City Council - Committee Of The Whole

all right next um we're going to go ahead and go into old and new business here um while we're waiting to go into community of the holes 21:14 community of the hle starts at 2:25 so we've got about 11 minutes here so old new items are old new okay I'll guess I'll go um I wanted to update the um the committee of the whole here and the mayor's office on a few items um one is that um the the mayor did a um uh had a press conference and a directive last week regarding downtown public safety and SE several us SE several of us were there at the at the Press uh conference um part of the so item C in that directive is to increase the availability of treatment options in our community um and so I wanted to just kind of go over what I'm what I'm learning and what I'm understanding that to look like last week I went on a tour of the comprehensive Treatment Center um in the northern part of Bellingham with Dr Greg Thompson from who's the county health doctor and we had conversations with that treatment provider they're treating um up to 330 people for opiate use disorder uh through treatment um modalities that include Suboxone and methadone um the mayor myself and um County Health Department are working with a a regional provider and I don't want to provide too much detail on this because we don't have an interlocal agreement at this point but that will um in theory then probably double um what that treatment capacity is with the the private provider um and this speaks to the level of um

overdoses that we're seeing I'm was just looking at a didn't mean to be rude I was looking at an email from our police chief uh here that that um describes the level of overdoses that we're that we have in Bellingham and wam County and the numbers are shocking there it is it is beyond belief we are we are in a new era when it comes to um the fentol crisis um that um has far surpassed oxy uh cotton oxycodone heroin those those um opiate use disorders of the past are um they pale in comparison and we are not done yet um my fear is that uh carfentanyl uh benzodiazapine xylazine will all be part of the equation as we move forward and those are those are drugs that we cannot use the um the Naran which is the nooc zone to to bring a person back to to life those that particular drug does not work um on on those um on those opiate EG so um I as a policy maker uh we are trying to figure out um on the incarceration prevention and reduction task force how do we how do we deal with this emerging crisis that we're that we're going through so uh at the last Behavioral Health meeting uh for the committee for the incarceration prevention and reduction task force we talked extensively about the andon center for Hope um the providers there are Pioneer Human Services that provides um sud so substance use disorder treatment and then Compass Health which provides mental health um illness uh treatment basically so two halves of that of that facility 16 beds each um our First Responders are

reporting that they're having some level of difficulty in admitting patients into that facility which is concerning our fire department reported to me um probably about a month and a half ago that they had their first successful admission into that facility uh in 2 years so the um the alternative is one Central at the hospital if they'll that's the the psychiatric unit if they'll take the the patient or or they get released to the streets and that's not an option in a crisis in my opinion so we are working we we have made our voices very clear we had um our Bellingham fire department division Chief Rickman who heads up the uh community param medic program attending we had um our former Behavioral Health officer um sad in attendance uh Chief merzig was there um many other leaders were in that in that Zoom meeting um and I know that the mayor has been very very present when it comes to trying to figure out solutions to this and I'm making a commitment to you mayor to uh to work with you and to continue in that Journey uh to try to figure figure this um this out um the incarceration prevention and reduction task force is has a leadership change up so our our two co-chairs they've termed out uh so they're they're no longer um in that position and so what we're doing right now is we're we're working through how we how we staff that leadership position or those positions rather um on that task force that task force has has been responsible for the Genesis of the lead program to

some extent the grace program the alternate Response Team um the um electronic home monitoring program and it's uh and also the andin center for for hope so there's a lot of good stuff that comes out of that out of that task force and I want to make sure that we continue that work and that we don't we don't let up especially now that we're we're in the position that we're in um so I wanted to to provide Council and mayor's office um that update that we will be transitioning new new leadership in and myself and railen king from the the uh who now works for the county will be stepping in in a very temporary uh kind of facilitation role at the next uh meeting coming up next month but we do um intend to to elect new leadership um for that task force and I'm happy to answer any questions or um entertain any comments from either the mayor or the council no okay mayor I just want to say thank you for that update everything that you just said and um council president Hamill I really appreciate your support and investment and our ongoing dialogue as we navigate these Waters so thank you yeah you're welcome thank you mayor appreciate it CC M Williams go ahead yes I was wondering if you could um speak to your efforts to increase some of the treat resources that we have here that that you're finding out about sure um I want to I want to um I want to be as candidate as I can but we don't have a we don't have a deal closed yet when it comes to um a regional provider that has been um very

