PROGRAM TRIES TO SOW SEEDS OF JUSTICE

SIKESTON -- For those wanting immediate results from Operation Weed and Seed, the U.S. Department of Justice has two messages:

Don't expect results for at least a year. And don't expect government officials to do all the work.

More than two months ago, U.S. Attorney Edward Dowd and a number of state and local lawmakers descended on Sikeston to announce the beginning of Operation Weed and Seed, a program to deal with the city's drug problem.

They conducted the kickoff meeting July 19 in Sunset, a troubled neighborhood on the city's southwestern edge. That night, police arrested a suspected drug dealer cruising around the outdoor meeting. The arrest was part of Weed and Seed's weeding side -- an effort to put drug dealers out of business.

The next day, Dowd presided over a meeting at Sikeston City Hall and encouraged Sunset residents to help with the seeding side and tell officials what should be done to help their neighborhood. The residents present said they would set the date for a meeting with Dowd and the other officials.

The meeting recently was set for Oct. 17, nearly three months after the initial kickoff. One involved resident cited excessive heat for the delay.

But before the meeting with Dowd, residents intend to meet at the Citizens Home Mission Outreach Center in Sunset on Wednesday and decide what they want to tell the U.S. attorney and his staff.

Tricia Roland, director of government relations for the U.S. attorney's office, said if nobody emerges as a local leader to coordinate the residents, Operation Weed and Seed will be worthless in Sikeston.

"This is an empowerment program," she said. "We are resources, not residents. The initiative must come from within."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Ferrell said he and other Justice Department officials have been "breaking their backs" to get work done in Sikeston, meeting individually with community leaders.

They're working with Dr. Robert Buchanan, superintendent of schools, on how to get more Sunset residents into adult education classes. They're working with Sikeston Department of Public Safety Chief Jim Leist on community-oriented policing and the establishment of a police substation in Sunset.

And they're working with Buchanan and the Rev. Michael Green, president of the outreach center, on establishing safe havens where children and adults can have fun and learn something.

Perhaps the most important work is being done at Southeast Missouri State University, where criminal justice students are collecting information for a Weed and Seed grant application.

If the application is accepted, Sikeston, along with nearby communities Caruthersville, Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau an Charleston, will have priority status on any federal grants they apply to receive. They also will be the first rural communities recognized under Weed and Seed.

"We recognize that drug problems aren't unique to any one community," Roland said. "There's a strong drug trafficking relationship between all of them."

All of the work will mean little if Sunset residents don't join together and decide what they want, Roland and Ferrell said. Michael Harris, who lives in the Clayton Addition near Sunset, got involved in Weed and Seed to help save his own neighborhood.

He was visiting a friend Monday night when he heard a gunfight about two blocks from his home. Nobody was hurt -- at least not on that occasion.

"We need better outlets for our children," Harris said. "Actually, there are several needs. You can't single one out."

Among them, he said, are job counseling, housing renewal and recreational programs.

Green, the outreach center president, put a safe haven at the top of his list. He hopes, of course, that his center is the chosen facility.

But even without Weed and Seed, he said, Sikeston leaders and residents must step in and do something.

"When (the people) wanted to build a library, they came up with the funds," he said. "When they wanted to build a swimming pool, they came up with the funds. They're paying for recreational swimming, and we're talking about saving people who are figuratively drowning."

"Help should be coming from within the community," Green said. "No government agency wants to come into a community, do all the work and come up with all the money."