SAYBROOK - Diane Wilson said youths used to frequently race cars and four-wheelers on the gravel road near her home, and people met nearby for what she suspected were drug deals.

And she said calls to authorities didn't solve the problems.

"We've been told we're just too far out in the county," Wilson said. "The response time is 45 minutes."

That changed since the Bloomington-based McLean County Sheriff's Department set up a substation in Saybrook this summer.

"It has gotten very quiet, and we appreciate it," she said.

Wilson was one of dozens of people in the audience Wednesday night during a meeting called by local law enforcement and village officials for a report on the substation. Those officials included Sheriff Mike Emery and State's Attorney Bill Yoder.

The east-side substation in Saybrook houses one full-time deputy who serves the town, nearby towns such as Bellflower and Arrowsmith and rural areas.

According to information provided by Emery, it used to take deputies 30 or 40 minutes to get to Saybrook. The average response time is now 9.5 minutes for domestic violence calls and 5.6 minutes for traffic crashes with injuries, he said.

And Emery said the deputy, Laurin Bartelmay, regularly performs traffic duties, patrols, and checks on businesses and homes of people who are on vacation.

Bartelmay said many of the first complaints he dealt with when arriving in late June centered on youths blocking traffic by skateboarding in the middle of streets or attending underage drinking parties. He said juveniles are no longer as much of a problem as adults disobeying the law.

"I haven't seen a kid on a four-wheeler on the road since my first week here," Bartelmay said, adding he has seen adults in their 50s riding them on roads since that time.

Bartelmay said the reduced response times for domestic disputes helps him get to a home before problems escalate. And he said talking with local residents helped him gain trust and receive tips from people who wouldn't likely talk to other officers.

Jim Gravitt, a village trustee, said Saybrook wouldn't be able to afford its own officer, and Bartelmay's work has significantly reduced the amount of crime visible in the town.

"Ever since the police officer's been here, he's made a drastic change in the way things were going in town," Gravitt said. "We had a lot of people breaking the law and misbehaving."

Yoder talked during the meeting about what efforts the attorneys in his office are making to prosecute people who commit drug, sex and domestic violence-related crimes.

And he said after the meeting it's important to talk in person with people about what his prosecutors are doing and send a message to people trying to deal drugs in small towns.

Emery said he wants to expand the substation program to "north, south, east and west."

"I've got some folks on the west side of the county knocking on my door," Emery said, adding a substation west of the Twin Cities would be the next considered.

Emery said officials in the Stanford-based Olympia school district, after being told a school resource officer isn't available, indicated they would be willing to host a deputy who would be stationed at the school and assigned to the west side of the county.