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own personal story of overcoming addiction in a way that hit home for the Committee members and also put in a way, faces or people to the statistics that were shared. The bottom line from my perspective is that Lakewood is being innovative by bringing together all relevant voices in being both comprehensive and hands -on in its approach rather than just sweeping it under the rug. We acknowledge that we had a problem and are doing everything we can comprehensively to do something about it. Lastly, one of the things I expressed in the meeting is a hope to have a full report after we've got a full year under our belt of the program so we can compare last year's numbers to this years. Motion by Mr. Litten, seconded by Mr. O'Leary to receive and file the oral report. Discussion: Mr. Anderson referred to the rates of overdose and death that were discussed in Committee, noting that overall numbers are down but that the percentage of overdoses resulting in death has not gone down. He expressed full support for the program. Director Gelsomino remarked that overdose deaths are associated with fentanyl being added to the drugs and that we need to continue partnering with law enforcement to crack down on fentanyl. On the motion: All members voting yea. Motion passed 6. Finance Committee Report regarding meetings held 9/10/18, 9/24/18 & 10/1/18; Mr. O'Malley, Chair The Finance Committee met on those referenced dates. We have already dispensed with one of the items discussed at the first meeting. I believe that we passed the transfer and advance ordinance at the last meeting where I was not present. The bulk of our discussion at those three meetings was around our discussion of Council budget priorities. This process was started a couple years ago when Councilmember Bullock was chairing Finance Committee. The thought process behind it was that it would give Council an opportunity to formally make its voice heard in drafting our budget. I think there was a characterization previously that Council was presented with a budget in the middle of November and we would take a few weeks to discuss it and did not have enough of an opportunity to influence that. My view is that we do have an opportunity regularly and continuously throughout the year to work with the administration to discuss areas where we would like to see improvement or investment. This is an opportunity to do so formally by way of the resolution that we had before us this evening. We do have a number of items that made it into the final resolution. o Provide funding for Council travel to conferences and membership in organizations where those are. o This was an important one and one where we had broad agreement. Councilwoman George made this proposal. Where we can go and learn from our counterparts in other cities to improve ourselves not only professionally but to be able to improve our processes as well.