helpful and very generous um my my my goal council member is to increase um the service capacity with methadone and Suboxone uh treatment and you know we we're looking at treating close to a thousand people and and I and I don't think that we're even getting close to where we uh where we need to be and And discussing um in discussing the um the level of overdoses and the people that we're losing in our community it's just uh we we need to do better we have a responsibility as policy makers and as um City leadership to to to do to do better in this capacity we can't lose any more more young more young people um sorry we um several of several of us attended the um the opiate Summit at the high school and we fir we heard firsthand from parents who who lost their kids and the the um the sheer Agony that I saw in parents' eyes when they talked about losing their their kids or their children uh it just it just kind of stopped me my tracks and and I know that all of us take this really seriously and I know and I believe that every person in this room that that's here today and others in the community really do care about stopping this and I know that mayor you've made a um a conservative effort to really try to bring to bear resources especially in our downtown community where we see so much of this um and yeah I I just want to I'll I'll stop there in a minute but um we um we can do a good job on this and we have we have people that are are I believe 100% in our in our police

department and our fire department and the work that they that they do every day out there they they see the stuff every day and it's traumatic for the for the people that that work on those in those departments to see people that are um having the worst day of their life so let's let's commit to doing this and and put like I think we put need to put our shoulder into it more than that and more than that more than that council member go ahead mayor I share your heartfelt comments and appreciate um everything that you've just said right now and one thing I said in relation to the executive order is this is just the beginning of a series of actions and we're going to be involved and invested in this work for a long period of time and we need many Community Partners to do this work well um we have Chief huitt here and I think it's a compliment to the conversation that council president Hamill just brought I think uh bill can share a little bit about some of the other Innovative work that EMS is doing right now yeah just kind of continuing you know looking at everything that we can do CU I I think we all share in fact I I think so much of the energy that went into and the speed of which um we were able to make the downtown Public Safety Office happen a lot of that is because a lot of the employees that are involved in different pieces of that I mean this is affecting everybody across every geopolitical line social economic line it's you know we we've um and I think that's why saw

so many uh employees um throughout the city in the various departments uh move with un an enormous amount of speed and and uh to get things moving here downtown but um I along with the conversations that that are happening I I was just going to let you know we are starting some highlevel discussions with County Health County EMS on um looking at what a overdose unit uh would look like and what medical assistant treatment from EMS might look like um part of that is very much we need to get beds and places for people that are willing to take help to willing you know are willing to accept help for them to go um that's a big part of it um without that piece the other piece is um really not that productive but I but I'm hopeful that we'll be back um we'll be back here sometime in the very near future to talk about more we've got some really um good energy going on between the County Health Department uh County EMS and ourselves about um how how can we uh lean into it even further than what we're doing now so Chief committee comments all right okay so we'll conclude with old and new unless there's any other items that we need to talk about and seeing none I'll go we'll go ahead thank you Chief thank you mayor um we'll go ahead and move into uh commune of the whole and um this is the lightest commune of the whole that I've ever seen in 10 years here I don't even know what to do with this so we have um approval of the uh January 29th 2024 uh city council committee and regular meeting

minutes move approval okay motion made by council member um Williams and I'll give the second to the to council member uh list um any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I um opposed exstension recusals motion carry 70 go ahead um council president I I my memory was that you were going to also discuss how to handle meeting minutes in the future Council meetings that is correct I'm going to do that after I'm going to dispose of these two and then I'm going to go ahead and address that item so I probably could have done done that under old and new I don't know what the order is but let's go ahead and move it to the second item and then I'll make the the motion um approval okay motion's been made by council member Williams second second by council member huthman for the approval of the uh February 12th uh city council committee and regular meeting minutes any further discussion go ahead C more Stone one comment president Hamill um so on page one the agenda item it was 2411 the proposed Grant of telecommunications franchise it's to zipley fiber Pacific and not Pacific fiber I know the corrections been made in the in the ordinance that's going to be approved this evening um but just making reference of the error that's still existing in the in the minutes so again just for it to read zipley fber Pacific can we make that change yeah we'll get it updated and I'll make sure it's read properly this evening okay all right all those in favor signify by

saying I I oppos extensions recusals seeing none motion carry 70 I will now make a motion to um to include all future city council committee and regular meeting minutes into the consent agenda second motion's been made by the chair and seconded by council member Williams any further discussion go ahead council member list every now and then there are need to correct the minutes if it's in the consent agenda just as a matter of procedure what we'd have to do is uh make a motion to pull from the consent agenda make the correction then pass it yeah but otherwise I think it's a good streamlining okay yeah we're just trying to create efficiencies uh all those in favor sign signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 um we'll um we'll work on consent agenda tonight and final consideration of ordinances I don't see any I don't see an executive session here is that correct okay all right then we're adjourned until 7 o'clock tonight think we set a record