APB Archives

NEEDLE EXCHANGE PT III (Jul 3, 02)

COMMUNITY MEETING (May 16, 02)

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Our councilmember held a community meeting at Hoover High school last evening, at which City Heights got its first official information about the needle exchange program. Although we will probably have little participation in the design of the program, including whether to use a mobile van or to use our present health clinics, or deciding where or when the mobile van will be, we will have significant control over the evaluation process. That's an important element, for if we have some control over the evaluation process, the proponents will not be able to distort the results. We'll get a truthful result.
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It was important to hold this meeting last evening: it should have been held two years ago, when needle exchange was first proposed. We owe our thanks to all City Heights residents who came to the meeting to help us get control over needle exchange.
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UPDATE (Jul 3, 02)

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Although needle exchange is a separate matter from the Committee's usual charter of reviewing land use matters and therefore not something that fits naturally onto the committee's web page, there doesn't seem to be aby other place to put information. There also doesn't seem to be any improvement in the willingness of Alliance Healthcare Foundation to offer information through whatever channels it controls, so I am returning to an earlier practice of putting information here for everyone to review. The two other needle exchange pages (Apr 15, 02 and May 16, 02) are unchanged, so the early history can be found there.
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As a result of nagging the Council and the staff about how closed and secretive the needle exchange program has been, I have made some small progress with the staff. I made a demand under the public records act, and I have received about fifty sheets of materials, including meeting minutes, e-mails, city manager reports, and some other materials. Once I get them into chronological order, I'll put them into a 3-ring binder and try to place it where everyone can have access to the materials. This is material from city staff, not from the Foundation, so it might not be as complete as you might like to see. Now that there is a representative to the needle exchange program, we might be able to get access to other materials. They will go into the binder, too.
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