While City Manager Paul Brake said he has reached out to Milan Puskar Health Right regarding the placement of sharps containers in various places around town, the plan is to begin working on the issue next week and have the boxes placed “in the next few weeks.”
During a Jan. 10 work session, it was indicated the city planned to take Health Right up on its offer to purchase, place, maintain and empty needle disposal boxes placed at three locations.
Following the session, Brake said he planned to reach out to Health Right and the Morgantown Police Department to iron out the details, including where the boxes should be placed.
Health Right made the offer last fall. Peer Recovery Coach Dani Ludwig first approached the city in October. Health Right executive director Laura Jones followed with a presentation at the end of November.
During the work session earlier this month, both Jones and Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston said the placement of the boxes can only improve a bad situation — city police and public works crews, Health Right personnel and neighborhood volunteers exposing them to bloodborne pathogens and potentially lethal substances cleaning up used needles concentrated around specific locations, including under the South High Street Bridge.
City Communications Manager Andrew Stacy said the city manager has been focused on the city’s upcoming budget and dealing with a personal matter since the work session, but later added that he’s been in contact with Health Right to discuss how the containers will be “installed and secured, how collection will be safely made and where they will be located.”
City Councilor Barry Wendell expressed frustration with the seeming lack of progress during the most recent council meeting, going so far as to question whether Brake and Mayor Bill Kawecki were trying to delay or derail the effort.
Deputy Mayor Rachel Fetty said that’s not her impression of the situation.
“I didn’t get the impression that was being held up at all, contrary to the way that it might have been reported,” Fetty said, adding, “I think there’s an effort to come up with some innovative legal mechanisms to make sure the placement of those items goes smoothly. There’s not any attempt to stall that I detect on the part of any person. I would be encouraged. This is going to happen.”
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