News from neighbors
DA says he’s under-staffed as felony cases increase
STERLING JOURNAL-ADVOCATE, May 19 — The Logan County commissioners can expect a request for more staff funding from the district attorney’s office when budget time rolls around in the fall.
Travis Sides, newly-elected DA for the 13th Judicial District, met with the commissioners during their workshop session Tuesday morning to give the board a heads-up on staffing shortages in his office.
Sides began by telling the commissioners that a highly-successful campaign against internet luring has had to be suspended while his investigators work three pending homicide cases, two in Logan County and one in Morgan County.
The internet luring project had resulted in 21 arrests since 2018, Sides said, including three in which the online predators openly admitted in their correspondence that they’d previously had sex with children.
According to the Crimes against Children Research Center, internet predators manipulate young people into criminal sexual relationships often by appealing to young people’s desire to be appreciated, understood, take risks and find out about sex. The CCRC’s website said offenders often readily admit to being adults looking for sex with young teens.
Law enforcement fights this practice by having investigators log in as teens pretending to look for illicit relationships with adults. But with the manpower demands of the homicide cases, Sides said, the internet luring project has pretty much gone by the wayside as his office turns its attention toward establishing solid murder cases.
It’s not just those cases that are sapping the district attorney’s manpower, Sides said. There has been a 50% increase in cases filed across the 13th District between 2010 and 2020, and it’s especially bad in Logan and Morgan counties. The DA said Logan County cases have grown from 265 felony cases in 2010 to 455 in 2020.
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Letters on dead trees going out; other nuisance reviews coming
IMPERIAL REPUBLICAN, May 19 — Thirteen Imperial, Nebraska, property owners will be receiving letters from the city’s nuisance officer concerning dead or dying trees on their properties.
Imperial City Council members approved 13 resolutions Monday that declared those properties nuisances after viewing slides of the trees.
Amy Sauer of West Central Nebraska Development District in Ogallala, Nebraska, the city’s nuisance officer, said letters going out will inform property owners they have 30 days to take action on tree removal, or there could be action to abate them next month.
Abating means the trees could be removed by the city or a contractor, with costs charged to the property owner.
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