A courtroom full of Allen County officials joining forces to encourage voters to vote "no" on State Issue One.
"State Issue One is a killer, it's a wolf in sheep's clothing". That from Allen County Prosecutor Juergen Waldick. He along with law enforcement, safety services, court officials, and county elected officials among others gathering to get the word out about the dangers that State Issue One will cause if approved. The issue is being called the "The Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment, and Rehabilitation Amendment" and local officials say there is nothing safe about it.
"One of the features of this particular constitutional, the proposed constitutional amendment is that they're going to swing open the prison doors and let criminals out early, 25% of their sentence being cut off. Criminals that have nothing to do with drug trafficking. You're talking about human traffickers, you're talking about aggravated robbers, you're talking about child pornographers, you're talking about people completely that have nothing to do with drugs whatsoever," said Juergan Waldick, Allen County Prosecutor.
"State Issue One is going to make it a safe haven in Ohio for drug dealers and drug traffickers. Anyone that does that kind of work or trade for say and sees the laws in Ohio be lessened that much is going to flock here and when that happens, the crime rates are going to go up and there's going to be all kinds of additional problems coming with that," explained Sheriff Matt Treglia.
State lawmakers want voters to understand that this amendment was proposed by an out of state source as an initiative petition. The state currently has drug treatment programs for non-violent offenders.
"The people who this is supposed to help, who are low-level drug users and offenders, who done this only once or twice, those folks aren't in prison anyway. Those are helped dealt with very frankly, very ably, by our local courts through drug courts and through the criminal justice system," said Senator Matt Huffman.
"Before people vote they really need to know that this is an issue that's dangerous to our community. There is a website that's been started, "Vote No on Issue One". I encourage and urge people to go to read what it is and I think that they'll find out that it's different than our opponents are urging them to do," said Representative Bob Cupp.
You can find the complete ballot language and arguments for and against State Issue One at the Ohio Secretary of State's website.
