Checkpoints to continue in Jefferson County

Source: St.儲存 Louis Post-DispatchOct. 19--HILLSBORO --The Jefferson County Council's decision to turn down a grant to fund drunken-driving checkpoints and safety checks was a first in the state.On Tuesday, the County Council rejected a Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission grant of up to $22,000, citing concerns about the intrusiveness of safety checks.Such a rejection had never happened before, said Teresa Krenning, a traffic operations engineer with the Missouri Department of Transportation."We'll have to redistribute it to someone else unless they can get it worked out," she said of the money, which can be sought until June 30.But the odds of the council reversing its decision are low. The council voted 6-1 to turn down the grant, after some residents complained that the stops, specifically for seat belt checks, violated their civil rights.The sheriff said he would use money in his budget to continue funding the checkpoints.The council move was led by Bob Boyer, who represents the Arnold area and is running for a state representative seat.He said the stops raise constitutional issues, citing concerns about people who were stopped and how they were treated.Terri Kreitler, a councilwoman who represents the Festus area, said she probably would have supported the grant had the money been allocated just for drunken-driving checkpoints.But she wasn't comfortable using the money for safety checks."They really are disrupting people's lives while they're out doing their daily business, and it's kind of aggravating," she said.Sheriff Oliver "Glenn" Boyer, who is not mini storageelated to the council member, said he is steadfast that the county council will not decide how he runs his department or uses grant money. And he vows to continue with the checkpoints."Why should I allow the county council to dictate what law enforcement is going to do?" he said. "Why should I turn that authority over to the county council, who has no law-enforcement experience whatsoever?"The sheriff's office conducts one or two checkpoints a month, saying they're necessary given the county's high seat-belt noncompliance and alcohol-related fatalities.According to state data from 2010 to 2012, unincorporated areas in Jefferson County had 17 fatal alcohol-related crashes, the most of any county in the state.In that same three-year period, the unincorporated areas also had the most fatal crashes involving people not wearing seat belts -- 34 people died.The grant money rejected by the county council would have been used to pay for a night checkpoint for impaired drivers and to buy equipment such as portable breath-alcohol testers and car cameras, the sheriff's office said.Checkpoints last year resulted in 69 arrests for drunken driving, 11 cases of children who were not restrained and 138 tickets for not wearing a seat belt, as well as other offenses, including driving stolen vehicles and driving with revoked licenses."I think there's definitely a need," Sheriff Boyer said of the checkpoints. "We're trying to save lives."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at .stltoday.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage