Legislators meeting today want public safety officials to outline their plans for returning money and property seized improperly by the disbanded Metro Gang Strike Force.

A legislative hearing at the State Capitol is also expected to push Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion for details on how he will fund seven remaining metro task forces that deal with drugs, violence and gangs. The session is one of several hearings expected by lawmakers grappling with how to restore public trust to efforts to crack down on gang problems in the Twin Cities.

Other metro task forces have been told that they cannot apply for state money for 2010 while Campion develops a comprehensive metrowide plan with safeguards to prevent the abuses that prompted the Strike Force's shutdown in July. Andy Skoogman, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said Campion believes there are too many task forces. He is looking for a more streamlined model to combat gangs and will work with local jurisdictions to create it, Skoogman said.

Today's hearing, scheduled for 11:30 a.m., is the second in less than a month dealing with the Strike Force. At the first, lawmakers from four House and Senate committees that oversee public safety, policy and finance heard allegations of wrongdoing committed by Strike Force members. They now plan three or four, and perhaps more, follow-up hearings before the 2010 legislative session, said Sen. Linda Higgins, DFL-Minneapolis, one of the committee chairs.

Today, lawmakers expect to be told about a telephone hot line that will be set up soon that individuals can call if they believe their property or cash was improperly seized by the Strike Force. The hot line, approved by Campion and the Strike Force's advisory board, will be run by the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust, said Stephanie Weiss, a trust spokeswoman.

When someone calls it, "We will send them a simple claims form and a self-addressed, stamped return envelope," Weiss said. "That form will ask them to provide information about the property allegedly seized by the Metro Gang Strike Force. We ask them for the date and description of the incident. ...

"Staff will seek to match that information to [Strike Force] reports and files, and where there are discrepancies, we will conduct an investigation. ... The hot line will be initially in English and Spanish as well as the forms, and if we need to translate into other languages, we will do that."

Meanwhile, officials with some of the seven other metro-area drug and gang task forces, which received about $1.2 million in state funding for 2009, are concerned that Campion has told them they cannot apply yet for 2010 funds. "The problem with delaying is that all the counties are putting together their budgets," said Wabasha County Sheriff Rodney Bartsh, who chairs the Minnesota Gang and Drug Oversight Council. "It puts them in a little bit of a bind."

"We want to know what his plan is," said state Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, chairman of one of the House committees involved in the hearings.

One law enforcement official said he has been squeezed with a shrinking budget while Campion declines to allow task forces to apply for funding -- even though they have not been implicated in Strike Force problems. "If there is a plan to get together to have a metrowide strategy for law enforcement, when is he planning to do that?" the official asked.

Later hearings are expected to deal with the future of a multiagency gang task force, and whether state statutes on property forfeiture and seizure laws need revamping.

Paymar said the hearings also will examine a tactic known as "saturation," in which Strike Force members went through neighborhoods confronting people. "I think the community was shocked that people who were not committing crimes had their pictures taken and were put in databases," said Paymar.

Both Sen. Mee Moua, DFL-St. Paul, and Rep. Debra Hilstrom, DFL-Brooklyn Center, the other committee chairs involved in the hearings, said they want to restore public trust.

"The interest in the Legislature is to use the hearing process to make transparent some of the concerns we have," said Moua. Hilstrom said the public needs to "know that we are paying attention."

Randy Furst • 612-673-7382