SIKESTON TAKES TOUGH STAND ON CRIMINALS

The Sikeston City Council has some harsh words for a criminal element battling for control of the city's west side: Get out. Now.

The city issued the warning through an open letter to the community, and specifically to the city's drug dealers and slumlords, in the Standard Democrat newspaper in Sikeston. The letter came after nine armed robberies, two murders and several lesser crimes terrified residents over two miserable summer months. The most frightening offense was a shooting just blocks from an elementary school.

It's not a new problem. In the mid-1990s, Sikeston received national attention for being a little town with a big crime problem. The city opened a police substation in the middle of its largest public-housing neighborhood. Experts from metropolitan areas visited to explain what worked in their cities. Community leaders began to take the problem seriously.

The battle raged on. Mobs attacked police responding to west-side calls. And Sikeston remained a good place to run an illegal drug operation. It's an ugly truth. No elected official wants to say that out loud about his own community. But Mayor Josh Bill and four councilmen are saying it. In doing so, they're throwing down a gauntlet.

"You are not welcome here," they wrote, addressing those who abuse drugs and weapons. "We're going to make your life very difficult for you from this day forward, and our best advice is for you to leave. Go back to the cities or towns you came from."

They addressed slumlords, telling them to rent only to responsible people and fix up their property or get out of the rental business. A new maintenance code will require a minimum $100 fine or 10 hours of community service as punishment for violations, and both increase with each offense.

They asked the Sikeston Housing Authority to review the number of Section 8 housing vouchers handed out in the city, hoping to keep drug dealers out of public housing and save it for those who really need a hand.

The city leaders did the right thing in issuing the letter and promising city employees that they will have the backing required to make this plan work.

Sikeston has been a community divided. The words "west end" long have conjured images of poverty and crime in the minds of Sikeston residents.

But if the city's leaders really believe in what they wrote and stick to it, that image will change.