Gov. Kotek, mayor declare fentanyl state of emergency in downtown Portland
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Several elected leaders declared a state of emergency on Tuesday for downtown Portland over the public health and public safety crisis fueled by fentanyl.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson made the declaration for a 90-day period during which collaboration and response will come from a command center downtown.
The three governments are directing their agencies to work with first responders in connecting people addicted to the synthetic opioid with resources including drug treatment programs and to crack down on drug sales.
“Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Kotek said in a statement.
The declaration is a recommendation from a governor-established task force that met for several months last year to determine ways to rejuvenate downtown Portland.
People addicted to fentanyl who interact with first responders in Portland’s downtown in the next 90 days will be triaged by this new command center. Staff can connect people with various resources from a bed in a drug treatment center to meeting with a behavioral health clinician to help with registering for food stamps.
“We cannot underestimate the tremendous value of bringing leaders from different disciplines in a room on a daily basis who all account for a different part of the solution,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a statement.
Mike Myers, the director of Portland’s Community Safety Division, will head the city’s command team. Nathan Reynolds, deputy policy chief at the state’s Office of Resilience and Emergency Management, will be the state’s incident commander.
The effort also extends the Portland Police Bureau’s partnership with Oregon State Police to jointly patrol downtown streets for fentanyl sales. It additionally kicks off information campaigns centered on drug use prevention and recovery programs across the region. The county will expand outreach and training on how to administer Narcan, an overdose-reversal drug.
The program doesn’t establish any goals to measure success. Kotek said the next 90 days will provide a road map for the next steps.
The synthetic opioid addiction and overdose crisis that has gripped the U.S. for over two decades has left governments at the federal, state and local levels scrambling for solutions.
At the state level, Oregon lawmakers have introduced a new bill that would undo a key part of the state’s drug decriminalization law. Public opinion has soured on it as public drug use has become more visible because of growing homelessness.
And President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced last fall that China was telling its chemical companies to restrict shipments to Latin America and elsewhere of the materials used to produce fentanyl, which is largely finished in Mexico and then smuggled into the U.S.
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News release from Gov. Tina Kotek's office;
Governor Kotek, Chair Vega Pederson, Mayor Wheeler Declare Coordinated Fentanyl Emergencies
State, County, City follow through on Portland Central City Task Force recommendation to declare a tri-government fentanyl emergency
Portland, OR — Today, Governor Tina Kotek, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler each declared a 90-day state of emergency to address the public health and public safety crisis driven by fentanyl in Portland’s Central City. The tri-government fentanyl emergency declarations follow a recommendation put forward by the Portland Central City Task Force, unveiled at the Oregon Business Leadership Summit late last year.
“Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,” Governor Kotek said. “The Chair, the Mayor and I recognize the need to act with urgency and unity across our public health and community safety systems to make a dent in this crisis. We are all in this together. The next 90 days will yield unprecedented collaboration and focused resources targeting fentanyl and provide a roadmap for next steps.”
All three emergency orders direct the City, State, and County to commit available resources to the unified response. A command center will be stood up in the central city where state, county and city employees will convene to coordinate strategies and response efforts. Each level of government has identified an incident commander who will be responsible for coordinating resources from the jurisdiction they represent. They are as follows: Nathan Reynolds, Deputy Chief of Policy and Mission Support at the Office of Resilience and Emergency Management for the state, former Health Officer Dr. Jennifer Vines for the County, and Mike Myers, Director of the Community Safety Division for the City.
The Command Center will serve to refocus existing resources. It will also share and publicly report data on the impacts of fentanyl in downtown, use data to identify and respond to acute needs and gaps in service, identify any specific resources necessary to address gaps, and establish a system to coordinate that can be sustained beyond the 90-day startup period.
”If you or a loved one is struggling with a fentanyl addiction, we hear you, we see you and we are taking this crisis seriously,” Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said. “We are acting with shared leadership to take urgent action today to respond to the very human toll fentanyl takes in our community, including overdoses, fatalities and day-to-day suffering, and the fear so many families are experiencing as a result.”
At the state level, resources will be deployed from the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) of Office Resilience and Emergency Management (OREM), the Oregon Department of Emergency Management (OEM), the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), and the Oregon State Police (OSP).
Multnomah County will marshal and direct resources from the Health Department, County Human Services, Community Justice, County Assets, Joint Office of Homeless Services, and Emergency Management and our network of partners and providers. Through coordinated outreach, the County will work to prevent exposure and use of fentanyl; reduce harm among people using substances; and increase access to outreach, treatment, recovery, and housing services.
The Health Department will launch two public education campaigns during the 90-day emergency featuring transit, billboards, digital media, streaming audio, and more. These highly-visible messages will promote prevention among youth and the effectiveness of recovery in transforming lives, and reduce stigma for treatment.
The County will also increase the visibility and coordination of County contractors conducting outreach on the streets, distribute and train partners on the use of Narcan and issue reports on overdose data. Targeted outreach will leverage services from the downtown Behavioral Health Resource Center. The center—strategically located in the Central City— will offer immediate access to day services and improve connection to care.
City of Portland will deploy providing public safety, addiction and public health services, crisis response, and other resources and services to those impacted by the fentanyl crisis.
Specifically, a combination of disciplines will be coordinated and deployed including peer outreach, and behavioral and public health services to move individuals experiencing a fentanyl addiction into treatment and provide other stabilization services, as well as continued missions between the Portland Police Bureau and Oregon State Police to hold individuals selling the drug accountable.
“I am pleased to have Governor Kotek and Chair Vega Pederson join the City of Portland’s ongoing efforts to address the deadly fentanyl crisis impacting our community. Today, we move forward with urgency to address these challenges together under the authority of emergency declarations. This is exactly the type of coordinated action needed to make a direct impact and a lasting difference,” Mayor Wheeler said.
Because personal health care data and other protected information will be accessed and exchanged by authorized personnel in order to carry the emergency response in the Command Center, it will not be open to the public.
The Governor’s emergency order on fentanyl can be found here.
The Chair’s emergency order on fentanyl can be found here.
The Mayor’s emergency order on fentanyl can be found here.
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House Republicans Issue Statement on Gov. Kotek Acknowledging Oregon Has Fentanyl Crisis
SALEM, Ore. – - House Republican Leader Jeff Helfrich (R-Hood River) issued the following statement in response to Gov. Tina Kotek declaring a state of emergency in Portland due to the fentanyl crisis plaguing the city, thanks in large part to failed leftist policies like Measure 110 and the a soft approach taken to penalizing drug dealers and traffickers.
“Three years after Measure 110 initiatives started to ravage Oregon and over a year after she began her administration, Gov. Kotek has finally identified that Portland has a fentanyl crisis. While it’s about time, this problem is bigger than one city; we remind the Governor that this crisis has spread across the entire state. We welcome her to join Republicans in pursuing serious policy solutions - like HB 4036 - and ask her to urge her fellow Democrats in the legislature to do the same,” said Helfrich.
HB 4036 is the House Republican bill to bring Oregon out of the M110 debacle. The bill reclassifies possession as a Class A Misdemeanor, the standard that Oregon’s district attorneys and law enforcement community agree is necessary to have any real leverage in undoing the damage. It also increases penalties for the drug dealers pushing poison into our communities.
HB 4036 prioritizes getting people clean through voluntary diversion and treatment programs or mandatory recovery programs, consistent with the will of the people. It also directs treatment dollars to responsible and accountable county governments instead of shadowy, well-connected special interest groups that have failed to deliver for Oregon.
