Josephine County Commission Board Chair Andreas Blech called the Thursday, May 1 weekly business session “one of the ugliest meetings we’ve had,” and indeed if anyone was keeping track the record for most raised voices and insults leveled may well have been broken.
The primary driver of the “angst” and “vitriol,” as some of the participants described it, that emerged at the Anne G. Basker Auditorium-set meeting emerged in the wake of discussions regarding potential grants with nonprofits serving the county’s unhoused population: Mobile Integrative Navigation Team, Max’s Mission and HIV Alliance.
Shawn Martinez, the county’s recovery and treatment services manager, explained that the county has collected $1.3 million from seven opioid settlements, and local nonprofits have submitted applications for grants that would be derived from these settlement funds.
Martinez read aloud from the statute specifying what programs the settlement dollars could fund: “a) naloxone and other FDA approved drug reversal opioid overdoses; b) medication assisted treatment distribution and other opioid related treatment; c) pregnant and postpartum women d) expanding treatment for neonatal abstinism syndrome; e) expansion of warm handoff programs and recovery services; f) treatment of incarcerated populations; g) prevention programs; h) expanding syringe service programs; i) evidence-based data collection and research analyzing the effectiveness of the abatement strategies within the state.”
“The process that was used for these applications was a request for applications released to the community by email and posted on the county website,” said Martinez. “There was a committee formed from our county advisory committee, which is AMPAC – the Addiction and Mental Health Public Health Advisory Committee – and they asked a subcommittee to review the applications and submit recommendations back to that group.”
Martinez noted that two grants were awarded in January while the three aforementioned organizations’ proposals were given further consideration from the AMPAC subcommittee, adjustments were made, and AMPAC finally agreed to advance the proposals to the county commissioners.
MINT requested $35,000 for warm handoff programs and recovery services, as well as ongoing efforts to address substance use and housing insecurity among the unhoused population; Max’s Mission requested $22,350 for naloxone and other FDA-approved drug reverse opioid overdoses and hygiene products; and HIV Alliance requested $12,170 for expansion of warm handoff programs and recovery services.
Martinez explained that warm handoff programs entail “working with someone interested in seeking or wanting recovery treatment services and that can be done with the recovery service, recovery coach, a case manager, navigators, or peer support specialist. They all walk beside somebody that has expressed their interest to get them into an assessment or a meeting or to support whatever their journey is to get into treatment and support their recovery.”
Following Public commentary featuring an auditorium divided over the efficacy of the programs offered by these nonprofits, all three grant proposals failed to pass as none of the commissioners made a motion to approve them.
Some of the critics of the nonprofits were very forceful in their rebuke of programs they feel “enable” the unhoused population and make it easier for them to continue drug abuse and other unhealthy lifestyles.
“These junkies and sex offenders that are living in our parks, it’s not helping to hand out needles to these pieces of garbage,” said David Dapper, who promoted the newly formed organization Take Back Our Parks.
“The cost of providing those services kind of keeps us from having the funds needed to get these people out of using drugs,” opined Holly Morton. “They’re never going to have better housing or anything as long as they are using drugs.” She urged the board to deny the nonprofits any grant dollars.
Brian Weldon of Grants Pass Park Watch took aim at the founder of Max’s Mission, who he said he confronted over the amount of clean heroin needles his organization provided to addicts. Max’s Mission believes that drug addicts should be provided with clean paraphernalia so that they don’t use contaminated instruments to consume illicit substances, but a few citizen commenters felt this does more harm than good.
“If we re-evaluate and we look at history, enabling begets enabling and there has to be another answer than handing out needles and dirty books in our schools,” Dottie Schwartz said. “That’s not freedom of speech; that’s called lawlessness.” Schwartz added, “If they don’t want help and they don’t want to do what is prescribed, then they should leave… The reason they’re in the condition they’re in is because we have enabled them over and over and over again as a nation.”
Conservative activist Mike Pelfry told the commissioners “don’t put one single penny in the ongoing homeless industrial complex,” a term he has used referring to organizations he feels benefit from the existence of homelessness. “If the city won’t do their damn jobs, we ask that the county please do it,” added Pelfry. “Please get these feral vagrants the hell out of our city.”
Pelfry shouted at a woman seated a few rows away to “shut the hell up” as he left the podium, after she took issue with his testimony.
Anger could be detected on the other side of the argument as well, however, with critics of the board condemning them for continuing to defund services and programs they think Josephine County residents will be worse off without.
“When these agencies work together, people get better,” Vicki Palmerton of Grants Pass stated. “What I hear and see is hearts full of hate and disregard for life.”
Grants Pass High School student Meadow Worley spoke out against demeaning insults hurled at homeless individuals: “There are several children I go to school with at Grants Pass High School that are homeless and to hear people address them as a different species or as feral is honestly saddening because I attend classes with these fellow peers. When it comes to deciding things about the homeless and what to do with them, they are also people. All lives matter and take a moment to consider the people I go to school with who are minors and are there because of circumstances that are out of their hands.”
Commissioner Chris Barnett was very animated as he defended himself and his colleagues against critics who spoke out against their policies.
“I know there’s been a big rift since the election and I’m going to say it: We need to stop fighting with each other. Ever since the election, we’ve been told to be recalled on day one… week after week, hate after hate… Please don’t come up here and attack us saying that we’re not transparent. And then when I do go transparent, you guys attack me. It’s not fair. Why would anybody want to do this job? I keep telling people, boy, you’re just really painting a good picture for anybody to be up here and they’re going to say no thank you.”
His voice raising, Barnett went on to single out individual critics who spoke out against him during the meeting, including Raleigh Smith: “I used to like you a lot and we used to get along. We used to do business together. I referred a lot of business to you in the past, Raleigh, in the real estate world, and I don’t understand why you attacked me on Facebook. I don’t understand why you attacked me here. It’s just unfair. Raleigh, I’ve reached out to you and I’ve done nothing but nice things for you. It’s very disappointing.”
Barnett went on to call community comments a “regurgitated hate den” because of the attacks on the board, adding, “We gotta be better than that.
“I can tell you what, I’m working overtime to do this job and I don’t have to do it. I do not have to do this job. But if you guys want us out so bad, as it appears to be week after week with a small amount of people when the majority are going, keep doing a great job. You guys are doing great. Reorg in 55 days, doing so many things. I have a rap sheet of all the accomplishments that we have done as a board and people don’t want to hear it.”
Growing even more frustrated, Barnett relayed that he is disappointed in the direction his community is going: “Why is the board of county commissioners so important? How it affects your daily life? It doesn’t… This community has gone wacko. It has gone disgusting. And I stood up and said, my wife said, we’re either doing something or we’re moving out of here. I never wanted to move out of Josephine County. I grew up here and joined the Air Force here, went to high school here. I know all you guys here, businesses here. But this stuff has got to stop week after week, just throwing darts, stabbing people, making them bleed. No compassion at all. Where is our compassion anymore for humanity, for one another? And be nice again. No more hate. Social media does not help. It’s the downfall of America, I can tell you that.”
When it was Blech’s turn to give remarks, he apologized for the unruly nature of the meeting, which featured multiple instances of the crowd interrupting and talking over the commissioners or individual at the podium.
“This has been probably one of the ugliest meetings we’ve had here, and I’ve been coming for a long time,” said Blech. “I apologize for not keeping control of this meeting this morning. This has been a display of poor judgement not only in the participants here in the audience, but I believe also in myself. I believe that I should have been more proactive in maintaining proper decorum in today’s meeting. So I will take the blame for that. That is my fault. Moving forward, I will make an effort to do better at that.”