City council endorses health department-based needle & syringe exchange

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, 11:56 p.m. — The Bardstown City Council unanimously approved a resolution to support creation of a needle and syringe program hosted by the Nelson County Health Department.

Councilman Roland Williams introduced the resolution to support the creation of a needle and syringe exchange program at the Nelson County Health Department in Bardstown. The program will be funded by the health department budget.

Representatives from the Lincoln Trail Health Department were on hand to answer the council’s questions about the resolution and the need for the program in Nelson County.

The district health department has given presentations on a needle exchange program before both city and county governments earlier this year.

The resolution mirrors one approved last week by Nelson Fiscal Court.

The needle exchange program is funded as part of the health department’s mission and will not increase taxes for local taxpayers.

There are a number of benefits a needle exchange program offers a community. The first is a reduction in the spread of blood-borne disease and infection that can happen when needles are reused or shared among drug users. This can include the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C.

According to the most recent statistics (2014) Kentucky’s rate of Hepatitis C infections exceed both the state and national rates.

Another benefit is that the program introduces addicts to new avenues for healthcare, mental health services, and even addiction counseling. By developing a relationship with health officials via the needle exchange program, addicts have a connection for information or services they may wish to seek at a later time.

The needles are exchanged on a one-for-one basis. The programs do not encourage new drug users, but do allow those already addicted to take steps to avoid critical health issues from sharing needles with other addicts.

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY FAILS. The council did not approve a proposed social media policy that was discussed and kicked around for several months.

City Clerk Barbie Bryant told the council in May 2016 that the city needed to create a social media policy for its employees, its individual departments, and members of the council to follow.

Mayor John Royalty and City Clerk Barbie Bryant examine documents prior to the start of Tuesday’s council meeting.

The issue is two-fold: The city must maintain and store social media content that contains information about city business in order to comply with the state’s open records laws. If city business is discussed via a city social media account, that content must be preserved. The city has not had a policy regarding the use of social media.

The second issue is simply managing the information released via social media and who has control over the information.

Who has control over social media pages was an issue that prompted the Bardstown Police to take down its popular Facebook page, Royalty said. The human rights commission also ran into a situation where a former member was the only person who had control of the commission Facebook page, and he would not relinquish control. The new policy makes it clear that the city has control of theses pages.

A draft policy was introduced months ago, and was up for approval Tuesday night in the form of a municipal order.

After discussion failed to bring a motion forward, Bryant said the mayor could put a policy in place by executive order that would cover city employees only. The executive order would not apply to members of the council, though they would still need to retain their own social media content that is connected to city business.

In other business, the council:

— approved a change order of $18,908 to First Response Inc., the Tennessee company that is inspecting and cleaning portions of the city’s sewer system. The additional costs were due to the extra work required to clean sewer mains in the downtown area.

— approved a professional services contract with Kenvirons regarding a conversion of the city water treatment plant from chlorine to chloramines for use in disinfecting city water.

— gave final approval of the city’s annexation of the 70-acre Luxco Distillery property on KY 245.

— approved a municipal order regarding the city’s vehicle use program.

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