The Valparaiso City Council wants to hear from community experts, before deciding how to spend the city's share of opioid litigation settlement money.
Council member Peter Anderson says Valparaiso will get about $240,000. He plans to hold a forum in January, where local experts with different perspectives can present ideas to the council. "So, someone from the schools who would have a concentration, maybe, on prevention; someone from the courts, who have a different angle there; someone from the rehabilitation community," Anderson explained during Monday's council meeting.
Council member Robert Cotton would like to see Valparaiso pool its money with Porter County and other local communities to create a coordinated effort. "First getting people away from the fentanyl and the street stuff that's causing them to die and them help them get well. How do you make a comprehensive type of a structure using the leverage of the combined force of these dollars?" Cotton asked.
Cotton said a county-wide approach to tackling the opioid crisis could be more powerful, but he admits he isn't sure how practical it would be.