Mayors in Grays Harbor County May Get to Veto Syringe Exchange Sites

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The Grays Harbor County Board of Commissioners will discuss a resolution giving city mayors veto power over the location for a syringe exchange program.

“The resolution is pretty simple,” said Commissioner Wes Cormier (District 1). “Let’s get authorization from the mayor, and if the mayor doesn’t like aspects of the program, then maybe he can come up with solutions or suggestions for the county to form some sort of compromise.”

Right now, county health officials offer the exchange two afternoons a week: Tuesdays at the county health building in Aberdeen and Fridays under the Chehalis River Bridge overpass on the edge of downtown Aberdeen.

Cormier agreed that the resolution basically gives mayors veto power over the wishes of the county. He said he has spent much of his political career trying to eliminate the program commonly called the “needle exchange.”

“Right now, if I had another commissioner who agreed with me, the program would go away,” he said. “At this point I’m asking for accountability. I’ve tried to end the program, that did not work.”



The resolution is listed on the agenda thus: “A Resolution requiring local jurisdiction approval for the Syringe Exchange Program.”

The Board of County Commissioner will discuss the resolution at its meeting at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 25, in Commission Chambers at 100 West Broadway in Montesano. They will not vote on the resolution Tuesday, but if the resolution does eventually pass, Cormier hopes to give approval power to all mayors in the county, not just the site of the current needle exchange, Aberdeen.

“My intent was also to send this to all of the other mayors to see what their opinion of having this potentially in their backyard. Not that the county is proposing to move this to one of their cities,” he said.

“The county always asks the state to stop imposing unfunded mandates, but what we’re doing is imposing this program on the city.”

So far, Cormier’s fellow members of the commission, Vickie Raines and Randy Ross, have resisted his attempts to close the program.