The Henderson City Council tabled Monday action on appointment of an opioid advisory board.
Interim City Manager Kendrick Vann provided Council members names of seven individuals who had expressed interest in being a part of the board, but some Council members had concerns about all wards not being represented.
Council member Geraldine Champion said there should be a representative from each of the city’s four wards and also said she’d like to see individuals with “life experience” with overcoming opioid use.
Mayor Melissa Elliott agreed. “I think it’s imperative that we have at least one person on that board who has overcome” opioid addiction.
The council decided it was best to table a vote on individual applicants because they didn’t know which wards some of them live in. One applicant lives in the county.
Vann said the call for advisory board members would go back out into the community; the wording of the CAF will need to be changed to reflect the council’s desire to have balanced ward representation, since that was not originally specified.
Once established, the opioid advisory board will assist the council in decisions about how to spend the allocations from the multi-billion-dollar opioid settlement.
