Tuesday, March 28, 2000
OMI boss to design new team
Prosecution program has neighborhood focus
BY ROBERT ANGLEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati's chief investigator is turning his attention to the city's neighborhoods.
Ernest McAdams, director of the Office of Municipal Investigations, has been appointed to craft a new prosecution program focusing on community problems.
“The community is going to set the agenda,” he said. “I feel very strongly about this program.”
The program — one of six in the country — is being funded by a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
“We truly are one of the few cities to do this,” said Fay Dupuis, city solicitor.
Mr. McAdams, hired by the city in 1987 as an assistant prosecutor, said he is looking forward to going back to work in the city's law department, this time as a chief prosecutor.
“We are going to pick a neighborhood and then assign a prosecutor to it,” he said. “It might be to focus on a particular problem or get a handle on a situation.
Mr. McAdams, 47, said his job is to plan how community based prosecution will work in the city. He compared it to other efforts to eliminate crime by working with citizens, such as the Weed and Seed program and the Cincinnati Neighborhood Action Strategy.
Mr. McAdams, director of OMI since 1997, will start his new job on April 21.
Although his department has become embroiled in at least two recent controversies — over its failure to investigate several police shootings and its handling of an investigation that took six years to complete — Mr. McAdams said that had nothing to do with his decision to take another job.
City Manager John Shirey, who along with Mr. McAdams had to answer a barrage of questions Monday from City Council members about the 6-year-old investigation, called the OMI director's performance outstanding.
“We now have a much better complaint tracking system for citizens, and the number of completed investigations has increased,” Mr. Shirey said in a press release.
Mr. McAdams, who makes about $80,000 as director, said he has no idea who will replace him. In a letter Monday to Mr. Shirey, OMI investigator R. Michael McDaniel asked to be considered for the position.
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