than 70 years became

a favorite target for vandals breaking off the horses legs and head. It became so expensive the true blood replaced it this year with a miniature golf course and another target of colored lights which used to encircle some of the rides. Now go on land. In the heart of the tourist country in the home of Paul Bunyan inveighed. Some folks believe their quality of life is still the same. Our family has been here for about 75 years. And so. I feel that it's a very safe place to live. Weston Well you know you hear stories about it that at least from my perspective there's not a crime wave. But for now only the Ferris wheel will be seen lit up at night from across the lake in Bemidji. I'm Carolyn will for Newsnight Minnesota state has plans to build 10 more regional juvenile training centers are similar to the one and then over the next two years. The idea behind regional centers is to keep the offender close to home so parents can

become involved. Moore leads many kids into trouble in the first place is a sense of hopelessness about their future. Tonight's commentator Ed glass tells us about a program at the University of Minnesota that seeks to create leaders among young people of color and they beling them to lead others in their communities. I'm here today to talk about a pressing issue that faces the minority youth of today. Our future in this day and age there are countless obstacles to success. There's discrimination increasing violence overcoming stereotypes. The rise in tuition and not even understanding fully what our options are. So what does a person of color who wants to excel in corporate America do in the face of such adversity. If you're fortunate you'll participate in the lead program at the Carlson School of Business. Weed is an acronym for leadership education and development. This program maximizes a student's leadership skills. Prior to my involvement in lead I never fully cared much for those less fortunate than I. I donate my time and money to some

charities but only when it was convenient for me. All I thought about was how could I succeed in business now how to be successful and I will admit Back then I had no idea how vast that field really was. But it didn't matter because all I cared about was getting money. After completing the program I have a whole new mindset. I understand that first and foremost to be successful you have to give back to your community. It makes you who you are gives you an identity as they say you known by the friends you keep. After I get my master's in business administration I will go back to my community and start my own business. Weed has given me a bright future. Head glass is a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. He comes from Detroit Michigan and he took part in the lead program at the Carlson School. Two summers ago. Quick reminder you can take part in our other Voices segment at your own convenience. Just call our comment line with your thoughts about anything you've seen on tonight's program. 6 1 2 2 2 9. 14:30. Your comments could land on the air tomorrow night.

And while we're on the subject of tomorrow might as well go ahead and talk about the weather forecast. Not much to talk about but sometimes less is more. Partly to mostly sunny skies highs in the 70s and the 80s. Get out and enjoy it we're not going to have too many of them left. We'll be back tomorrow night. Hope you can join us. Night Minnesota is made possible by the contributors to the power of two campaigns from.

Major grant from the London foundation. And the Knight Foundation. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesotan presented in part by whistling. Contributing to the growth of the Twin Cities to support the service.