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Show Secret Witness moves closer to realization Vernal City's long-talked about Secret Witness program moved another step forward Wednesday when the police department turned over the program pro-gram to a citizen board that will put it into operation in the coming weeks. Meeting with the board members over lunch at the Diamond Hills Cafe, Police Chief Robert Downard emphasized em-phasized the need for citizens to run the program, and stressed that the program pro-gram could serve a dual purpose of providing pro-viding the police department with constructive con-structive criticism by the community. For their part, the board members accepted the program enthusiastically and stressed that anonymity of witness will be vital to the program's success. Vernal's Secret Witness program will be registered as a Utah corporation. The by-laws allow as many as 25 board members to be chosen in all, to evaluate witness reports and decide cash rewards. The board member serves voluntarily. Members chosen so far by the city council are John Schwisow, city councilman coun-cilman Greg Hawkins, Dave Jolley, Woodey Searle and John Millecam. '"We see it working better this way because we can kill two birds with one stone," said Downard. "For us to be effective, ef-fective, citizens have to be effective. We also want people involved to criticize what we're doing." Downard said the idea was thought up two years ago as the department saw a need for improved public relations. rela-tions. "Of the secret witness programs studied in Utah, Colorado and southern Nevada, Vernal's will be the only one sponsored entirely by citizens." said detective Mel Curtis. "If the police and sheriff's department depart-ment have to do things without citizen input, we are in a real sad situation," said Searle. "If they (police) get anything hard, how many times does it take to put it together before they get the same answer?" Searle added that people seem to remember a lot on the spur of the moment mo-ment and could be very helpful if they could relay their information quickly. Schwisow praised the secrecy aspect. "A lot of people will say, 'I don't want to be publicized for fear of reprisal.'" Said Searle: "You can see things that if you just think. ..anytime you see something not natural. Take down a license plate number. I doesn't hurt anything." The board members expressed little concern about money as a motive for callers. Of programs studied in cities the size of Vernal, only about 20 percent of the callers seemed to have money as a motive, according to detective Curtis. |