GLASGOW — The recent situation regarding Barren County becoming part of the expanded South central Kentucky Crime Stoppers is another example of law enforcement in the city and county needing to work together to benefit the entire community.

For too long there has been a lack of cooperation between city and county law enforcement on some issues. The situation became noticeably worse to even the casual observer after the arrests of former Glasgow Police Department majors Johnny Travis and Maxie Murray.

The fact that shortly after the arrests the GPD left the task force struck a the wrong note (of highly questionable timing) in an economic time when there should be more cooperation and sharing of resources—not less.

Sheriff Chris Eaton is right to say it wasn't in the best interest of the county for the area's largest law enforcement agency, the Glasgow Police Department, to leave the drug task force, particularly without explaining its reasons for doing so, with the exception of manpower.

The GPD has more than 25 officers policing ½ of the citizens and 1/3 of the geographic area, while there are less than 10 sheriff's deputies policing the county; yet the sheriff's department supplies three detectives on the task force.

The drug problem in Barren County does appear to be growing. In the last few weeks, the Daily Times has run numerous articles about methamphetamine laboratories being found in the area or meths-related arrests that stem from task force investigations. The weekly re-cap police and sheriff’s reports are full of drug-related activity and arrests.

This is a time when leadership and focus on the bigger picture needs to be foremost as we as a city and county grow more serious about winning the battle against an insidious opponent — the spread of drug manufacturing and sales in our community. We need to be willing to share resources and tools in this fight to re-claim our county. One of those tools is crime stoppers, along with the home-grown version currently well established with the Sheriff’s office. The fact is Crime Stoppers is a good program. It's been effective in Bowling Green-Warren County for years and could benefit all law enforcement in Barren County.

The program is “user-funded” meaning the cost of the organizing Crime Stoppers is paid by individuals as part of their fines in district court. There is no cost to the county or any city to participate.

In this instance, the fiscal court and Barren County can help all the law enforcement agencies in Barren County by agreeing to Crime Stoppers.

Keeping Crime Stoppers out of Barren County doesn't help any law enforcement agency.

It only helps the criminals.

Also, if the police department doesn’t have the manpower to provide an officer to the task force, the city can at least continue to provide money to help pay for the good work members of the task force do perform.

The same applies to the drug task force — keeping Glasgow manpower or Glasgow economic contributions out of the drug task force only helps the criminals.

Dialogue between Eaton and Chief Horace Johnson recently needs to continue. It's a good first step and hopefully communication leads to cooperation. All law enforcement in Barren County have the same goal and need to work together to use our community's limited resources to keep our people safe. But it needs to continue beyond law enforcement to the fiscal court and city council; to the mayor and the judge-executive and to the people of Glasgow and Barren County.

The manufacture, distribution and sales of drugs are destroying our community. Difficult economic times mean better times for the drug trade. We can not sit on the sidelines while this damage continues to tear down the quality of life we’ve enjoyed in this community for over 200 years. It’s time for everyone to be in the game — law enforcement, elected officials, prosecutors, judges and citizens.