Rocky Wilson/Chieftain Wallowa County District Attorney Mona Williams talks about her duties as a board member of the Oregon District Attorneys Association.

Wallowa County District Attorney Mona Williams has joined the Oregon District Attorneys Association’s board of directors.

Asked to fill the position by the 36 district attorneys in the state, Williams accepted and on Jan. 1 began a six-year term. Under the board’s protocol, the Wallowa County DA will advance to the position of board president by the end of her term.

Williams, the county’s district attorney for the past eight years, says the possibility of sitting on such a board would not have been possible before November 2012 when her workload as the county’s sole prosecutor was eased by the naming of a deputy district attorney, a role currently filled by Rebecca Frolander.

“It is an honor to be asked,” says Williams, who says she now will be required to spend at least two days in Salem each month dealing with state-level political issues.

On at least one day each month, says Williams, she has begun meeting with a legislative committee composed of approximately 20 representatives from law enforcement-related agencies in the state. Among those agencies, she says, are the Oregon District Attorneys Association; Oregon Chiefs of Police; Association of Oregon Counties; Oregon Department of Public Safety, Standards, and Training; Oregon Department of Justice; and Oregon Sheriffs Association.

Already in 2015, that legislative committee has selected legislative sponsors who have helped write and introduced a new bill into the “hopper” at the state legislature.

The future of that proposed bill is unknown, but Williams describes it as a nine-point measure related to the topic of domestic violence.

Williams explains that the bill aims to clarify multiple points in existing law.

Among its other effects, the proposed legislation would prohibit defendants who are in custody in domestic violence and sex offense cases from contacting victims by phone, letter, and/or e-mail while they are in jail. A second sample among the nine points would give police officers at the scene of a domestic violence incident authority to contact a judge by telephone to obtain a temporary emergency order when an adult, child, or elder is in immediate and present danger of abuse by a member of the family or household.