New Washington County attorney ready for challenges

Pete Orput, who was elected in November, was sworn in last week as Washington County attorney to replace Doug Johnson, who had held the post for 12 years before retiring.

Orput, most recently an assistant Hennepin County attorney in the violent crime division, has spent much of his career as a prosecutor.

A few days before being sworn in, he talked about the hopes and challenges he has in his new role.

Q. Now that you're Washington County attorney, what are your goals for the job?

A. The goals that I campaigned on are the same goals I have for the job. I want to serve the citizens of Washington County primarily in assuring their public safety -- and there's no shortage of work there. That's the primary thing. I also want to serve the citizens of the county in other areas, trying to make efforts to get more child support for families, for example. It's a tough time. All the areas the county attorney's involved in, I want to continue the work of my predecessor and build upon that. Those are the goals that are driving me -- primarily in the area of public safety.

Q. What do you see are the big issues? The county's population is growing, money's tight and caseload is a big issue.

A. That's exactly what it is. The challenge is to provide the best service to the citizens of the county and to do it in times of significant budget crunch -- a crisis, if you will. Everyone's aware there's a big state deficit that's going to impact this county, but at the same time there's a lot of pressure to cut back on resources. But at the same time, just as you said, the growth of Washington County is expected to be significant. ... We need to be prepared for that. As a county attorney, I need to be prepared to deliver the public safety that these citizens deserve and to do it in a cost-effective way in spite of the fact that there's going to be budget cuts. What it demands is that my office work harder and smarter during these tough times.

Q. As a prosecutor over in Hennepin County -- is that going to mean an emphasis on battling violent crime?

A. If we have to prioritize -- and we always do when we have limited resources -- clearly I think the public expects and demands, reasonably, that they be protected from violent criminals. As obvious as that sounds, that has to be our No. 1 priority. Get the career criminals, the violent offenders, off the streets. And whatever it takes under the law, we need to do. And we need to be aggressive about it, and we need to be forward-thinking about it. I plan to work closely with law enforcement agencies and community groups -- I have some strategies on that.

... We need to hold the criminals to account so they don't continue to re-offend in our communities. Another strategy is to try to reach out more to the youth in our communities, working closely with police and other agencies. If we can keep a kid from going down the path of criminal activity, I call that a good effort in public safety. I want to put some resources into that, looking at specific areas such as truancy. I'm a big fan of the Woodbury and Cottage Grove setup of a peer court, which is really promising. If that can be shown to work, I want to expand that greatly. I want to get on board with that.

These things don't necessarily cost a lot more money, and yet they can be a lot more cost-effective in the long run, especially if we can stop the recidivist rate among criminals or keep a kid from going into criminal activity -- that saves big money.

Q. Do you anticipate any major reorganizing of the attorney's office?

I want to put some time into finding some grant money to get things going on a comprehensive truancy program. Maybe, if grants are available, to get the new model drug court ... they seem to work and they seem to have very low recidivist rates. Those kinds of programs I want to explore.

I want to look at some grant money to work with my fellow prosecutors in the city attorneys' offices to see if we can combine our resources in the area of domestic abuse. That's something I feel pretty strong about. Domestic abuse affects the entire family, and if we can address that more, build on what we have and streamline it and make it more accessible for victims and families, I think that goes toward the goal of public safety.

So those are some things I want to work on, but those aren't big changes, those are just things that are building on what's there.