Needle exchange squabble is the latest example of Fresno city, county dysfunction | Opinion
Imagine a world where officials from Fresno County and the city of Fresno actually talked.
Actually met to discuss local issues and hash out disagreements. Instead of feigning surprise and then lashing out at each other via dueling press conferences.
I know I’m probably expecting the impossible — especially with an election less than six months away — but is a little dialogue between the two local government branches (that doesn’t violate open-meeting laws) really too much to ask?
The squabble over the San Joaquin Valley Free Medical Clinic and Needle Exchange is but the latest example of a city-county communication gap wider than Blackstone Avenue.
Do government officials even bother to read publicly noticed meeting agendas?
Let’s say the answer is “yes.” Then why do they wait until the other makes a decision they don’t like before summoning the local media to bitterly complain?
Allow me to answer that: Because it’s a lot easier to grandstand after the fact than to do the hard work ahead of time.
When the Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Sept. 5 to allow a once-a-week free needle exchange program in existence for 25 years to operate out of the county health building in downtown Fresno, I was surprised.
Pleasantly so, because humane, sensible policy-making on an issue as fraught as intravenous drug use isn’t something I’ve come to expect from our county supes. Particularly not from Supervisor Buddy Mendes, who split from his Republican colleagues on the Board to cast the deciding vote.
Can’t believe I’m writing this, but the supervisors’ vote took guts. It would’ve been much easier, politically speaking, to continue relegating the San Joaquin Valley Free Medical Clinic and Needle Exchange to an old RV parked on a nondescript cul-de-sac near Roeding Park.
“We’re basically moving out of the alleyways into mainstream medicine, into the Public Health department,” said Dr. Marc Lasher, president of the free clinic.
For two hours every Saturday afternoon, Lasher and his crew of volunteers exchange between 16,000 and 20,000 intravenous needles from some 150 to 200 drug users. (It isn’t hard to picture where all those dirty needles would end up otherwise.) The program also offers medical care and provides low-barrier entrance into drug and alcohol treatment programs.
Relocating the exchange program to a county facility, on a day when the health department is otherwise closed, will allow for mental health, food, housing and employment services to also be offered, according to Fresno County Director of Public Health David Luchini.
Kudos to the board majority for listening to the medical experts on this and rejecting misguided moralism that fails to understand addictive behavior and measures needed to protect the public health.
City leaders criticize county vote
This being Fresno, beneficial actions by one government branch are then met with outright hostility by another.
In this instance, the aggrieved parties were Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and Fresno City Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Garry Bredefeld, who called a press conference six days after the fact to harshly criticize the county’s decision.
I’m not going to go through their litany of objections, some of which have merit. Do we really want 150-200 drug addicts convening in downtown Fresno for two hours every Saturday afternoon? Who ensures they don’t shoot up and create a public nuisance as soon as they get their clean needles?
Those are legitimate questions that were never brought up during the supervisors meeting. Asking why the county didn’t notify the city in advance is not.
In fact, notice of the impending vote was listed in a board briefing report posted on the county’s website Aug. 14 — more than three weeks before the Sept. 5 meeting.
“Throughout these 22 days, the county has never received any calls from the mayor, councilmembers, or city staff about their concerns,” read a press release from County Administrative Officer Paul Nerland in response to claims made by Dyer, Arias and Bredefeld.
If city officials had complaints about moving the needle exchange program downtown, there was ample time to raise them. Not like council members were overwhelmed with other city matters. Before Thursday, the most recent council meeting was three weeks ago.
Perhaps Arias and Bredefeld should spend more time paying attention to county supervisor meeting agendas and less of it campaigning for seats on the dais.
(By the way, Arias’ labeling of needle exchanges as “San Francisco- and Los Angeles-style programs” is bogus. There are more than 65 syringe services programs operating in 33 California counties.)
Of course, communication isn’t a one-way street. Knowing the relocation of the needle exchange was likely to be controversial, county officials could have made an effort to notify their city counterparts as well as neighboring businesses.
They did not. Because, well, it was probably easier and more convenient to make the minimum effort.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Sure would be nice if the two largest branches of government in Fresno were on actual speaking terms.
