Oyster Creek just says no to opioid funds

The Facts
By KENT HOLLE kent.holle@thefacts.com
Apr 22, 2023

OYSTER CREEK — Council left an item on the agenda unaddressed by design — available funds from a settlement arrived at by the state of Texas in a suit against opioid manufacturers.

Texas was one of multiple states that reached the agreement with manufacturers of the addictive pain-relief medications, including Johnson & Johnson, Endo, Teva, and Allergan, as well as distributors and three major pharmacies — CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart.

According to Mayor Justin Mills, the requirements to accept the funds would have been out of line with the city’s policies and size.

“The list of projects that you have to do with it — we don’t have the resources. It’s one thing to start a program. It’s another thing to keep it going,” Mills said. “We weren’t interested in setting up centers or any of that.”

Various departments within the city had looked at the options and responded to him that they wouldn’t have been a good fit, Mills said, with most of them being geared toward higher population centers.

“I wasn’t putting up clean needle bins or paraphernalia disposal receptacles” he said. “We passed on it.”

In other business, the council unanimously agreed to waive fees for the Surfside Gypsies use of the Municipal Park for their annual fundraising event between August 4-6. The council cited a long precedent of doing so and a history of the organization being highly respectful of the grounds.

“It was a pretty good turnout last year that they had. It rained on them the whole time and they had their campers in the park and everything — no rust or anything when they left,” Public Works Director Erik Chitwood said. “I don’t know how they did it, but they did. They cleaned it up real good.”

Council also declared an official end to the Declaration of Disaster for the city and any disaster-related powers that were put in place in the early days of the Covid 19 pandemic.

“I was coronated the King of Covid Disaster and it drug on a lot longer than it should have,” Mills said. “Then, when it was over, somehow we kept on missing taking me off of it, so we might as well do it and vote to remove me.”

“I feel healthier already,” City Attorney Larry Boyd said after the vote was taken.

Lastly, per city policy, the council voted to refund utility deposits for accounts in good standing which were established five years ago, in 2018 and 2019.