Headline: “City Adds Overdoses Chronic Nuisance List”

The blog title is the headline in The Lake Worth Herald this week (excerpts below).

The critics of this new ordinance had some really good pull quotes for the beat reporter and editor(s) at the Post if they decide to chime in. It needs to be noted, however, the cities in Palm Beach County have come a long way dealing with the epidemic of overdoses well underway in 2015 and prior.

However, back in 2015, the primary focus at The Palm Beach Post wasn’t on overdoses and so-called ‘sober homes’, a situation already a very big problem for many cities and communities, including the City of Lake Worth. The focus back then by the Post was on Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and the series,

“LINE OF FIRE:
Bullets, badges, death on the street!”

Everyone is very happy the Post has won awards for their reporting on the overdose epidemic. But if they had begun those front page stories and feature articles one year earlier — in 2015 instead of 2016 — it makes one wonder how much further along we would all be right now in Palm Beach County.

Below the caption are two excerpts from the Herald.

To contact the editor use this link. Pick up the print edition every Friday at the City’s newsstand at
600 Lake Ave. It’s still ¢50!

     The City Commission [on August 1st] voted to include overdosing and code enforcement violations to the list of Chronic Nuisance Property Codes.
     The list will now include thirty-three different activities which constitute a nuisance. Under the amended ordinance, two or more calls for service within a period of thirty days to the same property for police, fire, medic, or other emergency personnel to assist an individual who displays the symptoms of an overdose of a controlled substance will constitute a nuisance.

and. . .

     The ordinance has been re-tooled to allow the city to create a “Chronic Nuisance Abatement Agreement” that will include an action plan developed by both parties instead of the property owner develop their own action plan.
     Director of Sustainability, William Waters told the Commission,

“Because property owners are ultimately responsible for the conduct and actions on their property, the City deems it necessary to insist that owners take corrective action to abate these nuisances; and this ordinance amendment adding these offenses is a tool to assist the city with that goal.”