04/01/2025 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mayor Jones: Mr. President, God willing, I will be. [laughing] Council President Brossard: I cannot wait, thank you. Director of Law Gareau, do you have a report this evening? Law Director Gareau: I do, thank you, and just a quick note, the Mayor left out of her report that she'll be looking for pitching coaches to assist, to make sure that ball is a heater right over the plate. We don't want to have any pressure on you as you throw the ball. Mayor Jones: Thank you. Law Law Director Gareau: You're welcome. No one will watch, I'm sure. [laughing] Mr. President, it was coming up on seven years ago, that I brought legislation forward to you folks to give consideration to the effect of opioids, and the opioid epidemic here in North Olmsted, the county, the state, and the country. At that time, back in 2018, seven years ago, this Council passed a Resolution declaring the opioid epidemic a public nuisance in the City of North Olmsted, and declaring an emergency. It's hard to believe that was seven years ago; many of us have been affected by that. I have someone in my own immediate sphere that dealt with a significant opioid addiction that started out as simply being treated for a medical condition as a teenager. That person is in remission, and has made a recovery, and is doing well with life. But we know that that was not always the case for others, based upon the harmful long-term consequences of that situation. So thereafter, in 2022, we passed an Ordinance to create a special revenue fund. As you know, the City of North Olmsted, it's been some time since I spoke about it, is still a participant in a class action litigation against manufacturers and distributors, to name a few of the entities that have been involved in what has been demonstrated to have been players in that epidemic and the havoc that it wreaked upon our communities. So when we created that, we created a special revenue fund in 2022, the idea was that any funds that we would receive would be used to expand the availability of treatment or develop and promote evidence -based substance use prevention, provide substance use avoidance and awareness education, and decrease oversupply of illicit opioids. The idea was that we would be able to put together some funds through litigation in order to be able to achieve some of those. It's difficult because the funds would come in very slowly, and as with class action litigation, if anybody has even been involved in their own life, when your named as a member of the class... sometimes the awards are very small. So in this instance, though, I'm pleased to announce that up until now, the City has $50,990.45, and I think it's probably a time now or in the near future where we can look to utilize some of those funds on some of the purposes when this Council passed that fund creation back in 2022. So it's been a long time since I've talked 04-01-25 Council Meeting Minutes - Page 3